Army Development of Junior Leaders

[RTK]

The problem I encounter is, that our 1SG stresses us to send more soldiers to the promotion board.

I hope what he means is to send more of the right Soldiers to the promotion board.

We are VERY short on NCO's, but have an abundance of eligible E4's. Some of them are ready and it is due to the "negligence" of their leaders they are not sent to the board; however, many of them are not ready.

Make the eligible and capable ones corporals as a "try out." I remember back in the day (Christ, now I feel old) when the corporal was the most feared NCO in the company - because he had to prove his leadership every minute he was death on minor infractions and competent in the corrective training it took to eradicate those infractions.

If they're not ready they shouldn't go to the board. From a commander's perspective, I've always been willing to go shorthanded with the right people than heavy or overmanned with the wrong ones.

Another issue is, our policy makes it mandatory that every eligible E4 has to attend a soldier of the month board prior to attending the promotion board, but only one soldier per unit is allowed to attend the SOM board. This means that only that soldier can attend the next promotion board - so in our unit only one per month get promoted (if they are even recommended).

How is this different than teaching to the test?