A Leader's Job Description
Study.
Reveille is your Monday morning wake up from Borrowing with Pride. Make your bed.
Duties and Responsibilities of Platoon Leadership
Does your current role or job match the job description? Have you been asked to write your own job description (before, or after a new role)? Do interpersonal vows constitute a job description (to have and to hold)?
Most job descriptions are not great, even when they are good. Overly specific, too generic, pulled from a data base (or written by consultants, true story), generated from AI, rewritten by lawyers, and once you have a job, the chances you will ever see the job description again? Close to zero.
However, even without quality, an organization’s job descriptions yield a tremendous amount of insight into how an organization defines leadership and its expectations of a leader. This will not be found in the job description of a c-suite executive; you need to search this out in how an organization describes the duties and responsibilities of its junior leaders.
In ATP 3-21.8, Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad, the US Army describes the duties and responsibilities of the officer and non-commissioned officers in an Infantry Rifle Platoon. These job descriptions define the expectations of the junior-most leaders in the Army (officer: Platoon Leader // enlisted: Team Leader), as well as other critical roles, including the Platoon Sergeant (who is neither junior in leadership experience nor senior in rank to the Platoon Leader).
They are the literal embodiment of ‘front-line’ leaders.
Ask yourself: How do you characterize the job of a leader?
Weekly Materials: 10 - 14 March, 2025
Requested reading:
ATP 3-21.8, Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad
Pages 1-7 through 1-12 based on printed document (PDF pages 27-32)
An overview of the roles and responsibilities of most leadership roles in an Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad.
While you read, always be asking:
1. Where does this fit with my professional life?
2. Where does this fit with my personal life?
3. What can I borrow with pride to use this week?
Start the Week Strong
The Creed of the United States Coastguardsman (Link on US Coast Guard website):
I am proud to be a United States Coast Guardsman.
I revere that long line of expert seamen who by their devotion to duty and sacrifice of self have made it possible for me to be a member of a service honored and respected, in peace and in war, throughout the world.
I never, by word or deed, will bring reproach upon the fair name of my service, nor permit others to do so unchallenged.
I will cheerfully and willingly obey all lawful orders.
I will always be on time to relieve, and shall endeavor to do more, rather than less, than my share.
I will always be at my station, alert and attending to my duties.
I shall, so far as I am able, bring to my seniors solutions, not problems.
I shall live joyously, but always with due regard for the rights and privileges of others.
I shall endeavor to be a model citizen in the community in which I live.
I shall sell life dearly to an enemy of my country, but give it freely to rescue those in peril.
With God’s help, I shall endeavor to be one of His noblest Works...
A UNITED STATES COAST GUARDSMAN.
Revisit or Catch Up from Last Week
Links to the Study and Guided Discovery.