I think good leaders recognize what talent they have assigned (and every member of every unit has some kind of talent), then they groom and use that talent to the unit's (and the soldier's) best advantage.
Caution Hoary War Stories follow:
Long ago in the "dark days" of the late 70s, shortly after the implementation of VOLAR and in the post VN draw down when the Army was probably at its nadir in terms of the quality of serving soldiers.
When I was a Plt Ldr, we got rid of Spec 5, 6, and 7 ranks--I had a number of good troops, who were not leaders but had great technical skills (BIG DISCLAIMER: this was a unit with a very complex strategic intelligence collection mission), all of a sudden become buck and staff sergeants. Fortunately, my PSG and I got to choose which of my E-4s got to be 2-stripers and which stayed as Speedy 4s. My E-5s and -6s were not so lucky--they all converted to SGT/SSG. The bad news was that I had to give many of them leadership roles for which they were not currently qualified and, in many cases, would never be qualified to perform. The doubly bad news was that I could not in good conscience recommend many of them for promotion. A poor buck sergeant (who had a been a great Spec 5) would make an even poorer SSG (even though his technical skills were more than good enough to get E6 pay as a Spec 6) and similarly with many of my SSGs becoming SFCs.
Nonetheless my original cadre of SSG and SFCs made it work--we actually whipped some of those converts into NCOs and continued to get our mission done with an average assigned strength of about 45 (versus an authorized strength of over 80)--most I ever had assigned was 62 or 63.
As Ken would say, that conversion was dumb with 2 B's.
I also agree about the Company XO and his "staff" of NCOs doing the heavy lifting with problem children. I XO'd a service company for an MI Bde--my 106 folks did much of what a BSB does in a BCT (although we were a fixed site, non-tactical operation). The company had 3 officers authorized: CO, XO, MP Security Force platoon leader--the last vacant for about half my tenure as XO. My company was the dumping ground for poor performers and clowns who lost their security clearances. My nucleus of strong NCOs, who were strong leaders because I let/made them do what they were trained to do as small unit leaders, made things work. They OJT'd reassigned intel MOS slackers to become wrenches, spoons, and drivers (63B, 94B, 64H) as well as various admin MOSC like 71L. My cooks, with the help of some of those cast off "misfits" from other units, won the Connelly Award for best food service operation in the Army.
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