When you first take Company Command, you are required to conduct a Command Climate Survey.
In essence, a Command Climate Survey reveals the leader morale and Soldier morale within your company.
In addition, the Unit Climate Survey also helps identify what is working well and what areas need to be improved.
You should conduct a Command Climate Survey within your first 30-days as the new Company Commander, and they are really easy to do.
You can have someone from your battalion S1 Section administer the survey for you.
Or, you can bring in someone from outside your organization to conduct the survey (recommended).
Once you get the results from the Unit Climate Survey, you need to look for patterns and trends.
If you find 5-10 or more surveys that all say the same thing, you should conduct your due-diligence to find out what is causing the problem.
And, if possible, fix it immediately.
On the other hand, if you see “major issues” or “major concerns” brought up 1-2 times you should still look in to them.
There might be a major problem that only a few people are willing to bring up.
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Another key to success is to share the results of the Command Climate Survey with your Soldiers.
You could type up a summary sheet and give each Soldier in your unit a copy.
You could also have a short meeting with your troops to discuss your findings and inform your Soldiers on what you plan to do about it.
Personally, I think this is a wise idea.
This “positions” you as a strong leader with a solid game-plan.
Remember to follow through.
Don’t just conduct a Unit Climate Survey and forget about it.
That’s poor leadership.
Also, make sure you inform your key leaders and Soldiers about what you did to fix the problems.
As you fix the problems, keep everyone informed by sharing the information in your unit newsletter, sharing information at formation or by posting the results on the unit bulletin board.
Talk with your soldiers and subordinate leaders whenever possible.
Find out their concerns and worries.
Make sure that they know they can approach you with a personal problem, or something that affects the entire unit.
When you see one of your Soldiers, pull them aside and ask them how their morale is.
Ask them what’s working well in the unit.
You could even ask them, “If you were the Company Commander today, what one thing would you improve in the unit?”
This technique worked well for me.
Additionally, after 12 months in Company Command, you should conduct another Command Climate Survey to monitor the progress of your company.
Did unit morale improve?
What about Soldier morale?
If unit morale and performance improve drastically, great job! If not, keep working at it.
Remember, strive for progress not perfection.
If your company can continue to make small improvements every month, you will make great progress in a year’s time.
In conclusion,
Command Climate Surveys are a very helpful resource for Company Commanders and First Sergeants.
In addition to being a mandatory requirement, these surveys also help Company Commanders improve the Soldier morale and unit morale within their company.
Do you have any comments or questions?
Please post them below and have a great day!
Chuck Holmes
Former Army Major (resigned)
Publisher, Part-Time-Commander.com
Email: mrchuckholmes@gmail.com
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Climate surveys are such a useful tool and they are so often not used. It gives you an easy way to find out if their are any major problems in your section or if there are any trends that you need to fix or encourage.
If ten people say that discipline is lax, then that means you can start working on that problem right away instead of waiting weeks or months to figure out this problem.
Plus when you do the follow up climate survey you can see how your fixes worked.
Great advice and I recommend as someone else stated, all businesses and organizations use this same approach. I love where you said to just pull a soldier aside and ask them how they are doing. This will show that you are a strong leader who truly cares about your soldiers. I believe one of the biggest morale breakers is when an individual just feels no one really cares. Personally, I think it would be a good idea to perform this survey every 6 months. It will provide you a steady measure of how your unit is developing.
Surveys can provide great information for any leader, including those in the role of Company Commander Being able to effectively prepare, implement and assess a survey is important. Failure on any of those legs pretty much makes a survey useless. I like that you reminded leaders that they cannot just due the survey and then not follow through. Good tips for strong leadership!
Thanks for the information about the Unit Climate Survey. I believe all organizations (businesses, sports teams, non-profits) should use this same process whenever someone new starts a job. It’s a great way to find out some of the basic problems and challenges in the unit.
Thanks for the comment. I couldn’t agree with you more. The information you can collect from the Unit Climate Survey is absolutely priceless.
Chuck