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CWO3 Garofolo earns the Captain Joseph Rochefort Distinguished Leadership Award

Vice Admiral Michael S. Rogers, Commander, US Fleet Cyber Command/TENTH Fleet announced that Chief Warrant Officer (CWO3) Stephen J. Garofolo is this year’s winner of the Captain Joseph Rochefort Information Warfare (IW) Officer Distinguished Leadership Award.

Bravo Zulu Warrant and congratulations to you and your wonderful Navy family!!   Your Shipmates are extremely proud of you.

Captain Joseph Rochefort was a major figure in the US Navy’s development of cryptologic and intelligence capabilities from 1925 to 1947.  He headed the Navy’s fledgling cryptanalytic organization in the 1920s and provided singularly superb cryptologic support to the US fleet during World War II, leading to the victory in the Pacific.  At the end of his career (1942-1946), Rochefort successfully headed the Pacific Strategic Intelligence Group in Washington.  In 1986, he posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contribution during the Battle of Midway.

Last year’s winner of this prestigious award was Commander Nicholas Homan, former Commanding Officer, Navy Information Operations Command Colorado.

Advice worth listening to from LCDR "BJ" Armstrong

…we all need to learn to listen. This is especially true as we become more senior. Today we may be the junior leaders, but that means tomorrow some of us will be the mid-grade leaders, and in the future some of us will be the senior leaders of the Navy. Sims is proof that when you remember it’s not about you but instead it’s about the idea and about the Service, you can continue to innovate as you are promoted. However, as a senior officer or senior enlisted it takes more listening and more encouraging of your subordinates, because they’re likely to have the next great idea…like convoys or aircraft carriers. Having senior leaders that listen, and who become the champions of the great ideas of their subordinates, is just as vital as having junior personnel with innovative ideas.

From his post on the USNI blog HERE.

High expectation

The high expectation of a Naval Officer is no more apparent than in the standard to which we hold those who occupy our pinnacle positions in the Navy, our Commanding Officers.  The perception of poor judgment, lack of ethical conduct, or disregard for fair and equitable treatment of those in the Commanding Officer’s charge can lead to immediate relief.  A larger consequence of the failure in legal and moral decision making is the erosion in that special trust and confidence in our military officers.  This is possibly the most damaging consequence of immoral or unjust military leadership.  Ultimately, a Naval Officer must make decisions that stand up to both legal and moral scrutiny.
Lieutenant James L. Hammersla III
Legislative Fellow to the 113th Congress

Reading Captain L. David Marquet’s book "Turn This Ship Around"

I only made it to page 23 and had to capture this for you.  I have been discussing this very topic for about 8 months with a Navy Information Operations Command Commanding Officer.

Paraphrasing here:

In every command and detachment, dozens of commanding officers and officers in charge are making hundreds of decisions to optimize the performance of their commands for their tours alone.  If they are doing anything for the long run, it is because of an enlightened sense of duty, not because there was anything in the system that rewarded them for it.  There is no evaluation of how well those commanding officers interacted with their peers or how well those commands interacted as part of the task force.  Nor do we associate an officer’s leadership effectiveness with how well his command performed after he’s left.  We don’t associate an officer’s leadership effectiveness with how often his people got promoted 2, 3, or 4 years hence.  We don’t track that information.  All that matters is performance in the moment. 

 We can do better that that as a community.  We must do better.