"The relationship between officers and enlisted men should in no sense be that of superior and inferior."
-Lieutenant General John A. Lejuene, U.S. Marine Corps
The Navy has taken significant steps I over the last several years to transform itself. Whether it is for financial reasons, to update our fighting abilities, or just plain common sense, transforming the Navy is a good idea and long overdue. That being said, we should realize that now is the time to rethink how we lead our Sailors in today's fast-paced environment in a still unforgiving profession. I am glad that Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Mullen has gone on record as stating that he "wants to make Sailors the center of the universe" and I feel he is making a personal commitment to doing exactly that.
Discipline is a large pan of how we lead our Sailors. Discipline by definition is meant to train or develop by instruction. A leader has to know that junior personnel will follow orders without question. However, the Navy seems to have lost sight of the art of discipline and has rolled over into what the late Vice Admiral James Stockdale called, "Meism" where we are focused on ourselves instead of the Sailors we lead. In this age of transformation, with Sailors that are significantly more educated, less tolerant of "old fashioned" ways of doing business, and very impatient, we could destroy morale in an era when we need our best and brightest (of any rank) cared for in the manner they deserve.
During my own career as an enlisted Sailor on a destroyer and as an officer on board a carrier, I experienced many leadership failures. For instance:
Is it necessary to require that an enlisted Sailor be escorted through the blue-tile area on a ship by an officer, when not providing an officer escort would ensure that the enlisted Sailor go the long way, adding 30 minutes to the transit? Is the inconvenience really needed?
Is it really conducive to the officer/enlisted relationship when enlisted personnel are not allowed into the wardroom when their well-respected and admired department head is being promoted?
Is it really cost efficient to send enlisted Sailors through training to be technical experts, only to have them clean heads, take out trash, and cater to officers for 90 days or more on board a ship?
Is it necessary to make a Sailor, who has been on the flight deck for 33 straight hours, stand in line behind an officer to complete a command-directed urinalysis when all he wants to do is go to sleep?
When a liberty barge is unable to pick up Sailors and Marines from liberty ashore, is it true leadership when we leave the enlisted Sailors in a cold warehouse to sleep when officers are allowed to stay in a hotel for the night? (Note that, in this case, not one Marine officer left his Marines).
Is it right that we require our junior Sailors to ensure the cleanliness of the ship before going on liberty when some of us are the first ones ashore?
Finally, does earning a college degree and a commission automatically put officers in a category entitled "too valuable" to perform the basic things noted previously?
We can do a better job. As a Navy, we continue to market "People First" but fail at the basic concepts of leadership, which is, fundamentally, the art of providing hope and a standard to emulate.
Some "leaders" are growing tired of our new generation of Sailors that ask "Why," tired of juniors not having blind obedience, and thinking that our new Sailors are lazy and can't be led. Not true. Older leaders can practice the same tough "fleet" leadership, but need to understand that younger Sailors are not lazy or rebellious, they are smarter. Asking "why" is not a sin. We need to change our way of leading.
We can still maintain good order and discipline by leading from the front, putting our juniors first, and always giving credit to them-the backbone of our Navy. I think only then will we have the discipline for which we have been searching.
An officer's leadership qualities of integrity, fairness, and recognition of hardworking Sailors will generate the respect and loyalty that is the cornerstone of the officer/enlisted relationship.
Lieutenant Commander Stephens is a priorenlisted officer who has served at sea on board the USS
Sampson (DDG-10), the USS Belleau Wood (LHA-3), and the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70).