Photo By Chief Petty Officer Amanda Kitchner | NEW HAVEN, Conn. (April 5, 2019) – Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. John Richardson,...... read more read more
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NEW HAVEN, Conn. (NNS) -- Midshipmen from the Yale University Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) hosted their annual Yale Leadership Conference to discuss the dynamics of leadership and security in the context of a rapidly evolving military and world, April 5-6.
118 midshipmen and cadets from 32 ROTC units across the U.S. took part in the two-day conference. Guests had the opportunity to participate in panel discussions with officers from partner navies and leadership in key warfare areas and workshops hosted by experts from educational institutes across the U.S.
“We wanted to focus on unrestricted line communities, since those are the communities that nearly all NROTC midshipmen will commission into,” said Yale NROTC Executive Officer Cmdr. Adam Schlismann. “We did not want to restrict the leadership qualities that were available for speakers and panelists to focus on – there were many different backgrounds, career experiences, and outlooks represented at the conference, and we wanted a variety of different perspectives on leadership to be on the table for discussion.”
Experts leading the panels and workshops shared their experiences from both military and civilian organizations. Each discussion examined past, present and hypothetical future scenarios, and how the changing face of technology and cyber warfare will impact the force of the future, which helped construct a toolkit of best practices for participants to develop their leadership skills.
“The NROTC program and the Navy-Marine Corps team have a very solid foundation of leadership principals and traits, but what makes up a leader is so much more. Like the CNO spoke on, it’s about character, competency, and connections,” said Marine Lt. Col. Heather Cotoia, a student at the Naval War College who hosted one of the workshops held during the conference. “Being a leader is having emotional intelligence, and my workshop was based on expanding these concepts and helping midshipmen to develop their leadership style and ensuring that they keep their moral compass set on due North, there are a lot more opportunities to be lead astray in the modern Navy, so to keep concentration on their character and ensure the decisions they make have moral fortitude both in and out of uniform was a huge focus for me.”
Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. John Richardson, one of two keynote speakers for the conference, examined the key tenants of connections, competence, and character as defined in the Navy Leader Development Framework. This framework was issued in Jan. 2017 emphasizes the characteristics that make up the cornerstones of a successful naval leader.
“I want to give you a sense of the team that you’re entering and I want to give you a quick viewpoint of leadership development because that’s what you’re in the middle of right now,” said Richardson during his speech. “Navy leaders form our teams into a community with a deeply-shared commitment to each other, dedicated to the pursuit of victory. … Connections, character, and competence build trust and confidence.”
He also touched on the changes being made to the Navy evaluation and fitness report system, effecting enlisted and officers in both how they will be evaluated in their overall career as well as how they can expect to be screened when up for promotion.
“The evaluation system is more complicated than you might think, so we’re revising ours to deal with a number of things. One, right now our evaluation system speaks a lot to competence but says nothing of character. If I say that I value character and I don’t make it a part of our assessment and promotion process, then those are just empty words, so we’re making character a formal part of our evaluation,” said Richardson. “The other thing is that the current system forces a distribution of evaluation, it gives rise to these competitive behaviors amongst the team that erodes true teamwork, so we’re going to do away with that forced distribution because of that competitive dynamic.”
The second keynote speaker was Vice Adm. Gardner Howe, the Associate Director for Military Affairs at the Central Intelligence Agency. Howe spoke about what it really means to consider the Navy a ‘profession’ and how that distinction can help shape decisions to create cohesive character.
“My challenge to you is to find a way to apply this concept. The idea is that you are not just raising your hand, swearing an oath to the Constitution, gaining a commission, and getting a job, nor are you simply getting a “career” in the military,” said Howe during his presentation. “You are joining the profession of arms, you will be a professional in that sense of the word, and in the execution of your day-to-day duties – in uniform and out – you have got a moral and professional obligation in every action to enhance trust in those around you.”
Providing perspectives from partner navies; Sri Lankan Capt. Rohan Joesph, Indian Capt. Raghu Nair, Canadian Capt. Jeff Hutchinson, Greek Cmdr. Ioannis Agrodimos, and Norwegian Cmdr. Espen Rasmussen gave presentations on their respective navies’ makeup and history, and hosted a Q&A panel to help provide a more clear picture of how their navies work alongside the U.S. in the global theater.
12 experts led workshops discussing a myriad of topics such as historical events, foreign affairs, enlisted leadership, technology advancements, current events, foreign navy composition, current weaponry systems, and others.
“It was great to see the Chief of Naval Operations in person, I also really enjoyed learning about niche topics within the Navy, the workshops that we attended all touched on subjects and issues that are going to be at the forefront of our minds as we transition into being naval leaders,” said Midshipman 4/c Caroline Anderson, a freshman at Duke University who attended the event. “I think it’s very important for naval officers to have that educated outlook and knowledge of what is going on in the world to be able to make informed decisions. It’s cool to see different takes from experts and leadership and also to see the perspectives of other NROTC units and how they operate.”
While the conference served as a repository of knowledge for the midshipmen who attended as guests, it was also a leadership opportunity for the midshipmen assigned to Yale’s NROTC unit, who planned and coordinated the entire event from guest speakers and locations to security and scheduling.
“I have been on the Planning Committee every year since my arrival to Yale,” said Midshipman 2/c Ryan Bauman, who served as the conference director this year. “We began our work even earlier than in previous years and met more frequently than during previous iterations of the planning process. I believe that our hard work, attention to detail and anticipation of logistical challenges resulted in a seamlessly-run conference with the most impressive speaker lineup to date.”
NROTC was established to develop midshipmen mentally, morally and physically and to imbue them with the highest ideals of duty, loyalty and Navy core values in order to commission college graduates as naval officers who possess a basic professional background, are motivated toward careers in the naval service and have a potential for future development in mind and character so as to assume the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship and government.
Naval Service Training Command (NSTC) oversees 98 percent of initial officer and enlisted accessions training for the Navy, as well as the Navy's Citizenship Development program. NSTC also includes Recruit Training Command (RTC), the Navy's only boot camp also at Naval Station Great Lakes, the NROTC program at more than 160 colleges and universities, Officer Training Command (OTC) Newport, Rhode Island, and Navy Junior ROTC and Navy National Defense Cadet Corps (NDCC) citizenship development programs at more than 600 high schools worldwide.
For more information about NROTC, visit https://www.nrotc.navy.mil/ or for the Yale Leadership Conference, visit www.yalenrotcleadershipconference.org.
For more information about NSTC, visit http://www.netc.navy.mil/nstc/ or visit the NSTC Facebook pages at https://www.facebook.com/NavalServiceTraining/.
| Date Taken: | 04.05.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 04.09.2019 14:00 |
| Story ID: | 317431 |
| Location: | NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT, US |
| Web Views: | 543 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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