Erfahrungsbericht aus dem NCO Intermediate Leadership Course (für Unteroffiziere)

My name is Ben-Kacem Youssef and I’m a First Sergeant Major for the Belgian Air Force. I’ve been in the military since 2010 and my current job is Force protection strike security as a flight chief.

During the NCO intermediate leadership course, we’ve had multiple professional instructors teaching us new methods on how to become a good leader. The courses included all sort of leadership skills that will help us to get better at our job and learn how to manage those skills in an international environment.

Most of us already implement our own leadership styles and qualities, but for me the biggest takeaway was on how other nations applied different styles and techniques. With the DISC behavioural style, we learnt a lot on self-perception but also how to recognize personality traits in others and learn how to deal with them. It all starts by learning to know yourself and accepting oneself before educating and leading others. After that we learned about how a group is formed and all the types of groups that there are. When you know what kind of group you have, you can now start with the communication process on how to bring your leadership style into practice. Because in a multinational environment everyone is different, and you will need to adapt to become a good leader. This will help you enhance your cultural awareness especially when you are working within a multinational environment.

During the course we performed multiple exercises where we determined someone’s leaderships style. Once you can determinate someone’s style, you can start searching for the development level of the individual and start working on their developing behaviour. The instructors make you aware of all the different leadership characteristics and they give you greater understanding that leadership is a subject where you can always learn more.

During the practical application of the leadership course, you learn the difference between working as a team or working as a group. During these exercises, you could clearly see how leadership competences are needed to make sure that the mission will be successful. These exercises teach you how to deal with all aspects of leadership whether the mission is successful or not. The following actions that you take after the mission is the most underrated step but nevertheless probably the most important one. The step of counselling is where you determine the actions that you could have done better or improve to make the mission successful. Here you can apply the motivational techniques as taught in the classes and prepare your colleagues and coworkers on how to be a leader in times of stress. As a leader you must know how to handle stressful situations and realise that stress is something that can make or break you. After completing all these objectives, you will have also developed your personal communication skills.

These where the most important skills that I’m taking with me to shape my leadership journey and prepare me for future endeavours. And one of my favourite quotes that I’ve picked up and learned to appreciate after working with so many different nations is as following: «There are no strangers in my world, only friends I haven’t met yet».