How to Lose Your Job, If You’re a Lieutenant

Newly commissioned officers in the Marine Corps – and I can only assume this guide will translate to my counterparts in the Army – get absolutely inundated with leadership advice, and for good reason: they are about to take responsibility not just for some company’s new project or marketing plan, but for a platoon of Marines.  So why do they fail?  Where is the disconnect?

I would argue that the consistent theme of failure is actually more precise than many believe – especially at the entry level leadership position that is Second Lieutenant.  In fact, I would argue – and I will below – that there are six primary causes for relief of command at the platoon leader level, some stronger than others, and quite frankly none all that revolutionary.

What this article is not  is another guide on leadership advice, as there are plenty of those – in the past two months alone I’ve come across three different platoon oriented leadership guides on Tom Ricks’ Best Defense Blog at ForeignPolicy.com here, here and here.  Rather, this is a guide for new lieutenants on what not to do – from a practical, bottom-line-up-front perspective, when they take that first coveted step into platoon command.  The goal, or end state if you will (hey, I’m in the IRR), is to provide awareness to those wide-eyed, leadership advice-seeking sponges with gold bars on their collars so that they can focus their time on not only what they’ve been trained to do, but their most important task: leading Marines or Soldiers.

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Marine Corps vs US Army PT Video

As a former Marine, yes, I am certainly biased, but I have nothing but pure respect for all of our services – we all play different roles, and we all get our jobs done.  That being said, it’s always fun to poke fun – outside of our business and military analysis posts here at SQ, this is pretty much an entertainment/parody site – at the military in general, because competition just makes us all better.  The Army has always had a competition with the Marine Corps, with both sides saying their PT is harder, and/or their respective boot camps are harder.  I am just going to go out on my biased limb and say it really isn’t a contest – Marines are required to do dead hang pull ups, while soldiers in the Army are just graded on push ups.  But still, when it comes to unit PT, the choice of work out is honestly up to the unit commander, and in the video above, I think the answer about which PT session is tougher is pretty clear.  More after the video!

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