Doesn't matter if we have invested 40 Mil into developing a Senior Officer/NCM: the effects of their toxic leadership, especially if they're causing harm to their subordinates, costs us more in losing large numbers of middle and lower end employees due to a lack of confidence in their leaders.
I would rather see us eat the cost of a shitty leader early on than to bleed the middle dude to systemic issues caused by not ripping the band-aid off in the pre-OFP to DP1 arena.
I think very few people have developed any leadership skills by the time they hit high school, and really depends on what kind of examples you had to follow.
So shitty leaders not only turn into toxic assholes that impact a lot of people as they get promoted, they also set a pretty bad example that some will inevitably follow. So to keep going with the LCol Popov situation, I'm sure a bunch of the students felt like assholes and hopefully hoisted it in, some probably just had it bounce off and carried on, but I'm sure there were a few whose take away was they can get away with things and the old boys club will protect them. Similarly when they see people that that were jerks get promoted, it kind of reinforces that.
Know a few people who were terrible COs, but they started out as jerks as a D level (think new two ringer), were pricks as OROs, and graduated to intolerable assholes as XO. And when their behaviour kept getting them advanced in their career, not really a surprise, but it's not like they were great people that suddenly flipped when they got Command.
Personally found the 'unofficial' 360 feedback as a subbie probably the best thing ever at adjusting course as I tried to figure things out. Hopefully that still happens (but probably a lot more politely than what I got 15 years ago from people that had 20-30 years in at that point) but honestly think it's too late in someone's career when they hit the senior officer level, which is what they are talking about in the report.
All that to say is that RMC seems even more resistant to change than the CAF in general, so if they can't apply even a normal standard of behaviour for a university, let alone the high ethical standards of the CAF probably time to divest ourselves of a lead weight. We can easily divert the same folks to ROTP and ramp up other entrance plans to make up for it, and just partner with the many other researchers and organizations to keep looking at niche subjects with a focus on something particular to the CAF.
As an aside, it was actually a lot of extra work to do a thesis with experiments directly relevant to the Navy instead of just applying for the numerous industry grants, so tweaking the sponsored PGT program to streamline being able to put together a proposal and get funding would probably provide a lot of bang for the buck.
(edited a bit for some particularly bad run on sentences, but probably time for bed)
