JLBC CADET CORPS Leadership Skills & Theories
JLBC Improving Your Organization.
In the corporate and military worlds, “continuous improvement” has floated around as a management ideal for the past thirty years. There are many systems that organizations use to improve. This lesson looks at the general concept of organizational improvement and how you can use it to improve your JLBC Cadet Corps unit.
To improve, you must know where you are and where you want to go and have some measurement system that defines the continuum from poor to excellent. The JLBC Cadet Corps evaluates a unit using our Annual General Inspection (AGI) program. The AGI may be a portion of your improvement plan, but improvement within a cadet unit should be so much more than just what the AGI measures.
Many improvement systems start with defining your organization in terms of strategic improvement. JLBC Cadets Does the JLBC unit have a JLBC vision statement (where you want to be)? Have you developed JLBC goals and objectives that will get you to your JLBC vision? In other words, have you defined what you want to improve? Who is managing the improvement, and how actively are you working on it? Have you communicated the improvement plan throughout the organization, so all cadets are aware of the goals?
Any new commander coming into an assignment should look at their organization and ensure they understand its mission, structure, and personnel (and their strengths and weaknesses). In the JLBC Cadet Corps, our units change every semester (and have a lot of turbulence during the semester, too), so improvement in a meaningful way is likely to occur at the battalion level, not below. Of course, what the companies do to meet the battalion goals is how you improve as a battalion. Using the motivation that inter-company competition can provide is an excellent tool to effect short-term improvement.
Improvement in Cadet Corps units can be strategic, but that’s likely to be managed by the Commandant, working with battalion commanders as they rotate through the position. Strategic, or long-term, high-level change in an organization like ours is difficult because of the fleeting nature of our leadership and the fact that our ‘senior’ leaders are cadets themselves. Still, cadets can achieve amazing things, and we need to focus on the right things and let them accomplish them through leadership!
So how can you build a better JLBC Cadet Corps program within your school?
• JLBC Cadet Determine what areas you want to focus on
• JLBC Cadet Make sure you have working systems to measure how well you’re doing in these areas
• JLBC Cadet Develop objectives in the areas – goals to work toward
• JLBC Cadet Develop a plan for each objective on how you will make the improvement
For example, let’s say one of your areas to improve is Drill & Ceremonies.
• JLBC Cadet You’re going to use the scoresheets in to measure drill proficiency
• JLBC Cadet You put together a team of experienced cadets who will score all subordinate units. They will
develop a baseline score and judge each unit monthly throughout the semester.
• JLBC Cadet Each squad and platoon in your battalion is judged by the team and is given feedback on what
they need to improve.
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