It is truly a privilege and honor to hold a leadership position. These documents below are to help you understand more about me, my expectations, and how you can best work with me. It also describes how I will evaluate your performance and efficiency reports.
Not having clear job descriptions and expectations is one of the main reasons for poor team cohesion. You mustn’t assume that people can read your mind and that they know your work style and leadership philosophy. My leadership document consists of six documents listed below. Click on the title to view the document and post.
1. My Leadership Manual – Understanding Me
This document explains my personality traits, my work style, explain my why in life, and what drives me. The goal is to explicitly help you become better aware of who I am so it shortens the learning curve that might otherwise take months, or even years, to uncover. I put the results of my most common personality tests such as Myers-Briggs and the DISC Assessment on there.
2. My Leadership/Command Philosophy
This document defines how I view leadership, my mindset and attitude as a leader, as well as the priorities that are important to me. It explains the behaviors and actions I will take to reach our mission and desired outcomes.
3. My Leadership Expectations and Guidance
My Expectations – Leaders set the pace through their expectations. This document clearly shows what I expect from every Soldier and the standards I expect them to maintain. Clarity of goals and objectives is essential for success. It allows our team to focus on what’s important and “doing the right things right.”
There are two types of expectations: performance expectations (results and outcomes that need to be achieved) and behavioral expectations (expected values, behaviors and attitudes required in the role).
4. My Initial Counseling
Counseling is one of the most important leadership development responsibilities for leaders. It is important to take time to prepare for your initial counseling with each Soldier/Employee that you rate and senior rate. My main goal was to explain what I wanted the Soldier to accomplish within 30, 60, 90 days from the initial counseling, the rating scheme, and also the duties and responsibilities associated with the duty title.
5. My Evaluation Report Philosophy
For jobs that require performance evaluations, you want to be very clear on your criteria for evaluations. I created a rubric so those I rated knew objectively how they would be rated. I wanted to ensure there was no subjectivity and I could not be accused of playing favorites.
6. Roles and Responsibilities of the Battalion Command Team and Battalion Staff
I clearly outlined the job responsibilities of the senior positions in the BN. This would help delineate who I held responsible for the different tasks and how they each fit into the big picture.
Information I Need From You
To be an effective leader I needed to get to know those in my unit. With several hundred Soldiers, it will be difficult to get to know everyone on an intimate level.
These documents will help me get to know you better. Especially for my senior leaders, I want to know your personality type, your strengths, and how you view the world. It will help me discern the strengths of the unit’s soldiers and leaders, helping me Soldier development and Talent Management.
1. Leader Personality Resources
For my senior leaders and staff, I have put together a resource page where you can take three personality tests: the Myers-Briggs, the DISC Assessment, and the How the World Sees You “HowtoFascinate” test. Although the personality tests are not fool-proof, it can give great insight into their behaviors and actions.
2. Soldier Questionnaire
A short questionnaire for every Soldier in my unit to take. My goal is to meet every Soldier in the unit within 6 months of taking command. I have created a “baseball card” for each Soldier based on this questionnaire. When meeting with you I can refer to it. You will be surprised at what we can learn from each other. There are many that have unique skills that you have that would not otherwise know!