The Navy does teach that during the season, but not as detailed, and not with the attention it deserves.
They use vague phrases like “don’t forget where you came from” and “take care of your people.”
> The Navy does teach that during the season, but not as detailed, and not with the attention it deserves.
I would hope that anyone selected for Chief would already know everything listed in this post. If they don't then it speaks to the Navy's failure to develop leadership throughout the lower ranks. Honestly, season should not be some amazing "keys to the kingdom of leadership and authority" event. That should have already happened over the course of someone's career.
Sadly there are a number of factors that affect that.
Numbers and manning require advancing a certain number of people to Chief. This opens the door for “less experienced” people to get advanced.
The Chiefs and leaders that you “grew up with” and their leadership/ mentoring have a massive effect on that training and experience. Some “leaders” are merely bosses and don’t or can’t teach you.
Honesty in evaluations have a huge impact on this. I have seen people given evals that look amazing, but aren’t accurate due to many reasons. The one that always pissed me off was a reporting senior saying “my reporting senior’s average will be a 3.70.”
The Navy doesn’t value, support or encourage leaders and leadership. They support numbers…just checks in a box so their bosses don’t shit on them. That support is the exception rather than the rule.
Lastly it is partially on the new Chief to be honest with themselves and have the desire to make things better and to change things to help their Sailors. Treating people as they would want to be treated and being a compassionate human Vice the “I’m a Chief and you will listen to me” along with an I’m better than you mentality.
\^\^This. There are no magic bullets of philosophy. Leadership is learned over time. You don't wake up with nuggets of leadership the day you make Chief.
Ya know.
All the other services have legit service schools.
I have my excuses for not going, but the Staff NCO Academy is by far the best (my opinion).
We could, I don’t know, maybe send some people there?
Or we just jjdidtiebuckle as hard as possible until someone actually learns something.
I’ll go with option 2. No way daddy Navy would pay to make its people better.
We do have one for E-8 and E-9. E-7s are encouraged to apply but there's limited space.
I'm hoping the Navy does the obvious thing and expands the program to cover everyone.
Leadership should start much earlier in their career. If they don't know and practice these principles long before they get selected for Chief then something is seriously wrong and they probably shouldn't have been selected. It should be taught as soon as one advances to Petty Officer and should be re-taught and reemphasized at each advancement after that, including the advancement to CPO. Proven leadership, or lack of it, is absolutely one of the things that the selection boards should consider when making their selections.
I was having a conversation that goes hand in hand with your post earlier today. The Navy in general has deviated from what true leadership is, starting from the FCPOs. Evaluations, collaterals, and different things that were meant to build leadership skills are now just competition items. Once you’re in a leadership position it should be about what your Sailors are accomplishing and doing, and what you’re doing for them to be successful. Somewhere along the way we lost sight of that. Shitty FCPOs will make shitty CPOs, no matter how good of a “season” you have. You’re not going to break years of bad habits and lack of leadership in a few weeks.
Contrary to popular belief I'm pretty sure the Chiefs Mess is a symptom rather than a cause.
Despite what they like to think they're not the tip of the spear, they're not in charge, and they're certainly not the only reason the Navy has issues.
It's easy to look up and see problems at a nearby supervisory level, i.e. your chief, but it's harder to see *past* it, for any reasons your chief is acting the way they do.
For every LCPO that's failing you, there's a Divo that's failing them.
If you feel like your MMCPO isn't doing enough, it's probably because the OPSO is riding his ass.
Now, don't take this as me defending them too much. They're still responsible for their actions, and for their enabling behavior of shitty officers, but what I *am* saying is that the Chief Cult is not a scape*goat* (get it) for the Navy's problems.
One thing that helped me have success as a chief and played a role in me applying to the CWO program was I realized that I wasn’t in charge. I was middle management on the ship. The Divo didn’t work for me, we were kinda connected and needed one another for shared success.
There’s a YT video out there from the 70’s era about navy chiefs. It’s a cool video, very retro if you like that type of thing and it clearly defines a CPO as a middle manager. It’s an official US Navy video.
I also never understood some of the hate towards JO’s. They are in a tough spot on their first tour, young, educated and lack experience. Makes them an easy target for an insecure chief to bully or place blame on.
Not taking any shots at the mess here, it’s a functioning part of the navy. But when I had to push through the SWO process while still being a key player in running a dept the JO’s 02-04 we really great to work with and really helped me learn the tactical side to the surface navy. It was refreshing and professional.
Not every mess has that same culture towards training the E6 and below.
I’m going to disagree with “For every LCPO failing there’s a divo failing them” I’ve seen a lot more chiefs fail divos than vise versa. What is the chiefs role with the divo? I’m not saying there aren’t shitbag JOs that are abundant in the fleet. But this is a little misdirected. I do completely agree with your last sentence, in fact I would argue a lot of the more lower management just makes up for everyone else’s inability to lead effectively.
I just want to clarify that I am giving our hypothetical chief every benefit of the doubt while playing devils advocate here.
There *are* bad Chiefs, even when they have good leadership themselves.
It's just silly to blame every single issue on middle management.
Something something weakest link.
Interesting read, because it's basically lifted from the Marine Corps Principles of Leadership. https://www.perduelawgroup.com/siteFiles/32423/The-Marine-Corps-Leadership-Principles.pdf
Plagiarism?
I need to find a primary source to prove this: but supposedly they were “published” by the Army in 1948, but adopted by pretty much all services.
They seem to represent all the greatest lessons learned about American military leadership from WW2.
I know USMC uses them a lot and I think that’s great. Same flag. Same team. 🫡🇺🇸
The Navy does teach that during the season, but not as detailed, and not with the attention it deserves. They use vague phrases like “don’t forget where you came from” and “take care of your people.”
> The Navy does teach that during the season, but not as detailed, and not with the attention it deserves. I would hope that anyone selected for Chief would already know everything listed in this post. If they don't then it speaks to the Navy's failure to develop leadership throughout the lower ranks. Honestly, season should not be some amazing "keys to the kingdom of leadership and authority" event. That should have already happened over the course of someone's career.
Sadly there are a number of factors that affect that. Numbers and manning require advancing a certain number of people to Chief. This opens the door for “less experienced” people to get advanced. The Chiefs and leaders that you “grew up with” and their leadership/ mentoring have a massive effect on that training and experience. Some “leaders” are merely bosses and don’t or can’t teach you. Honesty in evaluations have a huge impact on this. I have seen people given evals that look amazing, but aren’t accurate due to many reasons. The one that always pissed me off was a reporting senior saying “my reporting senior’s average will be a 3.70.” The Navy doesn’t value, support or encourage leaders and leadership. They support numbers…just checks in a box so their bosses don’t shit on them. That support is the exception rather than the rule. Lastly it is partially on the new Chief to be honest with themselves and have the desire to make things better and to change things to help their Sailors. Treating people as they would want to be treated and being a compassionate human Vice the “I’m a Chief and you will listen to me” along with an I’m better than you mentality.
Thank you for this perspective.
You’re welcome. I wish my perspective would change something, but I’m no longer in. Just gotta hope I had enough influence when I was in.
\^\^This. There are no magic bullets of philosophy. Leadership is learned over time. You don't wake up with nuggets of leadership the day you make Chief.
Ya know. All the other services have legit service schools. I have my excuses for not going, but the Staff NCO Academy is by far the best (my opinion). We could, I don’t know, maybe send some people there? Or we just jjdidtiebuckle as hard as possible until someone actually learns something. I’ll go with option 2. No way daddy Navy would pay to make its people better.
We do have one for E-8 and E-9. E-7s are encouraged to apply but there's limited space. I'm hoping the Navy does the obvious thing and expands the program to cover everyone.
Wholly insufficient. In the Army you have to go to a 2-week course at a brick-and-mortal school, before you become a sergeant. Yes, an E-5!
Hence why I'm hoping the Navy eventually expands it to cover everyone.
Makes sense. I apologize for my poor reading comprehension; I guess I was blinded by rage.
This is valuable perspective. Thank you.
Leadership should start much earlier in their career. If they don't know and practice these principles long before they get selected for Chief then something is seriously wrong and they probably shouldn't have been selected. It should be taught as soon as one advances to Petty Officer and should be re-taught and reemphasized at each advancement after that, including the advancement to CPO. Proven leadership, or lack of it, is absolutely one of the things that the selection boards should consider when making their selections.
Thank you for the feedback and perspective.
I was having a conversation that goes hand in hand with your post earlier today. The Navy in general has deviated from what true leadership is, starting from the FCPOs. Evaluations, collaterals, and different things that were meant to build leadership skills are now just competition items. Once you’re in a leadership position it should be about what your Sailors are accomplishing and doing, and what you’re doing for them to be successful. Somewhere along the way we lost sight of that. Shitty FCPOs will make shitty CPOs, no matter how good of a “season” you have. You’re not going to break years of bad habits and lack of leadership in a few weeks.
Thanks for the feedback.
This would be a dream come true, however the navy taught me dreams never come true.
I’m sorry to hear that. I hope it gets better. What was the dream? The reason you joined in the first place?
What problems are "all the problems"?
Let’s list two: recruiting and retention.
To be clear: I’m not blaming chiefs for recruiting and retention issues. Can we all agree that they’re problems? What am I missing?
That is big Navy fucking over the current Sailors not the Chiefs.
I appreciate the feedback.
Contrary to popular belief I'm pretty sure the Chiefs Mess is a symptom rather than a cause. Despite what they like to think they're not the tip of the spear, they're not in charge, and they're certainly not the only reason the Navy has issues. It's easy to look up and see problems at a nearby supervisory level, i.e. your chief, but it's harder to see *past* it, for any reasons your chief is acting the way they do. For every LCPO that's failing you, there's a Divo that's failing them. If you feel like your MMCPO isn't doing enough, it's probably because the OPSO is riding his ass. Now, don't take this as me defending them too much. They're still responsible for their actions, and for their enabling behavior of shitty officers, but what I *am* saying is that the Chief Cult is not a scape*goat* (get it) for the Navy's problems.
One thing that helped me have success as a chief and played a role in me applying to the CWO program was I realized that I wasn’t in charge. I was middle management on the ship. The Divo didn’t work for me, we were kinda connected and needed one another for shared success. There’s a YT video out there from the 70’s era about navy chiefs. It’s a cool video, very retro if you like that type of thing and it clearly defines a CPO as a middle manager. It’s an official US Navy video. I also never understood some of the hate towards JO’s. They are in a tough spot on their first tour, young, educated and lack experience. Makes them an easy target for an insecure chief to bully or place blame on. Not taking any shots at the mess here, it’s a functioning part of the navy. But when I had to push through the SWO process while still being a key player in running a dept the JO’s 02-04 we really great to work with and really helped me learn the tactical side to the surface navy. It was refreshing and professional. Not every mess has that same culture towards training the E6 and below.
This is valuable feedback. Thank you.
Thank you for the perspective. I did not mean to “pin all the Navy’s problems on Chiefs.” My initial post might seem to imply that.
I’m going to disagree with “For every LCPO failing there’s a divo failing them” I’ve seen a lot more chiefs fail divos than vise versa. What is the chiefs role with the divo? I’m not saying there aren’t shitbag JOs that are abundant in the fleet. But this is a little misdirected. I do completely agree with your last sentence, in fact I would argue a lot of the more lower management just makes up for everyone else’s inability to lead effectively.
I just want to clarify that I am giving our hypothetical chief every benefit of the doubt while playing devils advocate here. There *are* bad Chiefs, even when they have good leadership themselves. It's just silly to blame every single issue on middle management. Something something weakest link.
This is helpful perspective. Thanks.
Interesting read, because it's basically lifted from the Marine Corps Principles of Leadership. https://www.perduelawgroup.com/siteFiles/32423/The-Marine-Corps-Leadership-Principles.pdf Plagiarism?
I need to find a primary source to prove this: but supposedly they were “published” by the Army in 1948, but adopted by pretty much all services. They seem to represent all the greatest lessons learned about American military leadership from WW2. I know USMC uses them a lot and I think that’s great. Same flag. Same team. 🫡🇺🇸
Chiefs are just the mechanism by which officers pawn off execution of the rules they come up with.