Poor Leadership

The Chief Of Staff

MGT 380

The Chief of Staff

Good order and discipline, teamwork, and high moral are all terms that you would hear in a military organization. What makes all these things work is leadership. Leadership in the military is most effective when the followers believe in the leader. Just like in a civilian business environment there has to be structure in place. In the military they are taught to listen to whoever is wearing the most senior collar device; but that person may not be the best person for the job. In this paper we will examine how one Chief of Staff Officer uses micromanagement, how it affects the Sailors, and we will explore how fundamentals of good military leadership can correlate to the business world.

What is a Chief of Staff Officer? The Chief of Staff serves in the same capacity as an Executive Officer or Vice President of a business. The difference is that he works for a Commodore. A Commodore is different from a regular Commanding Officer in that he has Commanding Officer’s who work for him. The Commodores main job is to be a figurehead for the region. A figurehead is usually a leader in a high-level role; perform ceremonial and symbolic duties as a head of an organization. (Weiss, 2011) For example, the Commodore of Navy Region Southeast is stationed in Jacksonville Florida but he has twenty eight Commanding Officers that report directly to him, some stationed as far west as El Paso Texas down to Puerto Rico and up to South Carolina. The Chief of Staff’s main responsibility is ensuring that the Commodores staff is running effectively in the support of the subordinate commands.

This particular staff is made up of mostly senior military personnel. The seniority is important because a Commodore would want a collection of subject matter experts in different fields advising him and his subordinate commands on recommended tactics, procedural...