Are officer ratings based on results no matter how obtained?

Sir, I believe results are the driver absent OBVIOUS fraud or horrid treatment of others. The fact is that evaluations look at your RESULTS. And promotions and command selection are based off your paper file. If you keep it out of your paper file, it never happened.

This is nothing more than a fact in an industrial-aged, bureaucratic and centralized HR system where evaluations are highly constrained and someone who doesn't know the individual makes career decisions about them.

Good results will paper over a host of personality/integrity issues, unfortunately. Moreover, I think the AWC paper was right on track. I think that, while nobody "has ever seen it in my Army", the fact is that there is an "acceptable" level of fudging in official reporting.

That said, really blatant issues with integrity (the kind that require "official notice") will end a career cold. Additionally, being an ass -at least to peers - will torpedo a career.

(For the record, not saying that it is right, only that it is.)

Sir, This is one of my biggest pet peeves in reporting or trying to produce results to best suit the career of others. I can honestly say I am far from being a perfect officer and do understand that the feeling that sometimes a little smudge here and there never hurt anyone but it really does. I have seen more times than I can count that we must report everything green. There is no confidence in any level of leadership to report the red or amber because Leaders fail to get involved with the fix it plan unless it directly involves them. So yes, we are a result based evaluation to get the aforementioned.

Sir: The Air Force and Navy publicize the firings of their O-5s and above more than the Army does, although apparently about the same proportion of Army O-5s and O-6s are fired. Perhaps a bit more transparency from the Army would help us understand what sort of things get folks fired; at the moment, it seems unclear (beyond sexual assault) what the Army considers to be a fire-able offense. As the War College study suggests, dishonesty / fudging / integrity issues are rampant, and, from the comments related to that study, a very high proportion of Soldiers think there is nothing wrong with the status quo, or can otherwise justify such activities.

Results matter. Getting to the point where method matters as much as results may require an acknowledgement by senior leadership that 1) the Army actually does hold folks accountable for character issues / toxic leadership / Etc and 2) that not all of us are perfect, meaning that not everyone individual and unit is always 100% squared away, and that is ok (after all, leading 100% squared away ip individuals and units---the ones described in the War College study---probably wouldn't require much leadership effort). The MSAF, new NCOER, new OER, crackdown on SHARP issues, and concern about toxic leaders suggests the Army is moving in the right direction. The Army should publicize these efforts more aggressively--but as with many issues, the Army just isn't very good at strategic messaging (to the force, Congress, and the public).