JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. – Nearly three-dozen senior soldiers from several Army Reserve units attended the Company Team Leader Course at the Maj. John P. Pryor Army Reserve Center here Feb. 3-8.
The Army Reserve’s 77th Sustainment Brigade arranged for the CTLC mobile training team to conduct the course, which brings leadership teams together to explore effective leadership techniques to overcome challenges in their units.
“Our course focuses on leadership development at the company and team level,” explained Maj. Oscar Rubio, CTLC director and team leader. “We focus mostly on giving commanders tools and tactics, techniques and procedures to improve their leadership skills and improve interpersonal skills within the team.”
Topics covered in the CTLC include Army standards, challenges of leadership, command climate, ethics, company operations, conflict resolution, motivating personnel, personality styles and combat-stress management.
Rubio said the CTLC is part of the new Army training model outlined in TRADOC Pam 525-8-2, The U.S. Army Learning Concept for 2015, dated Jan. 20, 2011.
“We focus on developing interpersonal skills, conflict management, identifying challenges within the units, we go into ethical discussions, we talk about commitments, and re-energizing commands,” he explained. “Our class is very interactive. We use videos and vignettes to elaborate on certain points.”
According to ALC 2015, this new model will allow the Army to better train and educate soldiers and leaders in individual knowledge, skills, attributes, and abilities to execute full-spectrum operations.
“(Students) leave the class by briefing what we call the Command Operational Plan, which encompasses a way forward or an action plan for how they’re going to implement the various subjects we’ve talked about,” Rubio said. “We create a vision as well, which is the centerpiece of this Command Operational Plan.”
“They take this to the unit and implement it to improve our units overall,” he added. “The key thing is for these soldiers to network after they leave us and help each other.”
Most of the CTLC students were commanders, first sergeants and unit administrators of company-level Amy Reserve units. Leadership teams are encouraged to attend the course together in order to obtain maximum benefit.
“It made us come together and assess where our unit is and it brought different perspectives,” said Capt. Erica Malouin, commander of the 427th Movement Control Team stationed in Horsham, Pa. “It brought all the different views together, which helped us form our vision statement, which we didn’t have before.
“It helped us put together how we were going to get (our vision) across to our soldiers, find out what our priorities are for the unit, and how we are going to empower our leaders to do that,” added Malouin, who works as an administrative officer with the Army Reserve’s 99th Regional Support Command here.
“The commander and I have two different leadership styles, and one of the things that was brought out during this class was recognizing leadership styles,” explained 1st Sgt. Trey Nichols, first sergeant for the 404th Signal Company here and a support specialist for 99th RSC. “I thought the course was very valuable.”
Courses such as the CTLC allow the Army Reserve to continue to provide trained, ready, resilient and accessible soldiers, leaders and units to the total force for the full range of operations.
For more information, email ARRTC-CTLC@usar.army.mil, call 502-626-7734/33/19, or visit http://tinyurl.com/Company-Team-Leader-Course-CTL.