It depends on what part of the Navy you are dealing with. In this day
and age, USN Chiefs tend to be micromanaged and second guessed on a
daily basis. This is especially true in submarines and on some
surface ships where nuclear-trained officers are present. In my mind,
the Chief Petty Officer in the USN is no longer a leader. They are
expected to be Enforcers and Managers for the wardroom. In my ten
years of active service, I have seen more and more JOs who simply
refuse to listen to the Chief, and still do well in the eyes of the
senior officers. In the Navy I was told about when I was young, and
in the one I joined in '93, the CPO was greatly respected up and down
the chain of command. Not any more.

Part of the problem is the Navy's culture of leadership, or lack
thereof. As I understand it, other services begin training people in
leadership at the E-3 level. In the Navy, leadership training barely
starts at the E-4 level. Until a Sailor makes E-5, they get very
little formal leadership training. Sailors are not taught to command
or make decisions. They are taught to simply read the tech manual/PMS
card/work package and obey it. Learning is by rote memorization of
facts and figures. So now we have a whole generation of Sailors -
people going up for the Chief's board - who don't even know how to
make a simple decision without referring to documentation. Those who
know how to make decisions are afraid to for fear of reprisals from
above.

Don't get me wrong. I'm second generation Navy. My dad is a retired
BMC. I have an enormous amount of respect for many of my chiefs. I
feel their pain, and despise those who have sold out to the wardroom.
Those who try to uphold loyalty and respect up and down the chain of
command, tell the truth, and be apolitical are quickly given bad evals
and sent into retirement. Those who kiss ass are quickly sent up the
ranks. Welcome to the age of the zero-defects mentality, courtesy of
the Nuclear Navy. The ghost of Admiral Rickover lives on...

On Sun, 19 Sep 2004 22:48:07 GMT, "Doug \"Woody\" and Erin Beal"
wrote:

On 9/19/04 8:44 AM, in article ,
"R. David Steele" /OMEGA wrote:

The biggest area is the MI analyst and counter intelligence
agent. Both are officer functions in the Navy. The Army uses CI
NCOs and Warrants, in NIS is almost all officers. The same for
Army CID work.

But even at an infantry platoon level, the NCOs take on decision
making that it seems in the Navy is done by the division officer.
The Chiefs may supervise but are just not the leaders that Army
NCOs are.


I don't know what your background is, but you obviously haven't seen CPO's
in action.

Navy Chiefs are some of the most empowered decision makers in all of the
armed services. Naval officers RELY on their chiefs... Those that don't are
bound to fail.

--Woody



----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups
---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption =---