Changing paradigm

When I was in BOLC III, there was always someone with a story about some lieutenant who thought he was all that plus a bag of chips . They'd come busting into the platoon like they knew everything and invariably end up embarrassing themselves.

I was determined that would not be me.

Unfortunately, I seemed to have gone to the extreme in the other direction. I was trying not to micromanage the platoon; instead, I've been too distant. In trying to let the platoon sergeant "take care of NCO business," I've been uninvolved. All that time I thought of myself as a "helper," and "the least important guy in the platoon," I was "not being a leader."

So now, after nine months, I've got to change my perspective on what it means to be a platoon leader.