What are your thoughts on leaders asking subordinates to write their own evaluations?

No one cares more about their careers than the evaluated servicemembers.

Real leaders wouldn't ask subordinates to write evaluations or awards without shaping the evaluation and providing feedback.

In the past, I've asked SFCs and MSGs to write evaluations on themselves as a development tool...I would check writing styles and keywords that may assist with future promotions.

SFC (Join to see) I have mixed emotions about that. I think that it puts the evaluated service member in a bad situation, where he/she is faced with "tooting his/her own horn", which many are reluctant to do. Should they really say how "great" they are? Should they reveal their faults? If they are actually honest about what they write, there will surely be some areas that they could improve on, areas that, if actually included in the report could result in their not being promoted or worse down the road. In addition, they will probably not pump themselves up as much as the rater would if he/she was writing the report. Of course, I realize that no leader worth his/her salt would simply take a report written by a subordinate and submit it without first editing/changing it as his/her own.

I think a better thing to do is to ask the service member to provide input to the report, but not actually write it. The evaluator could then pick and choose which information he/she feels pertinent and should be included.

I was once asked by my senior rater's (a three-star) Executive Officer to write my rater's OER (a colonel) for the three-star. I was very reluctant to do that because my rater was a terrible officer and a poor excuse for a leader. If I wrote it accurately, I would be crucifying him and, in all likelihood, ending his career. If I wrote a "good" OER, I would be lying (and everyone knew my boss was terrible). I objected, but was told that the LTG wanted me to do it. To make matters worse, later that day, my boss came into my office to provide information to me to include in the OER, as he had apparently been told by the XO that I was writing it. (I later found out that the XO had been tasked with writing the OER and he simply passed the buck to me). I asked the XO to let me talk to the LTG about this and he stated that he was not available. I really wrestled with this, but decided that I would write two .. one accurate one and one BS one and turn them both in, letting them know which I considered to be a more accurate assessment of his performance during the rating period.

The next day, I ran into the LTG, outside of the office, and asked if I could talk to him abut something. I told him how uncomfortable I was with writing my rater's OER for him and did not think it was right, especially since he knew I was writing it. The LTG was livid... He stated that there was no way that I should be writing my rater's OER and that he had not instructed that I do so. He told me to disregard and that he would take care of it. Apparently, the XO was tasked to do it and simply passed it off to me. I never heard anything else about it.

As an aside, about a year later, I became the XO to the three-star who replaced the one mentioned above. My old rater was still in the same position he had been in. After a series of incidents (missing suspenses from my boss, etc.), he was relieved of duty and reassigned outside the command and retired a couple of months later.

I think as a "draft" or discussion point it's a great incite to see how that Soldier sees him or herself