The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Transatlantic Middle East District recognized eight employee’s completion of the district’s Leadership Development Tier 1 training during a graduation ceremony held 5 September.
Leadership Development Tier One is part of a 3-tiered program within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that cultivates future Corps leaders. The district’s commander, Col. Christopher Klein, alluded to the importance of the program in his opening remarks.
“There are a lot of things we have to invest in as a district but growing our future leaders is number one,” Klein said.
He also noted that in addition to the leadership skills the class learned, it also helped develop a stronger team.
“There’s a lot of personal development in this class but one of the biggest benefits I see in this program is that it brings together people who might not otherwise work together as members of a team which benefits the entire organization.”
The current class was the first one to go through a new curriculum that was based on feedback from previous graduates. The new version of the program involved more mentorship and was also designed to make the capstone project more applicable to the workforce.
Klein said that the mentorship was not only an important aspect of the program but also an important aspect of learning to be a better leader throughout a person’s entire career.
“If you have 1000 employees in your organization, you have 1000 mentors because every employee is an opportunity to learn something from.”
According to Vanessa Francis Gray, a previous graduate of LDP 1 and an advisor to the most recent class, the changes proved beneficial to the organization.
“Previously the capstone project involved an overview of local Civil War battles and the leadership lessons learned from them. It was a fun project but a lot more abstract. This capstone involved the class looking into ways we can improve TAM’s project delivery team process and is something that could ultimately improve our organization.”
Francis Gray said that when she went through the program it gave her a much better understanding of USACE.
Mitch Lawrence, a civil engineer in the current class agreed and said it also gave him a much better picture of TAM as a whole.
“As an engineer, it was very easy to find myself down in the trenches in engineering. This afforded me the opportunity to learn about what others do and paint a bigger picture of how the entire organization functions as a unit,” said Lawrence.
The Leadership Development Program is available in most USACE districts. Tier One is designed as an entry-level overview of leadership skills. The second tier provides a deeper dive into leadership principles and continues the team building aspect. Tier 3 is conducted at the Division level and is designed to give a bigger picture perspective of USACE with more intense longer term capstone projects.