Line Officer Syndrome (written 2003, reprinted 2016)
Although I have been out of the Navy for about 15 years, I find myself thinking back on the advise my first department head (LCDR Ron Garcia) gave me when I was an Ensign in 1981. The subject was "The Line Officer Syndrome" and went to the heart of what this good officer perceived as the flaw in the promotion system.
The vast majority of junior officers are temporary employees. The promotion system of "up or out" assures this.
Officer promotion is based on having superior fitreps. Superior fitreps are based upon an officer being "head and shoulders above" their peers. The two ways of achieving this elevated position are by being so clearly superior that an officer's peers raise him (or her) upon their shoulders. The other way is to "whack them off at the knees"; as one's victims fall upon the stumps (in a manner of speaking), the axe wielder is automatically "head and shoulders above" his (or her) peers.
The "Line Officer Syndrome" is simply doing whatever it takes to get enough rank to be able to retire eventually. You must mislead and damage your juniors; they will some day be your peers. (In hind sight, I think LCDR Garcia should have added "help the weakest of your juniors as they will some day be your peers and will make you look better.) [It might have been too obvious I was likely one of weakest one. 2016] You must do whatever it takes to harm your peers; they want to rob you of the promotions you so desperately need. You must out preform your "seniors" as this shows you are ready for early promotion. (Note that I said "seniors" as I believe that many Line Officers do not believe that anyone could be "superior" to them.)
An officer playing the "Line Officer Syndrome" game must never forget that the officers "senior" to him or her are successful players and could take him out. Teamwork on a ship is lineral within the divisions as the officer(s) are not competing with the Chiefs and sailors. If there is a junior division officer within a division, the more senior officer will be tempted to play the game. (I was the junior officer in my first division and still remember the games the more senior Ensign played. When I became the more senior officer, I refrained from playing the game because I knew my career was so damaged that it would be futile.)
The Line Officer Syndrome is between the officers and it would take strong leadership from a department head, XO or CO to get these officers to work together as a unit and to believe they all fail or succeed as a group. These officers must be made to believe that their competition is within a different wardroom.Since my at sea days ended decades ago, I have no idea of how much the Line Officer Syndrome infects the Navy. However, a recent article hinted that it is still strongly entrenched among [surface] "ship drivers".
This leads into the subject of office politics, of seeking allies, of defending your allies and making all others looks bad. If you can hide or minimize your enemies successes and inflate your enemies little errors to major crisis while minimizing your allies errors and inflating the value of your Allie's successes, then you are playing politics well. (I did not learn this in the Navy, I learned it by watching the folks I now work with!)
I suppose I could address the lovely myth that fitreps are truly impartial save that we all know they are not. I still recall one XO telling me that fitreps "were management tools designed to shape careers"; I also remember rewriting evals "by direction" of my department head before he would forward them up the chain. I vividly recall one (female) LT telling me of our CO showing her a "kiss of death" fitrep our department head had penned and the XO had passed on. Our CO had then written a career enhancing fitrep for this officer. (As this happened in the late 1980s and all the officers concerned are not longer in the Navy, I won't give further details. The department head retired as a Naval Captain several years ago.) [The Department Head was the Operations Officer James Francis Etro - 2016]
If I sound cynical then I can only quote Ambrose Bierce's "The Devil's Dictionary": "CYNIC, n, A blackguard whose faulty vision allowes him to see things are they are and not as they should be".
posted by Mike @ 3:10 PM
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