My Breach Goal

In today’s Army the expectations of a senior leader are very high. They must be strong in a large amount of areas and provide specific detailed guidance to foster a team to come together and accomplish the mission at hand. The opportunity to develop these skills while at the Air War College (AWC) away from the fast paced operations tempo that the force provides is rare. In this paper I will outline that for my success in the National Guard, I will set stretch goals in the areas of academics, professional and personal and define how I will accomplish them. In the area of academics, my stretch goal will be to receive an “A” grade on a major writing assignment. Using the first writing assignment as a quantifiable tool it is obvious that I struggle in the area of professional writing. To
improve my abilities, I will self-enroll in the writing assistance classes provided at AWC and aggressively use and reference the writing rubric as tools for a path to success. My professional stretch goal during my tenure at AWC is to become more of a strategic thinker. Although hard to quantify, I will use my previous two Multi Source Assessment and Feedback (MSAF) reports to establish a baseline. These two reports highlighted how I always revert topics back to the simple tactical and operations point of view. This area is the most challenging for me because the strategic level of thought is out of my comfort area. At the end of the course I will again ask for the MSAF except it will only focus on the individuals that I have interacted with this year. I will compare the baseline results to that of the final results and determine if I was successful. My personal stretch goal will be to shift from introversion to extraversion.
Throughout my career I have always been an introvert when it came to complex issues. I tend to focus on my inner self. Using the Myers-Briggs where I was assessed as an INTJ repeatedly for the last five years, it clearly shows my repeated tendency towards introversion. Upon completing the Right to Lead Assessment (RLAM) during the first week, the results only reinforced the Myers-Briggs results. There are many ways to shift to extraversion and I will try many throughout the year. I will also solicit fellow students within my seminar for honest feedback. Again at the end of the year I will retake the above mentioned assessments to see if there is any significant change. In conclusion, I have outlined that for my success in the National Guard, I will set stretch goals in the areas of academics, professional and personal and defined how I will accomplish them. I believe I can accomplish these stretch goals with appropriate discipline and honest feedback from my peers. The ability for senior leaders to identify weaknesses and deliberately change them only makes them stronger, better
leaders.