Leadership View

[1feral1]

Now as a leader like myself.. I come across a lot of problems with some troops. Like excuse from work as a PRes, or excuse from traning during weekends.

I get excuses like

"My grand father is sick and I don't know what is going to happen to him"

"Or I have school work to do/exams"

"Something is wrong with the family and I don't know if I can attend training"

"I have appointments at work this weekend"

They always play the iffy game. What should I be doing? I am hearing this from my CSM that everyone should be attending. And all I can show him is the excused forms from the troops. And I hear it again.

It is a big circle with me.

Also for the admin personal on this site... may be their should be a sub form for any leadership questions... methods... things along those line so we can chat.

From that movie, Platoon. "Excuses are like a$$holes, every one has one".

But being honest, dedicated Militia soldiers usually notify their superiors before hand ( uni and HS exams etc - weddings and spl occasions too - at least I di when I did my time and was of school age). However shyte does happen and there is often excuses which are real, it is noted that if the same person keeps fabricating reasons, he is most likey full of BS, and is quicky becomong an admin problem. Best to weed these 'time wasters' out, so that others who really want in, can fill their position number.

On a lighter side, back when I was in the RRR (c.1977), we were off to the gas hut at F Division, at the RCMP Academy. After we had gone thru and went to the 100 metre out door range for some FNC1 fun, this RFN showed up and said. "Sorry I am late. Did I miss the gas trg? My dog died". We all laughed ourselves till we nearly pisssed ourselves. His excuse was noted by those that mattered.Now that was pure cowardice by some blonde haired zit faced lad who did not wanna do his NBCW trg. He did not last the trg year. Although going on 30 yrs ago, I can remember that weekend like it was a year ago.

Time marches on and waits for no one.

My 2 cents.

Wes

 

[orange.paint]

All in all this is a reserve problem.Reg force leaders for the most part don't have to deal with the problem of may or may not show up troops.Having said that it can still be solved by knowing your troops and promoting their welfare.

Knowing 1.His needs (school,family etc)
            2.Career goals (where he wants to be in 10 yrs and giving him a plan        based on his needs above)

Promoting 1. pers who strive above personal problems putting the job first by giving courses,jammy goes,good tasking.

              2.identifying leadership potential in your subordinates and give them responsibility to either hang themselves with or excel.

Lets' face it there are pers there to pay for school and that's it.There are others testing the waters before going Reg's,and those who are trying to add fullness to their civilian life.You as a res leader should identify these pers and task/promote accordingly.

Have a O group and state your opinion as a 2 IC.What you expect (i.e mod 5 part 1 of a pdr) and make these pers understand this.I know in the reserve world PDR's are hard to find or come by (from what I learned on my PLQ with the reserves "total force concept") so why not start it at YOUR LEVEL.Be the guy to make up the PDR for your section even if the other sections are not doing the same.

 

[Centurian1985]

Following up on what Mud said, with the reserve units I worked with the problem was not getting new people with enthusiasm, it was getting them to stay after they saw that a bunch of people were blocking up the chain of command, so that there was no room for promotion.  

In this section of (a reserve unit), the senior Sgt is a local police officer who is there to be in charge but knows very little about Int and does not train his staff in Int subjects.  He does not know what he is doing yet his position is there to supposedly teach others.  The Sergeant is there for three reasons; 1) look cool factor (yeah, man I work in Int, I know whats going on, etc.); 2) Easy money for showing up twice a week; and 3) It satisfies the police job requirement for community service.

Behind him are two other police officers who are taking up the Mcpl positions, and who act the same way, for the same reasons.  They dont know their job but were there long enough for seniority to kick in.  The reg force Warrant Officer tried to get them kicked out years ago for being the equivalent of 'intestinal blockages' but the permanent staff were unwilling to set an example and have the three removed.  

This affected recruitment in that once new staff saw that there was no opportunity for a career and advancement, they left the unit and looked elsewhere for opportunity.  The only ones who stayed were university and college kids who liked a few extra bucks in their pocket and werent worried about making the reserve job into a career!

Ive seen and heard of this problem with other units, and it is one of the reasons why many of us used to dread working with reserves.      

Moderator edit - the unit you indicated is a very small unit, let's leave the name out shall we.

 

[probum non poenitet]

Some excellent points above regarding motivating soldiers.

The points about identifying what your soldiers are all about and talking to them about career, etc. is well taken.
For reservists you really have to use a carrot as well as a stick.
It is an excellent point that if policy isn't working at "YOUR LEVEL", change it.
Very often reserve units sink or swim based on the performance of relatively few personnel. The smaller the unit, the more effect one individual can have.
The mantra, "don't bring me problems, bring me solutions" really applies in small units.

One problem is that gathering reservists can be like herding cats. It is almost impossible to have all of the unit at one place and at one time.
Therefore any administration takes on new levels of difficulty ... something as simple as a platoon commander interviewing each of his/her soldiers can be nearly a year-long endeavour.
It shouldn't be that way, but it often is.
It's not an excuse, but that's why so many PDRs don't get written ... or read.

Some posters have mentioned that they wouldn't come to work on some days if they didn't want to. That's honest human nature.
And unfortunately once the weather starts to cool off, so do reserve numbers.
It's because there are very few official consequences to ducking training ... I think more soldiers would attend if there were consequences. Imagine if your boss didn't say anything if you took the week off 'sick'?

Rewarding soldiers who parade for the tough training is the ideal.
It is great if you have a plugged in Trg WO or Adjt who approves taskings. They can give preference or deny the good/bad performers. Sometimes it works unofficially.
But it usually takes administration and communication, and these often fall through the cracks in reserve units. Again, I think it's a self-fulfilling cycle ... soldiers don't show up - paper work doesn't get done - communication suffers - training is cancelled - morale drops - soldiers don't show up - rinse and repeat.

Militia units seem to go in cycles. A certain 'cast of characters' never moves. These are your dozen or so snr ncos, snr cpls, offrs that are a link to the past.
Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. Continuity is good, but as the poster above mentioned, 'intestinal blockages' are almost impossible to remove.
If you get a critical mass of deadwood, it is positively cancerous. New troops quit in disgust, or even worse, lower their standards and become the next generation's problem.
That's why I refer to my post above ... it is vital to clean out your closet of hangers-on as much as you can.
It's not vindictiveness, it's healthy.
When a reserve unit is on an upswing, that too is infectious ... you will attract good people, training will be worthwhile ... and often the deadwood takes the hint and goes SHR.

I agree that there are things that you can do at low to mid-level, but there needs to be a simple-to-implement quality-check on reservists annually. This is a national level thing, though. It's fun to dream out loud.

I know many good low- mid-level leaders who pull their hair out (what's left of it) every year, because they see the same cycle, year after year after year ...

 

[FMRWO]

Definitely get to know your men individually and personally. In time, you can weed out those who underperform, move them to other trades or release them. Motivating a reservist to participate when he’s not into it, is a big challenge all leaders in the reserves have faced. There is no simple solution. It is the nature of the voluntary engagement.

 

[Centurian1985]

Moderator - oops, you are quite right, my bad! 

 

[Daidalous]

There are a few mornings now and then that I wake up all puffy eyed and do not want to go to work.  I will tell you one thing, the idea of being charged ($$) or Jail time is ample motivation to get my ass up


I have always wondered when they tell us how many reservists there are, is that the on paper number or is it the I show up number?

 

[17thRecceSgt]

I am not sure but I think its probably the "nominal roll" number more than the "show up" number.

MRM

 

[Gunner]

I have always wondered when they tell us how many reservists there are, is that the on paper number or is it the I show up number?

Effective strength usually is calculated using RPSR numbers for the preceeding month.  The overall number of reservists would include those entering/exiting the CF, NES, ED&T, etc.

This is no different from the army or the entire CF.  The "Regular" component of the army has roughtly around ~20K personnel, but if you start taking out those on med cat, temp med cat, SPHL, etc, etc, the number of "effective" is quite different.

 

[DG-41]

If you can't "make" them be there...I have always found the best way was to get their interest going to WANT to be there.  My last year as a Tp WO...me and the other Tp WO had very good morale in our troops, and had above 95% attendace on scheduled trng events.  When we did the more interesting trng...the troops were there.  When things started to get old, boring and stupid...people would find better things to do with their time.  Not saying that this is right...just saying that its a fact with Class A PRes. 

BINGO!

That's it right there; carve it in marble and glue it to the Adj's desk.

The percentage of actual dead-weight oxygen thieves (and there are always a couple) in any given unit is always very, very small. If you have an ATTENDANCE problem, then you have a TRAINING problem.

If training is well-organized, well-taught, and seen by the troops as productive, then they will move heaven and earth to attend. They'll take vaction time, trade shifts, and do whatever else they have to do in order to get to training.

If training is boring, repetitive, arbitrary, and non-productive, then they will vote with their feet and not show up.

Related: if they are getting a lot of undeserved cock, they will not show up either (and this can sometimes manifest itself as a kind of protest)

Note. however, that this does NOT mean that every single training day has to be all sunshine and rainbows. The reality of it is that there ARE dirty and boring jobs to do, that sometimes the weather goes to shit and they have to train anyway, and sometimes they will screw up and some deserved cock - er, "corrective training"  - will have to be applied. But if you can show that the nasty and boring stuff has an ultimate purpose, and especially if you can later DEMONSTRATE that the time invested in nasty & boring paid off, they will do it willingly and the fact that they had to do it won't affect later attendance. They may bitch like hell... but they'll show up.

Leading Reservists is a manifestly different skill than leading Regulars. There's a lot more persuasion going on, as you have little opportunity to use the stick (not the same as bribery; bribing troops is always a bad idea) I find it demands a LOT more of leaders, and rewards doing your homework and staffwork well in advance.

DG