Guidance for New Junior Officers: The Red Lion Way

This is addressed to my fellow lieutenants, primarily for the newly arrived Second and First Lieutenants. It is to intended to help orient you to the unit as well as provide you with insight on how to succeed as a junior officer. I hope above all things that it is useful to you. I have written what I consider to be practical advice in order to make you more effective as a team builder as well as layout what the ‘Red Lion Way’ is for you to adopt. In that sense, I hope this is timeless, useful for all incoming junior officers, and that will assist junior officers in acclimating and excelling.

Firstly, learn as much as you can, as quickly as you can. Learn from other lieutenants, NCOs, and Soldiers. Learn from your Command Teams but also self-educate.

There is a significant void of inexperience that exists as soon as you arrive, but it is not so vast that it should cripple you or prevent you from doing your assigned duties. Everyone eventually learns through failure in some form. So take advantage of the presence of senior lieutenants and NCOs, they will help to mitigate this lack of experience by providing you with recommendations and courses of action. As such, a new lieutenant should be readily willing to adopt the advice of predecessors. One of the biggest hang-ups and greatest impediments to new lieutenants is the time it takes to come up to speed. To be a competent contributor you need to understand the system and how you feed into it. The quicker a lieutenant can adapt to the Red Lion battalion, the quicker they can start making a difference. This is where senior lieutenants demonstrate core leader competency by developing the junior lieutenants.
If there is anything remotely accurate about Red Lions, it’s that we care about professional leader development both as a collective and during self-development. Part of self-development is identifying and answering tough questions. Think about the following statements and what they mean to you as a junior leader in this organization. How do you see yourself measuring up to them? First, “Red Lion lieutenants must be held responsible, both for their personal lives, and for all things their teams do and fail to do.” Second, “Red Lion lieutenants need to be humble enough to be teachable, to be led, and to put the team first before they take care of themselves.” Thirdly, “Red Lion lieutenants must be problem solving leaders, who demonstrate intestinal fortitude to tackle complex problems and exercise personal initiative to develop solutions.” Finally, “Red Lion lieutenants must be intelligent in their area of expertise, ever self-educating to grow as professionals, detail oriented in both preparation and execution of all tasks.” What does your perception of those statements sound like? Can those statements be true of your character, and do they hold their weight for all Red Lion junior officers?
Understand that as a junior officer, you have a limited sphere of influence.

What you do have within that sphere is the ability to inspire subordinates and peers alike through your example. You don’t have nearly any experience yet but you make that up by drawing from your NCOs, Commanders, and training doctrine. Up until now, your career has only consisted of education, developing a framework for understanding leadership, a void of experience, and a lot of additional duties. As LTC Williams likes to say, “Your job at this point is to acquire ‘knowledge, skills, and attributes” to be the best Field Artillery officer you can be and lead Soldiers in a likewise fashion. You accomplish this daily by doing what Ret. Gen. Collin Powell describes as identifying your purpose and passing it on to your

subordinates:
“Purpose is the destination of a vision. It energizes that vision…Leaders must embed their own sense of purpose into the heart and soul of every follower. The purpose starts from the leader at the top, and through infectious, dynamic, passionate leadership, it is driven down throughout the organization. Every follower has his own organizational purpose which connects with the leader’s overall purpose.”
Red Lion Soldiers and NCOs need purpose given to them by leadership in order to be effective in their craft. As leaders we are obligated to do our best to provide them with that on a daily basis. So develop yourself and develop others daily within your sphere of influence through detail guidance and setting an example for them to follow..
Take some time to read Elbert Hubbard’s “A Message to Garcia” and ask yourself if you are a messenger like Rowan. Decide to dedicate yourself to this unit and see what your example inspires your peers and your subordinates to do. This unit needs highly motivated infectious leaders to permeate the organization and win the respect of their followers. Mutual respect from subordinates is earned daily by face-to-face interaction. Respect isn’t assumed from the beginning. Only after a leader demonstrates his own personal sacrifice for the organization and the mission is respect earned. In fact, Collin Powell highlights the difference between observing obedience in your followers and winning them over through making them feel valued and trusted.
“Obedience alone may get the job done, but it probably doesn’t inspire commitment to the job. It doesn’t necessarily inspire pride in the work or the product or a passion for excellence. These come when followers feel they are part of a well-led team. And this comes when they respect their leaders, and when they, in turn, believe that they are respected by their leaders. It comes when they trust their leaders, and when they believe they are trusted by their leaders. They have to know they are valued.”
The self-motivated leader works diligently to achieve this end through personal interactions. The absentee leader who provides lip-service to self-less leadership does nothing but foster a toxic work environment. The absentee leader’s lack of presence nullifies his ability to influence. Red Lion lieutenants understand the significance of this relationship and the extent of influence upon the followers that work for them. They don’t require external motivation to do their job to its fullest extent. They merely require a mission to accomplish because they are like Rowan.
This unit runs on the labors of people.

Every interaction with your superior, your peer, or your subordinate is an opportunity to build or burn that working relationship bridge. You need working relationships with higher echelons, peers, and subordinates in order to get anything done. Red Lion senior lieutenants realize that they have an obligation to establish strong professional work relationships while maintaining courtesy to others. They coach, mentor, and develop the new lieutenants in order to bring them up to speed. They will genuinely take an interest in their teammates for the betterment of the unit. The first form of this mentorship occurs as lieutenants change duty positions with one

another.
The characteristics which make Red Lions lieutenants different from other organizations is that they actively engage and develop their NCOs and Soldiers in personal and professional levels. They are dedicated to the organization, demand high standards, but foster a climate for leader development as well. They do not neglect to self-educate. They team build, and ensure that new junior officers understand what it means to be a Red Lion.