Toxic Leadership
Even though I believe that the Army produces many proven leaders, we still have a problem with toxic leadership. Toxic leaders affect all organizations throughout the civilian sector and the military is no exception (Daniel Zwerdling 2014). In this paper I will discuss my experiences with a toxic leader and how it affected our organization. Our story is just one instance illustrating why I believe that toxic leadership is one of the most prominent issues affecting the military today. It will then highlight several situations where this leader put himself ahead of the health, welfare and training of the Soldiers that relied on him. This type of a leadership directly impacted his Soldiers and therefore the readiness, morale and …show more content…
I have been fortunate in my career to have had a lot of excellent leaders around me with very little toxic leadership. These individuals did not embody many of the critical traits that define an Army leader. During a training deployment overseas, we had a SFC that was the trip NCOIC as well as a Fully Mission Qualified crewmember there to conduct training alongside his Soldiers. On the day they arrived in country, he instructed one of his Soldiers to conduct flight duties even though he was sick and by regulation was grounded. The flight was a local area orientation flight for the pilots and crews but there were enough crewmembers to fly so that the sick Soldier would not have to. The NCOIC did not want to fly that day ensuring that he and the other members not flying could check into the hotel and get some food. In this instance we can learn that there are a few examples of toxicity in that decision. First, it was an illegal order to make that Soldier fly when he was on a down slip from the medic and was not legally allowed to be in the …show more content…
Our whole reason for existence is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic (“Oaths of Enlistment and Oaths of Office,” 1960). I believe that actions by toxic leaders can directly affect a unit’s readiness with the decisions they make and by their treatment of subordinates. When my unit returned from an overseas trip the standard for our Company was to return all equipment to a fully mission capable status. That meant for each crewmember that you must unfold your aircraft and put it back together the way it was before it deployed from that location. This was always hard for some guys when they have been gone and on the road for some time. Well, this leader showed toxicity when he put himself above and ahead of the rest of the Soldiers when he did not show up for work. All of his Soldiers showed for work and returned the equipment to its original status and were quite taken aback that their Platoon Sergeant was not there for guidance or to help. This poor display caused the entire company from lowest ranking on up to not only question the Platoon Sergeant’s work ethic, leadership but the very reason for having that rule in place when coming home. It started much discussion about why we needed to be ready when we just returned home and why could it not wait a few days while the Soldiers recuperated. The obvious answer is in a rapidly deployable unit you should always
Even though I believe that the Army produces many proven leaders, we still have a problem with toxic leadership. Toxic leaders affect all organizations throughout the civilian sector and the military is no exception (Daniel Zwerdling 2014). In this paper I will discuss my experiences with a toxic leader and how it affected our organization. Our story is just one instance illustrating why I believe that toxic leadership is one of the most prominent issues affecting the military today. It will then highlight several situations where this leader put himself ahead of the health, welfare and training of the Soldiers that relied on him. This type of a leadership directly impacted his Soldiers and therefore the readiness, morale and …show more content…
I have been fortunate in my career to have had a lot of excellent leaders around me with very little toxic leadership. These individuals did not embody many of the critical traits that define an Army leader. During a training deployment overseas, we had a SFC that was the trip NCOIC as well as a Fully Mission Qualified crewmember there to conduct training alongside his Soldiers. On the day they arrived in country, he instructed one of his Soldiers to conduct flight duties even though he was sick and by regulation was grounded. The flight was a local area orientation flight for the pilots and crews but there were enough crewmembers to fly so that the sick Soldier would not have to. The NCOIC did not want to fly that day ensuring that he and the other members not flying could check into the hotel and get some food. In this instance we can learn that there are a few examples of toxicity in that decision. First, it was an illegal order to make that Soldier fly when he was on a down slip from the medic and was not legally allowed to be in the …show more content…
Our whole reason for existence is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic (“Oaths of Enlistment and Oaths of Office,” 1960). I believe that actions by toxic leaders can directly affect a unit’s readiness with the decisions they make and by their treatment of subordinates. When my unit returned from an overseas trip the standard for our Company was to return all equipment to a fully mission capable status. That meant for each crewmember that you must unfold your aircraft and put it back together the way it was before it deployed from that location. This was always hard for some guys when they have been gone and on the road for some time. Well, this leader showed toxicity when he put himself above and ahead of the rest of the Soldiers when he did not show up for work. All of his Soldiers showed for work and returned the equipment to its original status and were quite taken aback that their Platoon Sergeant was not there for guidance or to help. This poor display caused the entire company from lowest ranking on up to not only question the Platoon Sergeant’s work ethic, leadership but the very reason for having that rule in place when coming home. It started much discussion about why we needed to be ready when we just returned home and why could it not wait a few days while the Soldiers recuperated. The obvious answer is in a rapidly deployable unit you should always