Photo By Scott Sturkol | Fort McCoy Garrison Commander Col. Sheyla Baez-Ramirez speaks to students in the Army...... read more read more
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Fort McCoy Garrison Commander Col. Sheyla Baez-Ramirez and Deputy to the Garrison Commander Cameron Cantlon held a “lunch and learn” session Jan. 15 with students during the Army Civilian Education System (CES) Intermediate Course being held for the first time in session on post.
The hour-long information exchange featured Baez and Cantlon answering questions about their leadership experience as well as their opinions on leadership situations.
Baez discussed some of her experience of working with civilian employees during her Army career, and what she has learned.
“I have worked with civilian employees at all levels — very junior level to very high level. … I have been in the Army Reserve for many years, and I know that … your GS-7s, 9s, and 11s are the people who carry the water, who carry the bulk of the work that is done in the Army Reserve. And I know that when I was company commander, I had a (unit admin employee), she was a GS-7, and she … worked super hard every day.”
Cantlon opened his part of the discussion also talking about leadership.
“When your formation is getting things done without you telling them to do it, or without you there personally involved in it, that’s success as a leader,” Cantlon said. “Good organizations do the right things without the leadership presence, because they already know what the expectations are.”
Cantlon also said in order to be an effective leader, you should be “genuine.”
“That's a big part of leadership — be genuine,” Cantlon said. “If you’re genuine with your team, if you generally care about your team, they will understand. You don't have to ask them, ‘hey, do you know that I care?’ They already know. They also know if you don’t care. … Be genuine with your team.
The top civilian employee for Fort McCoy Garrison also said leaders must remember they’re not perfect.
“As leaders, you're not perfect,” Cantlon said. “No one in here is perfect. … You know, you’ve all got flaws. … I should say we all have flaws. I've got flaws. You know, I’m just old enough and experienced enough and screwed enough things up that I’m fully aware of a number of them. … Being a servant leader is accepting the fact that you do. Because your subordinates, they care, but they’ll see past it because they’re not perfect either. So, it goes back to be genuine, be that kind of leader that your subordinates need, and they’ll do the rest.”
Baez said leaders should understand the operations tempo, for example, of their team and understand where they can provide the best leadership.
“I know that we have a higher operations tempo during the … spring and summer months … than what we have in the fall,” Baez said. “So as leaders, we have to be able to plan ahead so we can try to minimize. … We have so many things going on that are going to affect the performance of the employees. So as leaders, we have to learn how to be organized, and we have to learn how to delegate.
“(Also) I am the person who can underwrite the risk, who can accept risk,” Baez said. “What I can do to help my employees when the operations tempo is … I’m going to prioritize for my employees. I'm going to tell you these are the five things that I need you to accomplish. Everything else, I will assume the risk. … I will assume the risk for something that is not done because I’m not going to stretch my employees to the point where they’re breaking.”
Baez also described the importance of evaluating decision making as a leader.
“When we are looking at standards and discipline, I know everything is not black and white,” Baez said. “You know, sometimes it's a gray area when we are dealing with people. … People are complex, and there’s different situations that when you try to equate one situation with the other, it (can be) very difficult. Because we’re dealing with people, we’re dealing with feelings, we’re dealing with professionalism, we’re dealing with different backgrounds, and things like that, so the first thing that I will ask is that we look at standards and discipline. That should be the baseline, right?
“That should be the baseline,” she said. “You have to have a very delicate balance, because some people might feel that you are hanging them out to dry if you are not supporting their cause. But as leaders, we have to make hard choices, and when I have something where I have to pick or make a decision between the two people, I try to look at big picture. I think about risk, and I think about negative impact, and if the impact to one of those people is going to be detrimental, I will probably make a decision trying to minimize the impact on that person because there’s something that I can probably do down the road to help them.”
Cantlon gave some answers when asked about ethical dilemmas and advice on how to handle them.
“I would say … leaders… you’re going to have choices, (such as) do you give somebody some time off or not,” Cantlon said. “You know employees of yours need some time off, but they don’t have the time … to have it, or they want to work. … That’s one of the dilemmas I think you’ll see right away is time. … Allocation of work, I think that'll (also) be an ethical dilemma you’ll see.
“How to fairly distribute work,” Cantlon said. “As a supervisor, you want to be equitable. You … want to be equitable in who you work to. Just because we got, say three firefighters, and one’s really good, who’s a hard worker, and gets work done all the time, you can’t keep going to that person to give them extra work. It’s a dilemma. It’s a lot easier to go to them, isn’t it because they'll get done? So the dilemma is, as a leader, you’ve got to find a way to share it properly, and equitably distribute the workload so that you have ample opportunity, and then reward. Evaluate and train as necessary to try and get them all working together.”
The advice and answers from Baez and Cantlon served up support for the people training in the CES Intermediate Course and reflects what the course is all about. According to a course description available at https://armyuniversity.edu/amsc/courses/intermediate, the course
“prepares current and aspiring Army civilian leaders (GS 10-12) to become more innovative, self-aware, and prepared to effectively lead and care for personnel and manage assigned resources at the organizational level.”
The description states the course is required per Army Regulation 350-1 for Army civilian supervisors in those grades.
“Training and developmental exercises focus on self-awareness and development, effective team leadership, and creating conditions to accomplish the mission and improve the organization,” the description states. “The Intermediate Course learning outcomes are: develop personal character, presence and intellect; prepare to move from leading teams to leading organizations; create and support a Mission Command environment of leading, developing, and achieving; and develop a Civilian Corps whose members exemplify the Army values.”
Fort McCoy’s motto is to be the “Total Force Training Center.” Located in the heart of the upper Midwest, Fort McCoy is the only U.S. Army installation in Wisconsin.
The installation has provided support and facilities for the field and classroom training of more than 100,000 military personnel from all services nearly every year since 1984.
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/fortmccoywi, and on X (formerly Twitter) by searching “usagmccoy.”
Also try downloading the My Army Post app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base. Fort McCoy is also part of Army’s Installation Management Command where “We Are The Army’s Home.”
| Date Taken: | 01.21.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 01.21.2025 12:18 |
| Story ID: | 489391 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 35 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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