The change leadership paper is a critical reflection on change leadership considering the leader’s knowledge, skills, and abilities required for leading change at the team level, with stated implicati

Running head: A PROFESSIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL PATHWAY 1 Required Change for a Professional and Educational Pathway Ryan Temple University of Charleston A PROFESSIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL PATHWAY 2 Abstract Required c hange needed for the professional and educational support personnel attached to Naval Special Warfare (NSW) commands . Many of these members suffer on promotions and ranking boards because their evaluations do not match those of their peers. By creating a professional and educational pathway upon checking in to NSW commands, members will have an outlined plan to succes s. The senior leadership must take ownership to create change within the organization. As the change agents , it is imp erative that the se leaders understand the use of self, plan change effectively , respect the individual, and remain aware of the member ’s focus a s guiding principle s throughout the change process. Specific pathways will be deeply personalized and require much oversight from the leadership to maintain the individual ’s focus through the process. Th e possible results of a pathway will lead t o a more successful organization with higher morale. The program will also groom the next generation of future leaders to understand the right way to do business as a leader and as a change agent within the organization . A PROFESSIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL PATHWAY 3 Naval Special Warfare mans, trains, equips, deploys, and sustains NSW forces for operations and activities abroad in support of combatant commanders and U.S. national interests (NSW Mission, 2019) . Of the roughly 9,000 military members who make up NSW , two -thirds of those members are support personnel. Support personnel brings unique qualification s to the organization , like intelligence analysts, operations specialists, gunners’ mates, and corpsm en, to name a few. They play a vital role in the success of high -profile operations , like the Osama bin Laden raid on May 2, 2011 . Many of these sailors pick 3- to 5-year orders to NSW without understanding the full ramification that choice bears on their promotion and career . Since these sailors come from the fleet , they will rank amongst their peers within the fleet. Because NSW is a small scale organization within the Navy, many of the sailors will be working in small teams. In the eyes of big Navy on ranking boards, NSW evaluations for those support member s do not hold much weight, and typically they are looked over for promotions. This stigma kill s morale and make s for a toxic work environment if not addressed appropriately and with the proper professional and educational pathway established for the personnel. Proposed Change Naval Special Warfare Unit Four will create and formalize a pathway for each support personnel to maximize his or her professional and educational opportunities while at the command. This pathway will not just focus on his or her primary job within the military ; it will also focus on secondary qualifications that could help b oost the support personnel on promotion boards. The Commanding Officer will issue an instruction to codify this pathway requirement for the command and its members. Why Change is Needed Currently, the potential for support personnel within NSW to recei ve promotions and select ions for specialized programs is low. This unfairness fosters a toxic work environment within the commands and wreak s havoc on retention. The current system also hinders the organization by inhibiting its ab ility to screen support personnel who want to take these orders. Since many support A PROFESSIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL PATHWAY 4 personnel is not enticed to accept these orders, detailers give orders to any person that fits the rate and rank of the orders. This random process of detailing means th e orga nization is not getting the best high -level achievers because the se top -tier candidates look to other places that they know will catapult them into promotions. The Change Agent Use of Self The most important part of starting the change within the organization is the use of self -awareness within the senior leadership ranks. “One of the ways that change agents can achieve greater levels of awareness and understanding of Self in their interaction with the client, which is coupled with enhancing their awareness and understanding of the client system, is the concept of presence” (Jamieson, Barnett, & Buono , 2016, p. 174). Senior leaders need to engage with the support personnel and create a positive environment to understand their personnel’s goals for the next few years. “Positive presence is achieved when a change agent is able to be authentic and intentional in every client interaction, fully harnessing his or her Use of Self” (Jamieson et al., 2016, p. 174). They must be authentic in their demeano r and express to given personnel that they genuinely want to help the individual. Being authentic a lso allows the change agent to gain a higher level of awareness and understanding of themselves and the member in question . This process creates the concep t of the change agent being presen t and authentic. "Presencing impacts the way people perceive and imagine the future” (Jamieson et al., 2016, p. 174). “The lesson for change agents is to understand, hone, and harness Use of Self in such a way that their presence within a system enables true presencing across the individuals and groups of that system” (Jamieson et al., 2016, p. 174). Plan the Change The Navy has created a Learning and Development Roadmap (LaDR) for every rate within the Navy (Navy COOL, 2019) . It is updated annually and is a tool a sailor can use to optimize his or her career toward advancements and educational opportunities. The LaDR (OPNAVINST 1500.77 ), w ill A PROFESSIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL PATHWAY 5 allow for senior leadership to meet with the individual to map o ut the pathway for change and establish a sense of urgency at the moment they check into command . This interaction will provide the leadership with useful insight into which qualification s the member may need to help them be more valued on promotion board s and create a vision for the member . Creat ing a pathway with short -term goals will also help to keep the member engaged. The plan will not only work between the support personnel and a senior leader but also with all the stakeholders at the command. “Planning the change involves engaging key stakeholders in the design and implementation of the desired future state” (Jamieson et al., 2016, p. 175). The professional and educational developmental pathway will have many stakeholders within the command. The commanding officer will need to agree along with the master chief . The pathways will need to be aligned with operational tempo and concurred upon wi thin the operations department with zero impact to the mission. Lastly, the final steps for the pathways require rank ordering the sailors and deconflicting with the fiscal year budget . Respect the Individual Due to a high operational tempo, most serv ice members pick shore duty orders to "take a knee." Detailers will even force some member to shore duty after m any long and arduous sea duties to help preserve the service member for future sea duties in later in their careers. The problem is that NSW sh ore duties are not "take a knee" type s of assignments . Most personnel on shore duty find themselves away from their families just as much , if not more than those on sea duty . This operational tempo can make many service members reluctant to begin an educational program or consider going to another military course to gain more qualifications that would help with promotions. Some members of the organization may want to spend t heir free time rebuilding their family life. The organization and the leadership need to understand this and approach the topic of change in a positive matter concerning the individual if they do no t want to pursue a pathway right away. “Respect for the individual asks the change agent to acknowledge that change is difficult and that individuals within an organization may be in different places on the change continuum” (Jamieson et al., 2016, p. 178) . Every person is at a different point of A PROFESSIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL PATHWAY 6 his or her life and various places within the change continuum. "A key takeaway is that a one -size -fits -all change methodology is often not the wisest approach ” (Jamieson et al., 2016, p. 175) . Developing the plan of change should only be guided by these four princip les , not a rigidly followed plan with the possibility of ignoring feedback. Be Aware of Client Focus Being aware of client focus is one of the most critical aspects of change. Unfortunately, this part of the change has a high probability of being dropped by the change agent. “Being aware of client focus is the final dimension, and requires the highest level of competence and awareness from the change agent” (Jamieson et al., 2016, p. 179). Many forsake this part of the process, and it usually ends in the planned change failing or slowing down tremendously. Even though a supervisor may have laid out an excellent pathway for an enthusiastic person, they will eventually fade over time . There must be continued awareness o f the member's focus , and superiors should be able to step in at first sight of a derailment of the pathway. Time changes circumstances , so the pathways need to be tailor ed as personnel navig ate life. This pathway to change is not one that a supervisor can “set and forget .” Reflection Where Are the Gaps? The most significant gaps are in the leadership of the member. Even if the command creates an instruction for members to follow, each leader acts different ly in how personal they get with other personnel . Many leaders will believe it is on the member to look out for one’s career , and they do not want to babysit and tell a person what they should be doing for their careers. Since t he Navy is made up of many different rates, leaders tend not to understand the career path for other sailors . This failure on the part of the leadership happens daily within the military. Other leaders do not believe in sending personnel to gain other qu alification that does not fall directly within their line of work. Again, another failure with in today's leadership. This pathway process may be more straightforwar d for small commands to have a more personal touch with the individuals. Larger commands will probably struggle A PROFESSIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL PATHWAY 7 with this unless the department leadership takes ownership of it. It will even be harder for sea duty commands to send folks to school while they are haze gray and underway for six to nine months. Many of the larger commands strug gle with the lack of necessary qualifications in the first place. They are not even entertaining the idea of sending folks to school for qualifications outside of the ir rate. Online classes are also hard to take while on a ship due to low connectivity to the Internet and limited computer space. The workload and watch standing rotations damper an individual’s motivation to seek out educational opportunities while at a sea duty command. They would rather spend their off time resting for the next watch that they will be standing. Families also play a huge role in why some members do no t seek out as much opportunity as they would like. When sailors do get to a shore co mmand, they would rather spend time with their families than travel to another school for a qualification or take online college courses towards a degree. Many NSW sailors are gone 260 days out of the year for training and deployment. Sailors attending a school to get a degree may be the furthest thing from their mind s. However, if they are sat down with senior leadership and showed the educational opportunities , like Joint Special Operations University and all the online courses they c ould take , may chan ge their focus . What Could Go Wrong? Any number of things could go wrong with a person’s pathway. One major problem with the military is that the leadership changes roughly every two years. For this transition to succeed , the leadership must provide significant support to make these pathways happen. It also takes time for these pathways to come to fruition due to class availabilities and funding. Additionally, a ll of the stakeholder s need to align in purpose , or their differences of op inions could hinder the whole process. Not all leaders agree with sending members to schools for qualifications outside of their rate , which could prove an issue. Funding could get cut and kill pathways for individuals , as well. Unforeseen travel and mi ssion requirements leave sailors with unpredictable schedules to plan for anything. Deployments can hinder pathways as well; often , NSW deploys to place s with terrible bandwidth to complete online classe s. A PROFESSIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL PATHWAY 8 Family illnesses pop up and derail a member’s fo cus. Command s ha ve had to deal with diagnoses of cancer within families that hinder the focus of the services members for a few months. Deaths in the family are unexpected and take heavy tolls on members , both mentally and physically. During the month before an d after PCS moves , lives are pretty much put on hold and very hectic for the families. Making rank can slow down sailors pathway s. The Navy does an E7 indoctrination for the members that will pin on E7. This indoctrination requires a month of heavy stress on the individuals with little time to do anything else but focus on all the crazy tasks given to them to complete before their pinning. Some members may select for Officer Candidate school (OSC), Limited Duty Officer (LDO)/ Chief Warrant Officer (CWO) Academy, or the Senior Enlisted Academy that can take months to complete. The Captain has told commands that they would decommission with in the year. That drains much bandwidth from the operations department to figure out how that s ituation will play out. Some commands are still going to deploy members, so all the funding, support, and coordination between Theater Special Operation Commands (TSOCs) and the embassies needed to be hashed out . Many sailors deal with homeport shifts wi th the ship that they are on, which also hinder s them. Conclusion Individual pathways need to be personalized to each member with substantial oversight from the leadership to create that vision with a sense of urgency. It takes just a little bit of tim e to sit down with the member and hash out a 2- to 5-year plan with short -term gains . The pathways will need tweak ing as life changes over time, and the leaders need to help the member maintain focus. With just a little bit of effort , a leader can drastically change the morale in his division. In t he long -term , these pathways will creat e better future leaders that w ill one day use the same approach under which they trained, creating a more knowledgeable, experienced , professional group of future leaders. It will be impossible to get everyone to agree with all the pathways , but helping just one sailor out proves the work i s all worth it in the end. This process could be further supported if the O -6 Captain at the ec helon three commands would A PROFESSIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL PATHWAY 9 get on board and push this initiative down to all the echelon four commands. However, as long as a personnel member can make t he changes in his or her control for the better of the members below him or her , then that is mission success. A PROFESSIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL PATHWAY 10 References Jamieson, D. W., Barnett, R. C., & Buono, A. F. (Eds.). (2016). Consultation for organizational change revisited. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. U.S. Navy COOL. (2019). Understanding your LaDR. Retrieved June 9, 2019, from https://www.cool.navy.mil/usn/resources_and_links/understanding_your_ladr.htm NSW Mission. ( 2019 ). Retrieved June 15, 2019, from https://www.public.navy.mil/NSW/Pages/Mission.aspx