When Enough Becomes Too Much

CCLKOW is a weekly conversation on military affairs jointly hosted by the Center for Company-Level Leaders (CCL) at the US Military Academy at West Point and the Kings of War (KOW), a blog of the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. The views expressed here are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of the US Army or the Department of Defense. Read the post and join the discussion on Twitter #CCLKOW.

When Enough Becomes Too Much

Just about every single leader that I’ve met and grown a professional relationship with in the Army has complained about being “burned out” or “running on fumes” at some point in their career. Common talk around the S-shops has become the “do more with less” Army talk. For those not familiar with the do more with less mindset, it stems from the idea that the Army’s resources are taking a dip, but the number of taskings, missions, or additional requirements are only on the rise. Surely, some of this has to do with the Army’s focus on becoming a regionally aligned organization. However, this only suggests that the Army will become a force of 475,000 active Soldiers by the end of this fiscal Year (Lopez 1) This brings up a very valid concern for our leaders of tomorrow. We must confronting the risk of “burn out” and making conscious steps as leaders to reduce the chance of overloading our Soldiers, or ourselves. In this week’s CCLKOW, we’ll take a look at what you can do to help attack this increasing concern.

Burnout may sound like a crazy term and many leaders may feel uncomfortable about the idea of admitting to the possibility of their units being burned out. This isn’t an issue to brush aside though. Aside from the obvious concerns about resilience, “turnover”, or in our field, losing Soldiers to the civilian workforce is a great concern. Economical woes that drove high re-enlistments and a flood of talent has changed as the global economy is rebounding. While re-enlistment targets aren’t what they used to be during the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, good leaders should always be concerned about retention and keeping our very best in uniform. I would challenge that it is our duty to ensure that we’re doing our very best to ensure that we’re helping to retain our best. One way that we can find burnout in our own formations is by looking at what tasks we’re assigning our teams. In the case of the Company Commander, are you always finding that you’re giving the majority of the takers or missions to the same platoon(s)? In the Platoon, do you find that you’re selecting the same squad leader to serve as the range NCOIC or assistant convoy commander for each mission? If you’re anything like me, the answer is “yes.” I’m guilty as a Platoon Leader of always tasking my first or fourth squads’ squad leaders to fill these roles. Towards the end of our Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) rotation, it was showing because both leaders showed signs of the additional burden.

So how do you help avoid the burnout? An article in this month’s Harvard Business Review by Cross, Revele, and Grant addresses this topic and provides one recommendation which can be easily translated into military terms that I found to be as equally bold as it is common: allow your squad leaders to say “no.” (Cross, Rebele, Grant 78) Now let me be clear, in an organization such as this military, this cannot amount to complete open dissension. However, our doctrine would suggest that good leaders foster an environment of trust where our unit’s leadership feels comfortable with providing feedback and recommendations when the time allows it. The Army is not an organization that says “no” very often, but there should be avenues for our Soldiers to provide feedback when there’s the risk of being over-tasked that don’t specifically amount to the annual Commanders’ climate report. One recommendation would be to hold monthly sensing sessions in your organizations to get the “pulse” of the unit. We want to hear from you. Take a look at the questions to consider that are listed below and let us know about your own experiences with burnout.

Questions to consider:

  1. For starters, have you ever experienced “burnout” in one of your formations? What did it look like?
  2. How did the leaders within your organization take steps to mitigate burnout? What effects did this have on the organization as a whole?
  3. What is some advice that you’d give to a new leader who’s taking over in a unit that is overtasked?

References

Cross, R., Grant, A., Rebele, R. (2016). “Collaborative Overload”. Harvard Business Review. Jan 2016. Web. 18 Jan 2016. <https://hbr.org>.

Lopez, Todd C. (2015). “Army to Realign Brigades, Cut 40,000 Soldiers, 17,000 Civilians”. Web 18 Jan 2016. <http://www.army.mil/article/151992/Army_to_realign_brigades__cut_40_000_Soldiers__17_000_civilians/)>.