Taking Charge of the Unit
Halstead decided to meet with every member of the Company, from enlisted corps to warrant officers (subject-matter experts with at least 10 years’ experience) to commissioned and non- commissioned officers. She wanted to learn their perspective–what they did and didn’t like about the unit, what was working and what was not–and also to create a culture of open communication where her Soldiers and staff knew they would be heard.
Within 30 days of taking command, Halstead had met with every member of the unit. These meetings enabled her to perform an in-depth assessment of the Company’s strengths and weaknesses, and helped her to align and deploy staff more effectively within the unit. The information she collected also helped her design better systems for tracking and follow-up of problems in the unit. Halstead immediately established a command philosophy for the entire unit based on a priorities list established by her boss and mentor Colonel Irby (See Exhibit 5).
Halstead also instituted daily after-action reviews (AARs) to increase engagement, accountability, and communication:
I started conducting daily after-action reviews; we called them AARs. I would meet in my office at the end of the day with the leadership, and I would keep this to a short time, because it was after-hours, so it would be 30 minutes. And everybody in the room had to give me something that went right that day, something that went wrong that day, and something they learned that day. As the Company improved, I moved the AAR meetings to once a week. A great outcome of the AARs was that as we started to communicate, which is a huge part of leadership, we redeveloped as a team.
To curb Soldier burnout from long hours at the ammunitions center, Halstead implemented rotating shifts. She also introduced innovative punishment for disciplinary matters in a Company that had been known for inconsistent and often disproportionate punishment. When two underage Soldiers were caught drinking and sneaking their girlfriends into the barracks for instance, Halstead sentenced both to spend a weekend living and working at a shelter for homeless men, many with substance-abuse problems:
I brought these two kids in and I said, “Here’s what we’re going to do. Next four-day weekend, and that’s coming up, you two are going down to Tacoma, to the shelter. And you’re going to give up your four-day weekend—and the worst thing you can take from Soldiers is their time–and for the four days that you’re down there under supervision and working with homeless and alcoholic men, you’re going to see the effects of alcohol. And then you’re going to write a 500-word essay, and present it to the Company, on what you learned (See Exhibit 6 for excerpts from each Soldier’s essay). Now, one kid totally turned around. The other kid didn’t, and that’s pretty typical; he got into more trouble. He had to fall farther before figured life out. But for me, part of leading is being innovative.
By opening up lines of communication in the Company, and responding swiftly, decisively, and consistently to disciplinary problems, Halstead began to turn around the Company. Within six months she had rooted out the drug problems; morale became noticeably higher and productivity and performance effectiveness increased.
For the exclusive use of J. Zhou, 2018.
This document is authorized for use only by Jing Zhou in Leadership-1-1 taught by Chenwei Li, San Francisco State University from January 2018 to July 2018.
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Halstead led the Company until March 1988. It was very important to her to hand over a well- functioning unit to its new commander:
It’s a huge responsibility, and you want to do everything you can to set the next person up for success and to set the new team up for success. I have another saying, which is: define your success by how you make other people successful. In that first 90 days, if something negative happens because we ill-prepared them, then we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. We should not be just going for the finish line—hand it over, we’re out of there. We should be extending that finish line.
Leadership Style: It’s Personal
In the ensuing 15 years, from 1988 through 2004, Halstead rose rapidly though the ranks and also earned two master’s degrees along the way. Between early 1989 and mid-1991 Halstead served as an assignment officer at the Ordnance Branch, U.S. Total Army Personnel Command, in Alexandria, Virginia. Halstead was responsible for assigning all of the ordnance lieutenants in the Army. Brigadier General Kurt Stein, who was then a captain and Halstead’s deskmate said:
Becky is very positive. That is probably her number-one strength. She has a positive, caring style. She cares about people a lot. She’s approachable, personable, as well as tactically and technically proficient. She’s just well-rounded. She’s the kind of person that you just want to be around. And she’s the kind of person that finds goodness in everyone. She is the kind of leader that makes you feel good about who you are and what you bring to the table. She’s a team player, and takes care of her people very well.
Stein and Halstead have remained close ever since, which he describes as decidedly untypical in the Army:
Once you’re out of an assignment, not many commanders stay in contact with you, personally, professionally, sending you a Christmas note or whatever it might be. And the fact that many people from all over keep up with her is telling. I’ve been in the Army for 34 years, and there are only a handful of officers that I worked for that I have stayed in contact with in a personal and caring way. And she’s involved. I surely wouldn’t go out of my way to stay in touch with most, because they didn’t touch me in a special way. Becky has touched her subordinates, and stays in touch with her subordinates in a special way that she has.
In October 1992 Halstead was promoted to the rank of major and received the promotion one year early relative to her year group of 1981 (which is based on her graduation date from West Point) and the promotions timeline followed by the Army.6 The following June she earned her first master’s degree, in Advanced Military Studies (Visionary Leadership), from the Army Command and General Staff College. In August of 1996 she was promoted to lieutenant colonel and also received this promotion one year early. In February 1997 Halstead assumed command of the 325th Forward Support Battalion, 25th Infantry Division, in Hawaii, under Division Commander General Tom Hill. She was the only female commander in the division. Said General Hill:
6 This is referred to as a “below the zone” promotion. According to Army Regulation 600-8-29, Officer Promotions, “Officers selected for promotion from below the promotion zone will be promoted following all officers on their promotion list who were selected from the promotion zone and above the zone but before all officers on the subsequent promotion list.” The vast majority (approximately 90%) of promotions occur “in the zone” with only roughly 10% being awarded “below the zone.” For a more detailed discussion of the Army’s promotions process please see armypubs.army.mil/epubs/pdf/R600_8_29.pdf.
For the exclusive use of J. Zhou, 2018.
This document is authorized for use only by Jing Zhou in Leadership-1-1 taught by Chenwei Li, San Francisco State University from January 2018 to July 2018.
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She was the best battalion commander in the division—not the best support battalion commander, not the best logistics battalion commander, the best battalion commander, period. I consider her the best battalion commander I ever had. She generated excellence in everything around her, because she is excellent in everything she does. And she does it in a very quiet, unassuming way. For example, when she led her support battalion for the brigade combat team at the Joint Readiness Training Center for two weeks of exercises—which is, by the way, without question one of the hardest exercises in the Army, as close to war as you can get without shooting real bullets—and at eight o’clock on the first morning, the guy in charge called everyone and told them to go by and look at Halstead’s operation, because in the first three hours she had set the standard by which they would grade all other battalions that came from then on. Her operation was impeccable. It was incredible.
Lieutenant Colonel Kirk Whitson, who served under Halstead in Hawaii explained the contribution of Halstead’s notebooks to her organizational and leadership skills. Early in their relationship, when he was a new commander serving under her in the 325th Forward Support Battalion, Halstead taught him a valuable lesson:
She had been the battalion commander for just a couple of months, and in that time she had given me a lot of directives and a lot of tasks to complete. She also had directed me to make sure to write things down, keep a record of everything. But I really hadn’t seen the point in making the extra effort.
I was in her office one day, and she asked, “Have you completed this? I wanted you to do this, and I don’t think it’s been done.” I said, “Ma’am, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t remember you ever telling me this.” And then she wheeled around in her chair and pulled out this large stack of green steno notebooks. She counted down the stack and pulled one book out; she started flipping through the pages, found the entry she was looking for, and showed it to me. It said where we were, the date and time, and that she had told me to do it. I looked at her, and said, “Yes ma’am. I have not done that, but I will!” And from that point forward, I understood why she told me to write things down. As a young company commander, boom, I got it. I understood that the details are important, especially in the Army in our line of work [logistics]. And I also understood from that point on: when she told me something, she meant it.
After completing her command of the 325th Forward Support Battalion, Halstead earned a second master’s degree in National Resource Strategy (Advanced Manufacturing) from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in June 2000. During the 10-month program, she became friends with a classmate, Janet Felts, who was then the Business Manger at the Navy Public Works Center in Hawaii and later served as a senior executive on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s staff working on civilian leadership development. Said Felts:
Becky is a very caring leader who has always put her Soldiers first, not only their well- being but that of their families as well, because she realizes that she will get the best effort from her Soldiers by making sure that their concerns about their families are taken care of. In her 30- some-odd years with the Army, Becky has come in contact with and influenced a lot of people. And it is very difficult to stay in touch with those people, but she makes the extra effort. It may just be a flash e-mail: “Hey, how you doing? I was thinking about you.” Or it could be something that she has found out about family members or issues that the individual is dealing with. Becky’s a very genuine person. If she’s talking to you, that focus, it is all on you and what’s going on with you. Her ability to be focused on even the smallest detail while having so many different things going on always especially impressed me.
For the exclusive use of J. Zhou, 2018.
This document is authorized for use only by Jing Zhou in Leadership-1-1 taught by Chenwei Li, San Francisco State University from January 2018 to July 2018.
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In June 2000 Halstead was promoted to colonel. This promotion came two years “below the zone” and marked Halstead’s third promotion in less than 8 years. Commenting on her quick rise through the ranks, Halstead said:
Consistency in my performance and consistently high ratings in my annual reviews were a big part of this, of course. But I was also very fortunate to have had some wonderful bosses and they were what right looked like. And I also knew what right did not look like–and the ability to discern between the two served me well.
Also in June 2000, Halstead became commander of the Division Support Command, 10th Mountain Division, a command that included duty as part of a combined task force in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.7 Major Martine Kidd, who served as a company commander under Halstead during this period, recalled:
It was Christmastime and she wrote a note, a handwritten note, and gave little mints to every Soldier in the Brigade. That was over 2,000 people. There was a production line, her driver and her secretary, and a couple of other staff officers would join us as they could. And we were stuffing these envelopes with all of her handwritten notes and these mints for every Soldier, individually. I thought: my gosh, here she was the brigade commander. She had so much responsibility. But that was really emblematic of the way she led. It was very personal. She truly cared about every person in her charge.
Lieutenant Colonel Kirk Whitson observed:
The unique thing about General Halstead, is that she has stayed in touch with me, guided me professionally and personally. She came to see me before I deployed, would come have dinner with my family instead of going to see the general for dinner. She would bring stuff for my kids, knew my kids’ names from Day One, knew everything about me. This lady is amazing, and she has this vast network of folks like that. And she truly—this is not some front or something—she truly cares.
Also, when she was my battalion commander in the 25th Infantry Division, when it came time for her annual officer evaluation, the commanding general of the division, General Tom Hill, rated her number-one out of all the commanders in that division as a logistician. She was against all these infantrymen; General Hill was an infantryman. I’ve never heard of anything even remotely close to that.
In 2002 General Tom Hill, who had become commander of the U.S. Southern Command since Halstead had served under him as a battalion commander in Hawaii, selected her as his executive officer. The two remain in contact, and Hill has continued to follow and support Halstead’s career:
People will walk up to me and say that they have served with General Halstead. And they say—and this is almost verbatim—every one of them, “I just love General Halstead.” I’ve never heard that said of any other officer I’ve ever met: “I like,” “I admire,” but not “I love.” And that’s what she is as a leader. It’s incredible. And humility is a good word. Everybody else gets the credit. And that renders her great support.
7 In early 2002 during her command of the 10th Mountain Division, her boss, three-star General Franklin Hagenbeck, asked Halstead to serve as the Senior Logistician in a Combined Task Force of subject matter experts from all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces to plan the upcoming mission in Afghanistan. Halstead spent 30 days in Afghanistan contributing her expertise while simultaneously maintaining command of the Division Support Command, which was based in Fort Drum, NY.
