Leadership in Focus is a new podcast produced by Jason Moriarty. It is designed to discuss current issues around leadership, as well as to broach relevant and hot topics for leaders throughout Army (and the wider Australian community).
Upcoming episodes will cover topics like 'PME within Army', 'PAR writing', 'service writing', and general discussions on leadership, mentoring, communication skills and more.
Leadership in Focus Episode #1
In this first podcast we discuss 'Authentic Leadership' and dive into what it means for junior leaders, how to apply it and tips to improve yourself as a leader. The podcast is a frank open conversation between Jason and Stuart Camac, a WO2 from 2/14 Light Horse Regiment (QMI), on what authentic leadership means in a military environment.
About the speaker:
Stuart Camac is a cavalryman from the Royal Australian Armoured Corps (RAAC) with 21 years experience. He has completed numerous postings throughout the RAAC and has also completed instructional postings to Kapooka, the School of Armour, the Royal Military College Duntroon and the Warrant Officer and Non-Commissioned Officer Academy. He is currently the Operations Warrant Officer at the 2nd/14th Light Horse Regiment (QMI) based at Gallipoli Barracks, Brisbane.
You are right. That time of year is nearly upon us. It's nearly as emotional as Christmas in my book.
PAR season is a time I think people can get a bit worked up, start to complain about stuff that 'might' happen, relive previous experiences and potentially become combative. To be honest, we should all know what the PAR already says without reading it because we have either done the work that is required of us or we haven't. We should also have been provided some guidance in the lead up to our annual reports by our assessing officers. That's something we should be asking for throughout the assessed period in order to make sure we are hitting the mark in regards to expectations. It doesn't need to be formal. It can just be as simple as "Hey boss. We've been pretty busy over the last month. Are you happy with what I've done so far this year?" I guess the approach you can try to take is not to be a passenger on the way to your annual report.
My final piece of advice is simple. Chill out and crack on. Nobody is perfect and having a perfect report demonstrates that your assessing officer either hasn't done their job properly or they haven't been paying attention. We all have weak areas that we need to work on. Our annual reports are an opportunity to have them highlighted to us so we can turn them into strengths. We just need to exercise a bit of humility and use the 5 days allocated after issue to process what has been said or prepare our arguments as to why we should be rated higher or have different language used in the word picture. Hot tip. Come prepared.
Also, make sure that the key descriptors are in the word picture. You need to make sure words such as excellent, outstanding, very good etc are used instead of weaker ones like strong or solid. Also watch out for descriptors that your assessing officer may have used that sound amazing, but when actually understood, mean the same as 'satisfactory'.
Regards,
Stuart Camac