The Leadership Gap the Navy Hasn't Closed

A few weeks ago, I sent the opening of my book to a sitting Engineering Department Master Chief I know through LinkedIn. I wasn't looking for a rubber stamp. I wanted to know whether what I'd written actually reflected the Navy he's living in right now, because I retired at the end of 2017 and the deckplates don't stand still.

He came back with something that stopped me in my tracks, and I've been sitting with it ever since.

His point was this: the enlisted community has revamped its leadership training. It's progressive now, keyed to every pay grade. A brand-new petty officer gets a foundation. A first class gets the next layer. A Chief gets the next one after that. By the time a Sailor puts on an anchor, they've moved through a structured continuum of leadership development that builds on itself, course by course, year over year. And then he said the part that matters: there is no officer equivalent.

I knew this. I'd been circling around it for the better part of ten years while I wrote this book. But he said it cleaner than I had, and he had the standing to say it. He teaches the enlisted curriculum for a living. He's Maxwell Leadership certified. And he'd just raised this same issue personally with a four-star admiral. So this isn't one Chief's opinion. It's a recognized problem that people well above my old pay grade are actively talking about.

Here's the asymmetry, laid bare. The Navy trains officers exceptionally well at the technical side of the job. Navigation, engineering, tactics, the systems that keep a ship alive and in the fight, you'll get that, and you'll get it from people who know what they're doing. But the human side of leadership, the empathy, the communication, the ability to read a room and give hard feedback without wrecking a Sailor, the soft skills that separate an officer who gets followed from one who gets tolerated, that you're largely expected to pick up in the wardroom. By trial and error. One scar at a time.

I'm not knocking the officers I served with. Almost every one I met over twenty-six years was smart and committed. But I watched too many of them walk aboard technically brilliant and leadership-blind, and I watched the Navy's answer to that be figure it out on the job. That works out for some. For others, it costs them their first tour, their reputation, or a Sailor's trust that never comes back.

That's the gap I was trying to write toward the whole time, without quite naming it out loud. The Master Chief's feedback gave me the words for it. So let me say it plainly now: if the enlisted side has a progressive curriculum for leadership, the officer side deserves one too. And until the Navy builds it, the Chief's Mess is where most of that knowledge actually lives. My book is one Chief's attempt to get it out of the Mess and onto the page, where a brand-new Ensign can read it before they need it instead of after they've already stepped on the mine.

The One Thing I'd Tell Every New Ensign to Start On Today

The Master Chief made another point that stuck with me, and it's worth passing on. The officers he interacts with are technically strong but short on empathy and soft skills, and those take time to foster. He's right, and "takes time" is exactly the reason you can't afford to wait for someone to hand it to you.

Here's what I want you to take seriously, and what most junior officers don't: soft skills are not something you're born with or without. They're a discipline, same as qualifying on a system. Empathy, active listening, reading a room, giving hard feedback without making it personal, receiving hard feedback without getting defensive, none of that is optional, and none of it is fixed. You build it the same way you build anything else. Deliberate practice. Repetition. Study.

Here's how I'd start. Pick one soft skill you know you're weak on. Just one. Find a book on it, not a Navy pub, an actual leadership book from outside the lifespan of your rate. Read it. Then go practice it on your division for two weeks and ask your Chief what changed. Then pick the next one. Don't wait for the Navy to hand you a course that doesn't exist yet. Start the clock now.

The Chiefs who taught me everything I know about what makes a junior officer succeed didn't learn it in a day, and neither will you. But they had a curriculum, even if it was an informal one passed around the Mess. This book is my attempt to write that curriculum down. The gap the Navy hasn't closed is real. The least we can do is stop pretending it isn't there.

Fair winds,
Don Sawyer