Be technically and tactically proficient

Before you can lead, you must be able to do the job; the first principle is to know your job. As a Marine, you must demonstrate your ability to accomplish the mission and be capable of answering questions and demonstrating competence in your military occupational specialty (MOS).

Porridge Beta

Back to the universal principles

Calibration

Under, just right, over.

SituationUnderJust RightOver
Leading work you do not yet knowTakes the title and hopes the people who know it will carry you.Learns the job well enough to do it, answer questions, and judge the work.Refuses to lead until you are the best expert in the room.
A how-does-this-work questionPoints at a specialist and cannot say the next step yourself.Answers from the work, or says what you still need to learn and goes to learn it.Gives a lecture that buries the one thing they needed today.
The method has movedStays on last year's method and calls it experience.Practices the new piece until you can do it, then teaches it.Keeps practicing the new piece after you can already do it, and this week's work waits.
The next seat is already in viewWaits to be taught it after the promotion.Learns the duties of the next seat now, without dropping this week's job.Studies the next seat so hard that this week's job slips.
A tool you do not use yetKeeps the old way because you already know it.Learns the new way well enough to judge it, and drops the old way when it no longer serves.Chases every new tool and the team never settles.
Judging someone else's workApproves it because you cannot tell good from finished.Knows the craft well enough to catch a real miss and to leave a sound method alone.Rewrites competent work so it looks like yours.

Further reading

Sources and essays on this principle.

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