Leadership Dilemma - Commanding Officer vs XO?

Question

I have a dilemma...I am a 1LT (XO) in a Forward Support Company attached to a Field Artillery Battalion. As such, there are very few females in my company - in fact, I am the only female officer in the Battalion.

There is a senior female E7 in my company, and while she certainly isn't perfect, she is a GREAT NCO just looking out for Soldier welfare. Particularly the females since there are so few of them in the company. Of course the younger female soldiers bristle under her discipline, but hey, my general philosophy is if soldiers are pissed, you're doing the right thing. We are forward deployed where the male Soldiers are quite repressed, and the possibility of sexual assault or harassment is much greater than it would be in the states. As females, we have to be vigilant and avoid any type of suggestive behavior which might incite or encourage inappropirate behavior in the male soldiers.
Of course, the younger female soldiers love the attention and purposely take their hair down and wear suggestive civilian clothes to catch the eye of many-a-male.

This E7 makes the females put up their hair and put on PTs (rather than suggestive civilian clothes) to go to the bathroom and stuff - which pisses the soldiers off. But she's only enforcing that to keep bad ideas out of the male Soldiers minds you know? She went home recently as we begin to prepare to go home, about a month ago. So of course, the Soldiers are taking full liberty with that.

Because of personal difference, my Commander isn't particularly fond of her either for whatever reason. This morning the Soldiers in the orderly room were bitching about this female E7, to include my commander.

It might just be me, but I don't feel like the Commander should undermine an E7 who is just trying to take care of Soldiers regardless of person feeling. I wanted to say something to the Soldiers and other NCOs, but how can I when my own Commander is complaining about her? I wanted to bring it up to him but am not sure how to approach the situation. I was going to pull him aside and say something to the effect of "Sir, far be it from me to correct you. But I was really uncomfortable with the way you were discussing SFC 'SoandSo' with the Soldiers this morning. Soldiers are going to *****, but it looks really bad and undermines SFC 'SoandSo's' authority if the Commander is talking badly about her too."

What do you think? My feeling is, when an E7 tells a soldier to do something, they do it, unless it's immoral, illegal or unethical. Am I wrong? I feel very strongly about this and want to talk to my commander.

Answer 1

I totally understand your situation. As a female SFC myself, I would be the same way as your SFC. I am in a signal battalion and in my platoon, I only have 4 other females in my platoon but they are pretty well mannered and probably more mature than the females in your unit. I am more hard on them than I am on my male soldiers because I want to instill and maintain that discipline that they have. This is my suggestion...do some researching before you talk to the CO. If he doesn't like that other SFC, then make no mention of her at all. Voice to him that it is your concern that with female soldiers running around out of uniform, it poses a threat and makes them more vulnerable both directly and indirectly. Explain to him that because of the way they dress, it creates the potential for lots of problems such as a rise in STDs, allegations of rape if s soldier turns against that female for another female, actual rape, pregnancy, hell...one female might get smart enough and even open up a prostitution ring. I'm telling you this because i've seen it happen. It affects the readiness and not only does it affect the female soldiers, it affects the male soldiers as well if one of them rapes a female soldier or passes/contracts a STD and passes it along. What it sounds like us that the CO needs to implement a policy in which civilian clothes can only be worn in the CHUs and that females and males must adhere to the policies of AR 670-1 regardless of if they are in civilian clothes. Your approach should not be complaining about the females, but instead approach it as a concern and make it seem as if it is in the best interests of the command team to make such a policy to protect the soldiers and the unit's mission readiness and health. Good luck!

Answer 2

The way you described it seems to be the best way to go about it. I would find another officer or a warrant to accompany you to the meeting. It is wrong for the officer to ignore the standards, and it is especially wrong of them to undermine their NCO in front of soldiers.



From what you described, the E7 was just enforcing the standards. If a soldier is deployed, they must be in uniform at all times. This includes hair up, and a properly worn PT uniform at a minimum. If soldiers are walking around in bathing suits with their hair down, then they are violating the uniform policy and must be corrected.



Please don't let any of these civilians on Yahoo talk you out of it, because 90% of the people on this site aren't even military.

Answer 3

"if soldiers are pissed, you're doing the right thing"? this isnt bootcamp or ROTC, this is the real army. when its someone that you work with that your life could possibly depend on, you dont use the "turn them against me to turn them into a team" philosophy.i know they teach officers how the military SHOULD be according to the EO correct and PC correct paper opposed to how it actually is, but that is far from something that you shoud actually believe. there is a difference between being pissed and being slightly disgruntled at your job or at deployment. disgruntled is fine (infact if they're not disgruntled then something is probably wrong)...pissed means that you have piss poor leadership. soldiers will complain just as much whether their leadership sucks or not, but its easy to tell the difference between a good leader and a bad leader. if soldiers are under a good leader, they'll complain about the work/the environment/etc, and you wont hear much about sgt so and so. if its a crappy leader, the soldiers will forget to complain about the work/environment etc and just point out how sgt so and so is full of sh*t, or wont stand up for them, or himself, or whatever.



"the possibility of sexual assault or harassment is much greater than it would be in the states. As females, we have to be vigilant and avoid any type of suggestive behavior which might incite or encourage inappropirate behavior in the male soldiers."? seriously? i know any chick in the military can cry "rape" or "sexual harrasment" and get all the attention she wants (whether its true or- personal observation speaking- most likely false), but that doesnt mean that the men are waiting for a chance to rape your female soldiers.



no offense, but i've met enough female "leaders" in the military to know that just having somehing (or the lack of something) between your legs is unfortunately an immediate qualification to get promoted whether you should be or not. most of the time i would say "an e-7 knows a hell of a lot more about leading soldiers than an O-3 does," however the worst NCOs ive ever met were female (druggies, literally sucked d*ck to get promoted, couldnt even qualify on the weapons range but got a waiver anyway, believed that the more soldiers they f*cked over the better they looked, got pregnant JUST to avoid deployment, even drug a dead soldier out of a body bag and pretended to try to do medical treatment to earn a CMB...take your pick of any of those, and i can put it to a specific female NCO). it might be coincidence and just my own experience...but when you know 10x more male NCOs than female ones, and the total number of bad female NCOs that you know outnumber the amount of bad male NCOs...yeah theres a problem there. so if your CO is saying she is a bad NCO, i'd take his word for it. no im not blindly chauvensitic, but im also not blind enough to ignore personal experience that creates patterns that extreme.



if you feel its wrong, talk to your CO in private. and if he dislikes her just for personal reasons, then yes he's wrong for voicing it. if he dislikes her for professional reasons, he may very well be right.

Answer 4

Yes talk to your CO. It's ridiculous for him to talk like that with her soldiers. If you're the XO, then you should be able to talk to him straight up. Explain to him your point of view. Sometimes, (most of the time) males don't see the reasoning in decisions that females make. Once he understands that it's for their own good, he should agree.



You're philosophy is ridiculous. If you are a great leader, I will jump through hoops, walk through fire, and exhaust myself for you. Lead by the right example. Granted I am only an E-4 but I know my job and do it well. I had a great 2LT and saw him get promoted in 2 years to captain and he's the most competent officer i've known.

Answer 5

Yeah, I think handling it privately between you and the Commander is the right way to go. Be tactful and he'll immediately recognize that he was undermining his NCO corp and rectify his behavior.



And if that doesn't work, you and that E-7 should TOTALLY make out.



Just kidding, I just have a policy about saying something sexist with any gender related question.



Good luck.