Coast Guard Leadership Philosophy

Leadership encompasses the skills to listen, observe, implement actions and build trust to achieve positive outcomes. It is not an innate skill but is something that develops usually with time and experiences. It evolves through working with others and being placed in situations that require decision making. It requires a person to implement their skills and can be difficult for some people to do. Leadership is the ability to make people feel comfortable coming to you with issues or concerns. It is taking the time to listen to people voice their opinions, questions, concerns and make efforts to resolve those items. It requires building a relationship of trust with people you work with, getting to know them on a more personal level and working

The three leadership values that I feel most align with my philosophy are communication, personnel development and talent management.

2. My leadership experiences in the Coast Guard have been varied and vast throughout my career. I had never considered myself to be a leader prior to the Coast Guard and have developed many of my leadership philosophies based on actions that made a significant impact on me whether it was positive or negative.

a. Basic training was my first experience with leadership and learning the process of talent management. I was selected to be the squad leader even though my goal was to try to be as inconspicuous as possible. It was my first experience having to be responsible for others whereabouts and for their actions while we were without supervision. I also was able to provide input to my company commanders about who I thought would be a good fit for other collateral duties in the company.

b. My most memorable negative leadership experience was while I was in a command position and correlates with communication. I vocalized my thoughts that were more negative than what I intended and immediately felt remorse from saying it. I did apologize to the

c. One previous OIC was the epitome of leadership and utilized personnel development most effectively. He was extremely organized, the subject matter expert on every operational aspect at the unit, the hardest worker and made sure he knew each crew member on a more personal level and made everyone feel comfortable. He was someone who, through his actions, made others want to work harder and be better. He participated in the large security events after he played a large role in the planning, he stood duty for members to take leave, he would put his tasks on hold to teach, talk, or listen. He was someone who I was grateful to have been able to work with and have tried to emulate since.

3. During my time at DCO school I was approached by multiple classmates asking for guidance or instruction on various topics they were unfamiliar with. I was able to offer my help using previous experiences. I often took the lead during small groups when no one felt comfortable speaking up and encouraged my classmates to participate more by asking directly what their thoughts or experiences were. I was able to follow the instructions set forth by both the class and squad leaders while each person learned a new