What kind of Leader are you?

I've always said this.

There are two types of Leaders in the Army.

2. Those who read regulations and see what is authorized.
1. Those who read the regulations and see what is NOT authorized or what is prohibited.

The best LEADERS see what is authorized. The majority of turds see what is prohibited.

I made my second to last First Sergeant so angry that she teared up when I told her that she was a "Prohibitor". These people disgust me. Edit to add: She was later relieved of her duties along with the Commander because of the shifty, negligent and malignancy of their Command. (I have to add that before some other hasty non-thinker tells me that she was tearing up because she wanted to punch me. lol I was 6' 0" and about 210lbs and could bench 408lbs at the time and a fairly adept bar room brawler at the time. lol Fear of a 5' 4" 140lb female was not something that I had. I never feared my leadership. I either respected them or I did not. Fear did not enter the equation as I was damn good at my job.)

I always read DA and DOD regulations with an eye towards what I could get accomplished. Too many Army "leaders" look to stymie their people with prohibitions.

I abhor these people.

ADDED LATER:

To expound a bit...

There are leaders who look at AR 670-1. They look to see what one is authorized to wear. The reg says that when it's cold, you wear cold weather gear. Then you have those who look at it and say that a soldier can only wear gloves WITH the Field Jacket. This was way before all of the high speed cold weather gear that you guys have now.

There were the folks who swore that you could only wear the long sleeve PT shirt with sweat pants or the jacket with the pants. Then I had First Sergeants who used common sense and said PT shorts with Jacket or Long Sleeve Shirt was authorized because everyone knows knows that there is no such thing as a Leg Cold. People get Head Colds. People get Chest Colds. No one has ever got a cold from wearing shorts.

It's a commons sense thing to some extent. It's a fear thing to another extent. It's lazy leadership to some extent. And, yet, some seek to actively prohibit soldiers from enjoying any benefit that they did not have when they were young soldiers. It's an "if I had to suffer when I was a Private, so, too, should you" mentality.

There are other examples out there.

What's worse is when you have NCOs and Officers who do not know a regulation AND THEN expound upon what action or item is authorized or, worse, not authorized and hold to it simply because either "that's the way it's always been done" or they don't know and are afraid to ask and reveal their ignorance or laziness.


There are also the CSMs who run around correcting people in other units but are ignorant of the regulations that govern the units in which those people work. Riggers are authorized certain uniform items that many others are not. Females can wear their hair in a pony tail in certain uniforms.

When I was in Camp Scorpion, we had a CSM visit and yell at a Female Officers telling her that her ponytail was not authorized and that she needed to put her hair up. Well, he was wrong. Because of both the unit to which she was assigned, her duties as a combat advisor and the uniform she was wearing, that Female Lieutenant WAS authorized to wear her hair in a pony tail.

I've seen so much of this.

It is one of the things which drove me out of the Army after a fairly successful career.

I was a Staff Sergeant who had served as a PBO, a Platoon Sergeant, etc. I served in some unique units such as JSA in Korea, The Old Guard in Washington, D.C., the MFO or Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai in Egypt. I had a fantastic career. Leadership, or lackthereof, drove me out. In part....in part. There were other things but horrid leadership pushed me over the edge.