Don't Blame Subordinates

We are Friends Playing a Game

Time and time again we see leadership get frustrated when their elements end up out of position, forget a vehicle, or find some new and brilliant way to fail an order. Sometimes people are stupid, sometimes Arma is stupid, and it's likely to cause some frustration. Leadership should always try to relax, and then calmly deal with any issues or frustrations that may arise.

The fog of war keeps us from seeing the whole picture, and frustrating things will happen— if the whole team had been on the correct position you could have decimated an enemy element, or if someone had grabbed AT like you wanted, you wouldn't be staring down two BTRs with nothing but your sidearms.

What you didn’t see, however, was that a casualty hadn’t been called up and their buddy was overwhelmed treating them, meaning prior plans or intents may have been impossible to complete. Or that your RAT did run to the truck, but Bravo had already stolen all the tubes.

Assigning blame before we get all the information is unsatisfying. While it might let us blow off steam, it doesn’t actually address the issue, and you’ll end up frustrated again when a mistake is madeagain; it’s always better to find the root cause and find a way to address it in producitve manner.

Think about what you want at the end of the day. You want to have a good session. What is the most effective way to make that happen? Would you change your behavior if someone just blamed you for the problem? Is it worth addressing something immediately, or waiting for a cooloff?

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Practical Solutions

In the above example involving staring down two BTRs with no AT, the root mistake was a fireteam member's failure to call up a casualty which would have changed your decision making process.

A simple quick in mission solution is to take a second to talk with that member and walk them through the proper procedure (“you don’t have to be perfect, just call up ‘red team has an uncon’ and let me know, okay?”) and take the time to hear them out. Alternative post mission solutions are to DM this person after session or offer feedback in a leadership thread if they have one.

Always remember that it could be you on the other side— maybe you didn’t hear the radio call, maybe you forgot about them, etc.

Thinking about what you could have done differently to prevent the root mistakes from happening is also important. You can't always control other people's actions, but you can control your own. Maybe you could have used more specific language to avoid confusion. Would briefing your team have given them a better idea of the mission's plan and intent? Is there a way they could have passed you better information?

You don't have to assume failure is your fault, but there are always ways to improve both our team and our own actions so that there will be fewer problems next session. The only way that can happen is if you correctly diagnose and address the problem.