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If you are a Company Commander, you must have a unit newsletter. Your unit newsletter helps you communicate effectively with your Soldiers and family members.
In my opinion, communication is a key attribute to leadership success in any organization. One of the biggest challenges for part-time Company Commanders is “information flow.” Because most of your Soldiers and key leaders are only at the armory a couple days each month, it's challenging to keep everyone informed with the latest information. And as you are well aware, things are constantly changing.
And for some strange reason, it doesn’t matter how many times or how you disseminate information to your key leaders and Soldiers. There is always “someone” who doesn’t know what’s going on.
In some cases, these Soldiers were told, but forgot. But, most of the time the information flow gets distorted and doesn’t get disseminated properly. It’s very frustrating when you ask Soldiers questions and they don’t know what’s going on. Therefore, you need a solution to remedy this problem. The best way to do that is with a unit newsletter.
From your first day in command, you need to develop a unit newsletter. This allows you to keep everyone informed about what's going on. Your key to succes is to create a simple newsletter format and get input from your key leaders. More importantly, you need to get a good email address from everyone in your unit.
A unit newsletter is a viable solution to your unit’s communication problems. Instead of information getting distorted, everyone gets the same information at the same time, via your unit newsletter.
Your newsletter should mention upcoming training events and discuss last month’s training highlights. You should also recognize Soldier achievements. This includes reenlistments, promotions, transfers, retirements and awards.
What worked for me during my time in Company Command was the following. Two weeks prior to drill, my Readiness NCO emailed myself, the 1SG, Supply Sergeant and other key leaders. Each key leader wrote a brief article about their respective section. Their article was typically 2-4 paragraphs.
When they were finished writing their articles, they emailed it back to the Readiness NCO. He copied and pasted the articles and consolidated it into our unit newsletter.
When the first draft of the unit newsletter was finished, the Readiness NCO would email me a copy for review. I would edit as needed and send the Readiness NCO back a “final” version of the unit newsletter. The Readiness NCO would then email the newsletter to our entire company one week prior to drill.
I found this to work effectively for our unit. There still isn’t a guarantee that your Soldiers will actually read the unit newsletter, but at least you can eliminate the excuse of them saying they didn't get the information.
I will admit, there were a few months that our unit newsletter simply didn’t get done. But, overall it was a huge success. It helped me be a more effective leader, and it can do the same for you.
Learn more about Unit Newsletter Tips in our Company Commander eBook
