[gumby]

Love that it starts here:

> Demonstrate tactical and technical competence.

> Know your business. Soldiers expect their leaders to be tactically and technically competent. Soldiers want to follow those leaders who are confident of their own abilities. To be confident a leader must first be competent. Trust between soldiers and their leaders is based on the secure knowledge that the leader is competent.

(emphasis mine)

If only this advice were followed in other spheres (and is it observed in the Army or is it aspirational?)

[gxs]

I have an opinion on this based just on my own experience trying to climb the ranks of the corporate world.

When someone is promoted to manager, I think it’s an important prerequisite to be competent and know the job your employees are doing. When you are new to management, it’s very rewarding to be able to teach and mentor.

In this environment it makes it easier to pick up broader management skills. It allows you to add value right away while you develop a broader set of management skills.

As you broaden that skill set you can start to broaden your scope and start learning how to manage people where you no longer can directly do what they do.

This approach isn’t always feasible for multiple reasons - sometimes the people that are highly skilled in their job don’t always make the best managers. The converse is true is well - sometimes people that aren’t highly skilled at their job end up making great managers.

Management is an interesting subject and I try really hard to learn and be a good manager. Along the way I’ve developed my own opinion of what makes a great manager, and beyond that a great leader. This doc definitely has some good tidbits.

[warner25]

I can only speak to the Army side of things, and we'd like this to be more true. The main problem is that we change jobs within the organization too often (like every year or two), and get pushed into management too early, to ever feel like an expert in something. I often feel like we're just pretending while people doing similar jobs in the civilian world (whether it's IT, aviation, medical, etc.) are doing them for real.

However, we also have a breadth of knowledge and longevity with the organization at-large (often starting at 17-18 years old, working our way up the ranks from there) that you probably don't find much in civilian organizations.