Life seems to be amplified at sea. Mistakes feel worse, wins are more celebrated, good days are better, and bad days are worse. This also applies to leadership as decisions and team functionality directly affect operations and the crew’s daily lives. While it is firmly established that the commanding officer holds ultimate responsibility for all aspects of a unit and sets the tone and the climate, an undervalued portion of a unit’s effectiveness is the power of the midlevel leaders.
A midlevel leader is anyone other than the commanding officer, command cadre, or a follower in each scenario. Most Coast Guardsmen will step into this role frequently, whether as a petty officer leading a work party or a junior officer leading a department. A unit’s climate and effectiveness can be bolstered or hindered by the quality of leaders throughout the middle ranks.
Regardless of their leadership styles, effective midlevel leaders share a few common traits. These individuals understand that a balance of ownership and responsibility within their teams is essential to building a sustainable functioning group. They also often demonstrate a positive attitude, which makes them more approachable, and by showing consistency in daily task execution, they build trust within the team. To do so, midlevel leaders must be taught how to have hard conversations, balance ownership and responsibility across every task, and that their attitude is contagious.
Midlevel Leaders are Important
A strong and competent commanding officer sets the tone and vision for a unit, but it is the midlevel leaders—the division heads, work center supervisors, or team leads—who enact this vision and shape that tone into a culture. Mistakes inevitably will happen, but with a cadre of strong midlevel leaders, those mistakes up or down the chain of command are minimized and corrected before effecting the mission. In addition, midlevel leaders are the people who ensure their members are taken care of and minimize the damage a poor leader can cause.
Consider a simple, seemingly innocent example: During a conversation, a junior enlisted member asks an ensign who is not in her chain of command, “Why are we working this Friday? I was hoping we would have it off.” Not giving it much thought, the ensign answers “Yeah, that sucks. I don’t know, command doesn’t involve me in those decisions.”
While this may be a true statement, they are not the words of an effective leader. The ensign supervises multiple people, is a member of the wardroom, leads an inport watch team, and likely is a reasonable person to ask about work schedules. By deferring responsibility and avoiding a potentially uncomfortable discussion of an unpopular decision, the ensign is isolating command as an entity that does not listen to his opinion, include him in decisions, or communicate. On top of the bad feelings his answer creates about the command, it also may feed the enlisted member’s negative attitude about the situation.
Even if this ensign is not involved in workweek planning, he likely is privy to long-term schedules, work-list goals, and upcoming events. A competent midlevel leader can have an uncomfortable discussion even without all the information. The ensign could have replied in a variety of ways, such as, “We have an inspection coming up and I imagine departments still need to prepare,” or, “There is a lot of work to do before our next patrol so a full week this week will make it easier for us in the future.” Such replies would have made him look like a stronger leader, and even if the service member asking were not happy about working Friday, she now would understand the purpose behind the decision. Giving a purpose shows a more unified command structure and reduces negative attitudes.
The Coast Guard must prepare young leaders for these hard conversations. To start, the service should include them in conversations as decisions are being made to build their understanding. They also must be encouraged to hold uncomfortable conversations with the team when needed to build the interpersonal tools necessary to interact in stressful moments.
Ownership and Responsibility
For the sake of this discussion, “ownership” belongs to the person planning and completing a task or maintaining a program with minimal instruction. “Responsibility” belongs to the person overseeing the completion of a project under the individual’s authority. As an example, a ship’s first lieutenant is responsible for all deck equipment, but the petty officer in charge of rescue and survival gear should own the maintenance and inventory of that equipment.
Establishing and maintaining a balance of ownership and responsibility is essential to developing junior members and their feeling of fulfillment. Effective leaders will recognize what they own and/or for what they are responsible. They will then allow space and support for what their subordinates own. Both ownership and responsibility can easily be deferred up the chain of command. Whether taken by or given to someone senior or up the chain, the result is less effective units. A micromanager removes ownership from a member, which shifts the ownership up the chain of command. Likewise, if a qualification program manager always waits for the training officer to tell her when and what training needs to be done, she is shifting ownership up the chain of command by not taking control of the program.
The same can be said for leading through unpopular tasks. It is easy for a third-class petty officer to start with “Chief said we need to,” or a junior officer to say, “CO said . . .” By shifting ownership, the lowest level of effective leadership now resides with the person doing the tasking, not the person leading the task. It is the mark of a progressing leader when he or she can receive direction, own the task, and lead his or her team.
This can be seen at any level of the organization. Do E-4s and E-5s know that this week the department needs to focus on topside preservation, find problem areas, and lead a team to correct it, or do they wait for the chief to task them then relay that info to the E-3 workforce? Do the junior officers know the long-term patrol schedule and develop work lists and prepare the ship to get underway, or do they wait for the operations officer and engineering
officer to explain what is needed and then relay tasking to their teams? It is clear which unit is going to be more effective, produce better leaders, and be more efficient. Midlevel leaders drive this culture.
The training and expectations of young service members also must be considered. Has the deck chief trained the second-class petty officer who owns topside preservation on what to look for and how to correct it? If so, the chief should then set a clear expectation that the petty officer will develop work lists of areas that need attention each week. As the weeks progress, if that chief allows space for the second class to learn and lead the program, provides guidance, and holds him to the expectations, this young enlisted leader will develop the habits and acquire the knowledge to run an effective program. The command will assign designations to guide who is responsible for programs, but the midlevel leaders are the ones who create layers of ownership and responsibility throughout the ship.
Positivity is Contagious
Trust is essential to any leadership team. Beyond following through with what is said, the building blocks of trust are attitude and consistency. A mentor of mine told me, “Don’t let them see you sweat.” While I am not sure I will ever have an attitude that approaches every problem as if there is a solution, not as a crisis, and be consistent enough that people expect me to maintain a level head, it is a good goal for which to strive.
A consistent leader builds a reputation that allows subordinates to anticipate their leader’s reaction and be prepared for the interactions with their supervisor. Not trusting what version of their boss is going to show up on a given day creates barriers to trust and communication. In contrast, maintaining a consistent demeanor and expectations reinforces what the leader values. With a strong understanding of values, subordinates can better predict what drives their supervisor’s motivations, which aids a healthy working relationship.
Attitudes are contagious, so a positive attitude often will have a stronger effect than a negative one. Commanding officers have a major role in the attitude of a unit, but they can only interact with so many people every day. Midtier leaders have the most interactions of any position at a unit. They are briefing up the chain of command and coordinating tasks down the chain. This is when a positive attitude can have a significant effect. Because these leaders have a wide sphere of influence when it comes to work interactions, they can affect the attitudes of a large portion of the unit. Recently, before a briefing for an evolution, an ensign looked around and noticed everyone looked tired and quiet. The ensign then went around and gave everyone at the briefing a high five, saying he was excited for the day. By the time he made it around the room, people were laughing and engaged for the start of the brief. A pump-up speech does not need to always come from the top. Being positive is an underrated tool in keeping a team motivated.
Making Better Midlevel Leaders
A senior leader who has built a cadre of effective leaders can set the direction and vision that allows the midlevel leaders to drive toward those goals. Too often, junior leaders do not realize how much their words matter and how much of an effect they can have. If every leader at the unit owns a piece of the climate on board, building a positive environment becomes a much easier task.
At a time when all military services are seeing personnel shortages, developing and supporting midlevel leaders is a critical retention tool. Data has indicated that a service member’s direct supervisor is the most important leader in their chain of command. They are the ones who guide and mentor and often have the most influence over a member’s decision to stay or leave.1 It is key that we as individuals, units, and an organization develop midlevel leaders. Institutionally, the Coast Guard spends a lot of time, money, and effort to develop leaders. As individuals, we should support this effort by providing members the experiences and training needed, communicating, holding clear expectations, and allowing space to learn to lead through challenging situations. The more strong midlevel leaders the Coast Guard builds, the more effective the service will become.
ν Lieutenant Commander Stafford is the executive officer on board the USCGC Juniper (WBL-201) in Honolulu, Hawaii. Missions include search and rescue, international and bilateral law enforcement, and servicing aids to navigation throughout the central and western Pacific.
1. James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen In Organizations (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2017).
