There's so much irony there. I taught my Marines that our recruits would believe what we told them about being able to shoot well and run fast and drill perfectly. And here I was trying not to believe what people were saying when they said I was a bad leader.
After the inspection, the inspection team briefed me and my staff on the results of the inspection. The inspector general, a colonel, had been talking to Marines throughout the battalion as he conducted the inspection. I had told him, “This place is yours: Talk to anyone you want to.”
But who do you suppose sought out the IG? The same people who sought out Colonel Haas. The IG was great—he came into my office at the end of the day and back-briefed me for the three days they were there.
“You've got detractors,” he told me, “but you've got a lot of Marines who like what you're doing and who are very happy with things.”
Unfortunately, that comment never made it into his report.
Even though we did well, it was clear to me that Colonel Haas wanted me relieved of my command. And, unknown to me, one of my Marines filed an anonymous complaint against me on April 10, 2015.
So, in April, the general decided to do a command-climate investigation to see what my Marines thought of me.
A command-climate survey should give a taste of the morale of a unit and provide insight on where improvements need to be made. Sergeant Major and I had briefed the results of the previous survey to everyone, in order to be transparent and to show them that we were committed to changing the battalion for the better.
But filling out the survey is not mandatory for the battalion staff, and ours was online, which meant that everyone used the exact same password to complete it. That meant people outside the battalion could complete it. It also meant the same people could take it more than once. Also, the regiment tailored the essay questions in a way that would ensure that they got the information they wanted from the participants. The essay questions for my battalion had a completely different flavor from those of the other training battalions. Good researchers avoid this when they develop surveys: confirmation bias. In other words, be careful how you ask questions, unless you want to ensure that you reach a preconceived conclusion.
You can probably imagine how the survey went for us.
Well before I arrived, Fourth Battalion had a history of negative command-climate surveys. Think about it: You're asking a bunch of people in a high-stress situation at boot camp to talk about how happy they are—folks who don't get enough sleep or time off and who are fairly grumpy anyway.
Commanders are required to administer a survey within ninety days of taking command. When I administered mine, I looked for issues related to trust and accountability that we could address. But I didn't simply assume that all of Fourth Battalion was a miserable place to be, based on the comments, because I knew that the Marines who tend to fill out the surveys are those who have complaints. Again, it's not mandatory to fill out the surveys.
In the survey they took when I assumed command, the Marines complained that people hadn't been held accountable for things like driving drunk, having inappropriate relationships with other drill instructors in the unit, and sleeping with recruits. The second-biggest complaint was that no one understood why certain Marines were selected for senior drill-instructor positions. The third-biggest complaint was that no one in the chain of command—from the battalion up to the depot level—seemed to care about staff shortages and exhaustion.
After receiving the survey results, I looked for indications of drill-instructor and recruit abuse, and I sought ways to improve the command climate, starting by making sure our Marines knew why we made decisions about punishments, assignments, and rewards. Increased accountability required first laying out expectations for performance and behavior, and then holding feet to the fire when Marines legitimately screwed up. We implemented monthly award formations, increased the number of awards given to Marines who excelled, and started sending positive feedback to the company leadership when Sergeant Major and I saw good things happening during training.
We also took every opportunity to increase transparency by debriefing our teams about investigation findings for alleged DI misconduct, as well as requiring that one observer from each company be present at any nonjudicial punishment hearing. I hoped the Marines would see that I took the command philosophy of “Confidence, Accountability, and Pride” seriously.
But, in addition to rewarding my Marines, accountability also meant I had to make corrections, counsel Marines when they underperformed, and, worst-case, fire those who couldn't meet my standards. The command-climate survey from 2014 demonstrated that the Marines wanted accountability, and we used the results to constructively plan for improvement.
But in April 2015, I knew the survey directed by Colonel Haas would not be used for constructive purposes. As soon as I read the essay questions, I was well aware that the results would be used to bolster Colonel Haas's assertions about my leadership.
When I read the investigation after my relief, it confirmed what I suspected about the command-climate survey: Because the password was the same for all Marines, and you could take it from
