At the age of nineteen I became ranked as an E-5 in the United States Navy and along with that came the responsibilities. The Navy does not joke around when it comes to being a leader; I had to learn this the hard way. My Chief had seen me slacking when it came to mentorship of sailors more junior than I, so he took it upon himself to correct my errors. Chief decided that he would give me a lengthy conversation about leadership where he was very explicit. He had continually insisted that the only way to lead in the Navy was to instruct and supervise. He wanted me to order people around and tell them what to do! I began to argue with him when he insisted that I follow him throughout the day to watch him as he lead his sailors. We go …show more content…
I began to have more conversations with my team and helping them with their problems. At any event my team would always see my hand as the first to volunteer and this, I hoped, would spark them to become better sailors themselves. The more and more my team saw me always helping and putting myself forth they began to emulate that same attitude. My team became more responsive to what I was telling them because they had seen that I was doing the work with them. I learned to ask them to do tasks for me rather than instruct them to do the tasks. The group of individuals I work with responded very well to this. Chief reluctantly told me that I had caused him to open his mind to other ways of leading, but my thirst for knowledge did not end here. This event caused me to reach out to other sailors who I saw were leading well. I had approached another E-5 and showed me how he would lead based on how who he was leading. For the most part he would instruct and supervise the new sailors while working alongside the tenured sailors. This form allowed the new sailors to easily adapt to their environment because without the explicit instructions and supervisions they would be lost while allowing the other sailors to feel more valued because of the freedoms