BLC Day 5-9

Day 6 

I passed my PRT assessment with 77%. This was the one thing I was stressing out the most on. I missed 5 parts, could have missed as much as 6 and still passed. Later that afternoon was Squad Marching Drills. I passed this with 95%, missing 1.

Today was the last day of the Foundation Phase. Little did we know there was an end of phase assessment. The categories for scoring was Character, Presence, Intelligence, Leadership, Develops, and Achieves. This Assessing Attributes and Competencies was scored from 0-2. Zero being Unsatisfactory, one Satisfactory, and two Superior.

Attributes of Leadership
CHARACTER - (Army Values, Empathy, Warrior Ethos, and Discipline) - Integrity is a key mark of a leader’s character. It means doing what is right, legally and morally. Character is reflected in a U.S. Army professional’s dedication and adherence to the U.S. Army Ethic and the U.S. Army Values.

PRESENCE - (Military & Professional Bearing, Fitness, Confidence, and Resilience) - The impression a leader makes on others contributes to success in getting people to follow. This impression is the sum of a leader’s outward appearance, demeanor, actions and words and the inward character and intellect of the leader. Presence entails the projection of military and professional bearing, holistic fitness, confidence, and resilience. Strong presence is important as a touchstone for subordinates, especially under duress.

INTELLECT - (Mental Agility, Judgment, Innovation, Interpersonal Tact, Expertise) - The leader’s intellect affects how well a leader thinks about problems, creates solutions, makes decisions, and leads others. Each leader needs to be self-aware of strengths and limitations and apply them accordingly. Being mentally agile helps leaders address changes and adapt to the situation and the dynamics of operations. Judgment, as a key component of intellect, is an ability to make considered decisions and come to sensible conclusions. Leaders can reflect on how they think and better foster the development of judgment in others. Problem solving, critical and creative thinking, and ethical reasoning are the thought processes involved in understanding, visualizing, and directing. Critical thinking ensures that the person is engaged in the learning process, critically considering the information or practice of skills. Critical thinking requires analysis, comparisons, contrasting ideas, making inferences and predictions, evaluating the strength of evidence, and drawing conclusions. It also requires the self-discipline to use reason and avoid impulsive conclusions.

Competencies of Leadership
LEADS - (Leads Others, Builds Trust, Extends Influence, Leads by Example, Communicates) - Leads others involves influencing Soldiers. Extends influence beyond the chain of command involves influencing others when the leader does not have designated authority or while the leader’s authority is not recognized by others. Builds trust is an important competency to establish conditions of effective influence and for creating a positive environment.

DEVELOPS - (Creates a Positive Environment, Prepares Self, Develops Others, Stewards the Profession) - Leaders create a positive environment and inspire an organization’s climate and culture. Prepares self and encourages improvement in leading and other areas of leader responsibility. Leaders develop others to assume greater responsibility or achieve higher expertise. A leader is a steward in the profession who maintains and improves professional standards and effective capabilities for the future.

ACHIEVES - (Gets Results) - Gets results and accomplishes tasks and missions on time and to standard. Getting results is the goal of leadership while leading people and creating positive conditions.

These were taken straight off the assessing sheet. I was scored at the top of the Satisfactory, with a score of 9. The category was 0-5 Unsatisfactory, 6-9 Satisfactory, 10-12 Superior. My deficiencies were in the Presence, did not participate enough. Normally I would not argue with this statement, but I felt I had actually done the majority of the time. The other two areas were Develops and Achieves. I was not given any insight into these.

Day 7

With the start of a new phase, we received a new classroom along with instructors or facilitators as they call themselves. It was a nice change to get a different set of facilitators. All in all, it has been an uneventful couple of days. By day we are sitting in class going over the curriculum that will not be tested on and having group discussions about the topics. And by night some are working on their next essay due in 9 days. Day 10 we have an in-class essay due comparing and contrasting, something. We also have a public speaking assignment on our informative essay. This is why I have been trying to get the essay written so I can then set up a slide show to talk on. The day following this will be Conducting Individual Training, where we each have a class to give, training the class to do our assigned topic. Did I mention that this phase is allowing civilian clothes, after duty hours!?