Peppered throughout the Navy strategic guidance are directives to act, adapt, and initiate to meet the challenges of great power competition. Not since World War II has the naval service needed such a clear call to arms to build a dominant force of outstanding leaders and teams to outpace its adversaries. To answer that call, “every person and every unit in the Navy will maximize their potential and be ready for combat operations.”1 We must seek opportunities to increase our ability, value, and contribution to the Navy team. Our duty requires us to enable, encourage, and inspire our teams to overcome the challenges ahead and to fight and win should our nation call.
Answering that call demands a personal and organizational culture centered on meeting future maritime challenges. The future of naval warfare requires high-velocity learning and increased investment in professional development. Both formal service education programs and less traditional education are a mandate; we must seek opportunities to increase our abilities, build knowledge, and develop skillsets. Officers must study, read, and learn about world events, imbue ourselves with the writings of great leaders, and strive to understand the modern security environment.
Great power competition requires continuous learning about U.S. adversaries and the challenged maritime domain, adapting to new technologies, and embracing new approaches to seize the advantage. There is no room for complacency.
Enable Reverse Mentoring
As naval officers become more senior, they also must develop these attributes in subordinates. According to the Harvard Business Review, the net benefits of effective mentoring can be profound and enduring, with the potential for organizational transformation. In corporate terms, a commitment to mentoring yields organizational advantages that are realized as increased productivity, performance, and, ultimately, profits.2 The Navy understands that “deliberate, effective, and consistent mentorship leads to greater professional and personal development.”3
Continuous learning at all levels is strengthened by a commitment to mentoring. Every sailor and officer needs to mentor when possible, sharing professional knowledge and encouraging others to hone their skills and abilities to enhance the Navy team. Mentoring offers an immediate way to build expertise, develop professional skills, and ensure junior personnel are pursuing activities that lead to both personal and organizational benefits. People perform better, promote faster, and stay with organizations when they have effective sponsors and mentors.4
Mentoring must be more than top-down, senior-to-junior. Leaders must be open to reverse mentoring—learning from more junior personnel in areas where they have expertise or new ideas. This will help the Navy avoid stifling the best concepts and approaches. Just as it is important for junior personnel to accept mentoring, it is equally important for organizations to build a culture that facilitates junior personnel’s ability to communicate their ideas.
To outpace our adversaries, we must continue to learn at every opportunity and build options and methods to foster a culture of mentoring. Pursue learning—read, study, mentor, and enable reverse mentoring.
Encourage Diverse Thinking
Diversity and inclusion are critical to developing innovative approaches to meet current challenges. The Navy must reinforce key strengths, encourage creativity, and leverage the talents of all personnel. The service has recognized the importance of diversity and inclusion in developing creative approaches to problem solving. Leveraging diversity and inclusion within teams will ensure better decision-making and make the Navy more creative, competitive, and operationally effective.
While the Navy has demonstrated a commitment to diversity, it can do better. Today’s Navy is far more diverse than it was 30 years ago; however, senior leaders still are overwhelmingly white and male. Although African Americans make up 19 percent of the overall force, they are only 9 percent of the officer corps. Women account for less than 17 percent of military officers.5 Lack of diversity narrows perspectives and limits organizational change by reinforcing traditional, even outdated, approaches and concepts.
To overcome its diversity challenges the Navy must actively develop diversity. It must strive, for example, to be aware of unconscious bias and seek alternate viewpoints on difficult issues through inputs both up and down the chain of command. Diversity and inclusion encourage fresh ideas. Sailors and officers can encourage diversity and inclusion by supporting it as part of a commitment to developing a competitive advantage.
As part of this commitment to diversity, service members need to engage not only in mentoring, but in mentoring someone different from themselves. Dr. W. Brad Johnson and Dr. David G. Smith, both retired naval officers, advocate inclusive mentoring as a deliberate method for strengthening organizations. In their book, Athena Rising: How and Why Men Should Mentor Women (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2016), the authors give examples of direct engagement on inclusivity and tout the benefits of diverse teams. In terms of organizational strength, diverse teams—comprising of different genders, races, and geographic regions—have been found to make better decisions up to 87 percent of the time.6
The Navy should appreciate the diversity of each service member—not just those attributes that are most often credited to race and gender, but also other elements such as geographic and socioeconomic background and experiences that can add professional and organizational value.7 As leaders, we also must welcome approaches that diverge from tradition or are different from our own.
To expand the Navy’s competitive advantage, the service must increase adaptability by drawing from the skills and abilities of all service members and deliberately encouraging diversity of thought. Do not wait for others to demonstrate this commitment—be the change agent. Encourage diverse thinking. Be inclusive. Support the development of alternate views and encourage fresh approaches to the Navy’s challenges.
Inspire Ownership
To prevail in the era of great power competition, commanding officers must not just promote diverse thinking, but also inspire and develop mission ownership in their sailors and officers. They must understand how to execute higher-level commander’s intent while ensuring their crews are aware of their own intent. This will allow subordinates freedom, initiative, and creativity to fight and achieve victory.
Developing and leveraging mission ownership has proven effective. In his book, It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy (New York: Hachette Book Group, 2002), Captain Michael D. Abrashoff details how he improved the performance of the USS Benfold (DDG-65) by viewing the operation of the ship through the eyes of the crew. After addressing multiple deficiencies, including the quality of food on board, Abrashoff worked to communicate purpose and meaning to the ship’s company. In doing so, he developed a persuasive vision to inspire his sailors to enthusiastically work toward a shared goal. This common purpose built a corresponding sense of mission ownership at all levels.
Abrashoff’s account details multiple successes, many of which were inspired by junior sailors. The Benfold improved from marginal performance to become the most combat-ready ship in the Navy. He highlights the wartime communications success—which unfolded because of the efforts of a first class petty officer and benefited all Navy units operating in the Persian Gulf. Captain Abrashoff counted on people to think for themselves to support the mission. He sums up his message as, “It’s your ship, take responsibility for it.”
Captain Abrashoff demonstrated that leadership is not defined by position; rather it is a reflection of action and example. To prevail against future challenges, service members must take ownership of the mission and inspire others to do so as well. Navy core values—honor, courage, and commitment, and a strong Navy ethos—are the guiding values through which we can develop mission ownership. If we are dedicated to Navy core values, it is impossible to not have a commitment to service and organization; with this commitment, we become stakeholders in our organization’s success. Our stake in the Navy’s success further develops our organizational competitiveness and forges a strong determination to excel and to take responsibility.
Captain Bothwell, a career intelligence officer, is the commanding officer of Navy Reserve Unit, Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA) 0166.
Our responsibility as service members is clear:
1. Be willing to learn—develop your own skills and abilities through mentoring and reverse mentoring.
2. Extend that commitment to mentoring to encourage diversity and inclusion.
3. Foster innovation by encouraging the unrealized talents of our sailors and by inspiring organizational ownership.
The challenges of great power competition demand no less from all of us.
1. AMD John M. Richardson, USN, Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority, Version 2.0 (December 2018).
2. Rock David and Heidi Grant, “Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter,” Harvard Business Review, 4 November 2016.
3. Bureau of Naval Personnel, “Mentoring the Total Force” (May 2017).
4. Robin Robinson, “Mentoring: Effective Programs Yield Successful Employees,” PharmaVoice (October 2013).
5. Kim Parker, Anthony Cilluffo, and Renee Stepler, “6 Facts about the U.S. Military and Its Changing Demographics,” Pew Research Center, 13 April 2017.
6. Robinson, “Mentoring: Effective Programs Yield Successful Employees.”
7. Robin Pedrelli, “10 Ways Employees Can Support Diversity and Inclusion,” Diversity Journal, 9 September 2014.