Posted on Jan 31, 2016
Is mentorship in the Reserves a thing of the past?
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I had an E-5 ask me about the maturity level of the Army Reserves and why the maturity level is less then he expected it would be. I explained that I believe it is due to a lack of mentorship and development. Leaders do not seem to be counseling or mentoring like they should and the subordinates are not seeking out the mentorship needed resulting in leaders that need more professional development
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 29
As a retired Army Reserve officer, it does hurt me to say this but in my experience, it is a thing of the past. I think a lot of this is due to a limited amount of training time and when it comes to doing something that is used as a metric for a Commander's OER vs. something that you cannot measure (mentorship) as easily, the measurable thing will win out. Those are what you can put on an OER and that is how many of the units in which served were measured. I spent many drill weekends focused on the latest mandatory training and not even on our battle tasks much less mentoring. That does not mean it is like that for every unit but when a Commander has to prioritize something, it will be what makes the unit look good on a slide. IMHO.
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SSG (Join to see)
I agree sir. I was a UA for the reserves for a stint, higher command is now concerned about metrics so all the training and stuff we did back in the 90's is out because we spend all our time completing surveys and online classes to get metrics into the green. Unit readiness and soldier readiness do not fit into the metrics..
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COL Jon Thompson
SSG (Join to see) - My last unit was in the 75th Training Command and we were supposed to be experts on the Operations process, MDMP, etc. There was a core of us who knew that but many of them (mostly field grade officers and senior NCOs) were far from SMEs. Yet instead of focusing on that, it was just as you said. Doing all of the mandatory training requirements to make sure our commander did not look bad. I was so glad to leave that unit and deploy to Afghanistan where at least I felt I was making a contribution.
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SSG (Join to see)
I joined a small Liaison team, it was not as bad, we could knock out all the computer stuff and still have time for training etc. but these larger units do not have the assets such as computers etc to allow soldiers to knock all that mandatory stuff out.
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We as leaders need to bring it back. I keep hearing CSMs saying back to the basics but I rarely see it in action when it comes to mentoring, but only in some silliness that people do when they have no real job to do.
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Mentorship is not a thing of the past in my unit. We are a training brigade from all branches including aviation and i like the diversity and how or leaders care. My unit cares more about the soldier completing his professional development than the yearly missions. I just hope this RP forum helps us all out. If the DOD is talking about having more Reservists and active duty work together for unit readiness, then I forsee improvements in readiness. I am also sure that command climate surveys will get this out in the open too.
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