Leadership - What can and cannot be done?

[MrMustard]

There is something that has been bothering me for some time. I remember my instructors on Basic Training would often do push ups with the troops if they assigned them to do so. I.e., "your boots are polished, I want 20 push ups!" and as the troop got on his/her face, so did the instructor.

When I got back to my unit I often heard that 'they' - the instructors - had to do it. Meaning, they could not assign something of they were unwilling to do it themselves. I understand (and truly believe) that this is a leadership issue and one should always lead by example etc - i don't argue that for one second.

However, my curiosity is whether or not there is some 'rule' out there stating what you can and cannot get troops to do (in terms of punishment or correction) on a basic training? How far is too far in correcting behaviour? I don't feel the principles of leadership really address this in any way, so I'm not sure if it's a training plan thing, a course officer decree, a course WO order or what haveyou.

 

[bdave]

I had it explained to me as being something that wouldn't enable instructors to give impossible orders: "Do 2000 pushups".
The instructors do it so they know what it feels like and so if they can't do it, then the troops can't/won't/shouldn't.

 

[Greymatters]

Your basic question should be - what exactly are you trying to accomplish?

Punishment as applied by a supervisor to a subordinate is supposed to be a reminder that the subordinate commited an error, but not a big enough error that they should be marched in front of the commander.  They still get punished but in the 'old school' way.  It is a positive way of passing on a message to a subordinate that they still need to improve themselves without having a formal record on their charge sheet.  "You screwed up, here's your punishment, get over it, learn from it and soldier on".  These punishments are not just physical actions like pushups, but include extra training, getting unpopular shifts, working on extra tasks, or doing administrative dutuies.

The problem with this system is that not all supervisors are good ones.  Ive seen this system used to punish soldiers for daring to disagree with a supervisor, making a supervisor look bad, for doing actions that the supervisor didnt like even though it was correct, attempting to instill fear in subordinates, a few times just out of plain maliciousness, and even times where the supervisor feels that someone just needs to be made an example of for the rest.  Is the supervisor actually giving a punishment or just screwing around with the troops because he can?

Thus the unwritten (sometimes written) rules / guideline of 'never assign a task to someone you cant perform yourself'.  Its not only a good leadership principle, it keeps those supervisors who abuse the system from giving excessive physical  punishment to subordinates still learning what they need to do to be a member of the CF team.