Beyond Metrics: Integrating Command Culture with Operational Readiness

Abstract: Command culture is a critical force multiplier for Navy Expeditionary Logistics. Leaders must apply Navy initiatives such as Culture of Excellence 2.0 and Get Real, Get Better, to their commands to achieve excellence through psychological safety, decentralized command, and learning-based environments. Readiness does have a cost but cannot be bought. It is built with deliberate leadership, time investment, and careful human factors.

 Introduction: The Connection Between Command Culture and Readiness

Command Culture dictates how a command meets its objectives and establishes command through its values, beliefs, and behaviors. It is interdependence between material readiness and the human factors used to complete an assigned mission effectively and sustainably. Material readiness is just the starting point, not the finish line. Fighting adversaries and meeting operational objectives requires a mutual relationship between culture and readiness. As culture improves, so does readiness; culture is a critical factor in expeditionary logistics.

The Importance of Culture in Expeditionary Environments

Strategy is something often associated with military planning; culture is something that exerts great influence on how units execute strategy at the deck plate level. It shapes how people behave under pressure, communicate, and how they stay aligned despite unclear guidance. Expeditionary operations are often conducted in the most challenging environments. If a cultural model succeeds in complex and resource-constrained environments, it is applicable anywhere. Trust and resourcefulness, combined with the freedom to solve problems, helps to determine whether a team succeeds or stalls under pressure. The demands associated with supporting deployable forces in permissive, austere, and even hostile environments require maximum adaptability under stress, degraded communications, and limited resources. When things go wrong, culture – manifested as trust, resourcefulness, and decentralized problem-solving – breeds success. It can be the difference between success and failure in the most unpredictable environments. Culture applies to all naval operations, including those with lower risks. Over-reliance on metrics generates a checklist mentality and a risk-averse atmosphere that suppresses honest reporting, stifles innovation, and drives messaging that doesn’t mesh with reality.

Cultural Challenges in Navy Expeditionary Logistics

Navy Expeditionary Logistics encompasses everything associated with sustaining deployable forces in permissive, austere, and hostile environments. Maintaining flexibility in such environments creates operational hurdles, demanding specialized units within the Navy Expeditionary Logistics Support Force (NAVELSF) that manage rearming, refueling, and resupply operations. Unlike other units, expeditionary logistics units bring together active-duty and reserve Sailors who do not always operate with the same training rhythm and experiences. There are often issues with systems access, training platform availability, access to equipment, and even integration between reserve and active-duty commands. The solution is not just adding more training and equipment but eliminating these barriers and building a culture where both reserve and active-duty work from the same playbook. Well-documented procedures are not checklists but a shared cultural language that ensures consistency, efficiency, and safety regardless of a Sailor’s training cycle or component status. Reservists are not simply administrative help. To build true readiness, reservists must own the problem and execute impactful work.

Recognized Frameworks: Get Real, Get Better and Culture of Excellence 2.0

Readiness is more than meeting manning and equipment requirements. It lays the foundation upon which culture is built. Without baseline equipment and personnel, even the strongest culture is destined for failure. To build a high performing command, there must be a solid foundation to build up from. Great culture is the foundation of warfighting readiness, and cognizance of command climate is the decisive variable that closes the gap between high‑ and low‑performing units. In March of 2024, the Navy launched the Culture of Excellence 2.0 (COE 2.0) to formally define and institutionalize positive culture. This initiative asserts that great people and great leaders produce great teams. COE 2.0 creates psychological safety and provides a chance for all Sailors to speak up and feel valued, addressing suicide prevention, warrior toughness, mental health support, and sexual assault prevention and response.

The Get Real, Get Better (GRGB) framework also highlights the correlation between readiness and a positive culture. “Get Real” assesses and highlights material gaps, while “Get Better” – via the addition of a positive culture – solves problems. A readiness-driven culture does not ignore material deficiencies; it prevents them from killing missions. Accountability under GRGB should not pinpoint blame but empower Sailors to fix their problems at the root cause. This means the climate must be oriented towards learning rather than punishment. This philosophy empowers a command to own outcomes, actively listen, and continuously improve team performance.

Leadership’s Role in Culture

With both initiatives, commands can transform culture from a meaningless and hollow data point to an active readiness enabler. The entire process hinges on leadership’s ability to enforce programs, foster dialogue, reward problem-solving, and develop teams that are quick to adapt. For missions to succeed, commands need effective mission command coupled with deck plate leadership and resourceful sustainment.

Expeditionary logistics succeeds when leaders provide teams with the authority to act without waiting for every approval. Mission command does this by pairing intent with trust to provide clarity when information is incomplete. Commands that use this approach tend to move faster, adapt earlier, and maintain momentum even when timelines slip due to things such as maintenance and movement delays. When leaders trust Sailors to fix problems at their level, Sailors take more initiative, coordinate, and persevere instead of taking no action or escalating upward.

Decentralization and delegated authority also form a culture of empowerment and risk assessment. They drive adaptability and process ownership, yielding quicker decision-making, initiative, and innovation. However, without cultural language and norms, decentralization yields inconsistent decision-making and procedural errors. To mitigate this, leaders must pair trust with intent and well-documented procedures. These mechanisms provide the necessary parameters and instill discipline to ensure Sailors are confident in austere environments. These mechanisms are critically important for addressing systemic shortcomings often encountered in expeditionary environments. Without these mechanisms, commanders will face significant challenges and obstacles that can compromise overall success.

Clear intent is especially necessary for lower echelon units navigating high-tempo and uncertain operational environments. Whether it is a constraint or degraded communication, a precise understanding of the mission and the commander’s execution strategy empowers teams to proactively manage resources and solve problems. It ensures mission continuity in the absence of reliable support from higher headquarters.

Well-written standard operating procedures (SOPs) and policies provide dispersed teams with the framework and guardrails that allow decentralized action to occur safely and effectively. Without them, decisions become inconsistent and mistakes increase. Imagine an expeditionary fuel detachment facing equipment issues or unclear maintenance expectations. Without defined procedures, each team might improvise differently, risking unsafe results. Clear SOPs help mandate and enforce the discipline necessary for conducting these operations. Leaders have the responsibility to reinforce these procedures to ensure consistent and correct execution. It is not always about proper manning, training, or equipment. It is leadership’s impact in documentation and publishing procedures that make execution seamless.

Culture as a Strategic and Behavioral Investment

Treating culture as a soft metric means missing its operational value. Viewed over time, it is an investment in how teams behave under minimal supervision and high stress. It is ineffective in environments that resist change, lack trust, or fail to collaborate. A readiness-driven culture is a strategic investment that does not appear on a balance sheet. You cannot buy cohesion. It is time invested at the deck plate level mentoring and developing Sailors. Commands benefit from effective communication, trust, and adaptation under stress. After-action reports (AARs) must be dedicated to qualitatively learning, not blaming. This yields actionable feedback, higher retention, and fewer mishaps. Sustaining a safe and accountable environment requires recognition and critiques that focus on integrity of process and correct behaviors, not just the final mission outcome.

In expeditionary units, commanders must rely on delegated authority to achieve response times. Sailors must rehearse standard operating procedures in stressful environments. They should dedicate time to maintenance and inspections that assess quality, usability, and proficiency. This allows for higher material readiness, fewer procedural errors, and greater compliance with standards. To prevent delays and foster innovation in hostile or austere environments, senior leaders should move beyond rigid hierarchies and standing orders. It is especially crucial in combat, where trust, resiliency, and operational discipline are essential for improving the chances of survival and mission success under fire.

With stress and high operational tempo, morale and cohesion are key for resilience and retention. Sailors need to feel valued and inspired. Failure to maintain morale and cohesion leads directly to attrition and disciplinary issues across commands. In his article Retention is a Leadership Problem, William Parker discussed Sailors in expeditionary units feeling abandoned, citing a lack of structured onboarding, inconsistent leadership, and split expectations.

Attrition leads to gaps in readiness, dropping required manning levels to dangerously below tolerable thresholds. This creates an inefficient cycle of constantly training new personnel, taking precious time away from executing current missions. Disjointed and misunderstood expectations also create problems in expeditionary environments with degraded communication. Without a shared cultural language of clear intent and structured onboarding, decentralized teams cannot maintain mission continuity and achieve their objectives.

In the Fleet, expeditionary units face intense workloads and high expectations, making morale a central factor in whether Sailors stay or leave. Retention challenges do not stem from dissatisfaction with the mission but rather deficits in visibility, mentorship, and leadership engagement necessary to foster professional growth. Seabee ratings, along with Boatswain’s Mates and Logistics Specialists, often carry the heaviest operational load. When leaders don’t provide clear mentorship or insight into advancement opportunities, frustration grows. Readiness requires strengthened human factors in tandem with material investments. Strong culture acts as a force multiplier. It plays an important role in the efficient utilization of materials and the highest degree of operational discipline and safety. The loss of human capital will lead to readiness failures and erode trust, resourcefulness, and decentralized problem-solving.

Command style and behavioral investments forge readiness-driven cultures. Yet, psychological safety, a core tenet of COE 2.0, is underutilized in military dialogue. It should provide guardrails for accountability by enabling Sailors to voice ideas and own mistakes without fear of reprisal. In his book titled It’s Your Ship, Captain (Ret) Michael Abrashoff offers the application of psychological safety and delegated authority, formalized at the Navy’s highest levels. The success of Abrashoff’s leadership on the USS Benfold in the early 2000s provides a critical, real-world proof of concept for psychological safety and speak-up culture that COE 2.0 seeks to institutionalize today. While environments change, the underlying behaviors of trust and rewarding initiative remain essential, timeless drivers of readiness. Real change happened on the USS Benfold when Abrashoff listened attentively and aggressively. He let Sailors voice their ideas without reprisal and implemented many of them even though they challenged conventional, long-standing procedures. He also built trust by delegating certain authorities and allowing Sailors to make certain decisions. This built a culture of confidence and reduced the fear of failure, a hallmark of psychological safety.

When present, these behaviors reduce the fear of failure. Fear of failure leads to falsification of information and telling leaders what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear (as is the case with readiness metrics). The goal should be to learn from mistakes and hold people responsible for their actions and adherence to procedures. Transparency in sharing information helps organizations improve: the epitome of Get Real.

The Significance of Learning and Innovation

Rituals and learning mechanisms are also essential for objectively analyzing performance, identifying trends, and taking corrective actions. They aid in building a workplace with meaningful recognition and can be powerful motivators. Recognition must credit the right behaviors, not the final outcomes. Abrashoff wrote personal thank-you notes to his Sailors that went above and beyond their normal duties. While public praise in quarters and ceremonies is customary, some personnel thrive more in private, one-on-one recognition.

Lessons learned from after-action reports and other learning mechanisms are crucial for success in expeditionary logistics and all thriving organizations. Commands can better target systemic issues, drive continuous improvement, and strategically convert errors into opportunities. Although GRGB offers a holistic view of data-informed improvements, traditional reflection and feedback loops remain vital. These mechanisms help analyze performance, identifying what worked and why. They not only allow improvements but also spark innovation from past experiences, directly informing future decisions and strategies. In an operational command, high-performing teams thrive when they learn from previous experiences and refine processes accordingly.

In addition to lessons learned, commands should recognize and reward innovation and initiative at every rank. The most impactful ideas often originate from the deck plates. Soliciting ideas from junior Sailors on topics of maintenance routines, watch standing, and cargo handling efficiencies fosters greater commitment. With the implementation of their ideas, they accept that readiness is everyone’s responsibility, ultimately internalizing behaviors that drive operational excellence.

Conclusion: Culture as a Foundation of Mission Success

Technology will not win our next conflict by itself. Success depends on leaders who combine tangibles with intangibles. As the primary drivers of command philosophy, senior leaders shape culture. Their tone is essential, influencing strategic priorities, ethical standards, and the behaviors that guide decision-making across the force. To truly support readiness and mission success, leaders must implement culture from the top.

Their conduct must align with principles like the Culture of Excellence 2.0 (COE 2.0) and Get Real, Get Better (GRGB) that require them to lead by example and demonstrate expected behaviors. These include promoting transparency, sharing honest feedback, recognizing good initiative at all levels, and providing clear mentorship and mission clarity. Without their deliberate and visible commitment, efforts to build a resilient, adaptive culture of readiness will remain disjointed, ineffective, and ultimately jeopardize mission success.

In the expeditionary community, readiness is neither bought nor merely the sum of equipment, manpower, and training metrics; it is built through organizational culture. Money can buy hardware, but time invested (through training and simulation) is the “software” that builds operational discipline and cohesion in all environments. While institutional initiatives like COE 2.0 and GRGB provide the framework, it is the tangible investments of senior leaders, specifically in decentralized command, psychological safety, and institutionalized learning, that transform policy into a readiness enabler. Expeditionary logisticians demonstrate this daily. Their operations in fluid, high-tempo environments are successful because collaboration, innovation, and resourcefulness create resilient commands. Sustaining future war-fighting readiness cannot be achieved through technology or new processes alone. It demands that senior leaders treat their time as a tangible behavioral investment. They must shift focus toward the kind of high-quality learning, genuine mentorship, and SOP rehearsal that money simply cannot buy.

The post Beyond Metrics: Integrating Command Culture with Operational Readiness appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.