U.S. Naval War College's Naval Leadership and Ethics Center (NLEC) hosted 17 members of U.S. Coast Guard Leadership Development Center (LDC) and two members of U.S. Marine Corps Lejeune Leadership Institute (LLI) for a meeting to share experiences and lessons learned between the centers, Aug. 2.

"It is incumbent for all the services to learn from each other as we aspire to offer service members the very best in leader development and personal growth," said Capt. Peter Mantz, commanding officer of NLEC. "Reflective discussions between services are instrumental, as they offer insight into how we are each pressing ahead with the critical growth of our greatest asset -- our people, our leaders."

During the visit, the three groups shared knowledge of the services' leadership curriculums and models, lessons learned from coaching and mentoring, and overall research.

"We hope to identify and incorporate best practices that will help us improve our servicewide leader development program," said U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Greg Wisener, commanding officer of LDC. "Our goal is a continuum of development where each member of the team will grow while leading self, leading others, and developing healthy unit climates."

The benefits of this multi-service partnership have recently been made clear. For example, a joint effort between NLEC and LDC provided support to a Navy commanding officer who wanted to offer some leader development for his Navy civilian workforce. The services were able to fulfill the request by offering both formal, traditional training in the form of LDC's weeklong Senior Leadership Principles Class and a responsive training team visit provided by NLEC.

NLEC has grown rapidly over the past few years, recently expanding its course offering to include an Intermediate Leadership Course for department heads, and a Senior Officer Leadership Course. NLEC also develops curriculum for the Division Officer Leadership Course and the Petty Officer Selectee Course.

"Many of our leadership, self-awareness and ethical models are the same," said Dave Plouffe, a NLEC training specialist. "While there are different applications of these models, the coaching, self-awareness, conflict resolution, situational leadership and effective communications models are the same in any service."

Two months ago Plouffe, also a former LDC employee, coordinated a NLEC visit to the LDC schoolhouse in New London, Connecticut, where members of NLEC learned about the missions and operations of the Coast Guard. The event's success sparked the idea for this reciprocal visit.

According to Plouffe, NLEC will be looking forward to other visits with more services and agencies in the future to "expand and strengthen our network of partners," as directed by the Chief of Naval Operations in the Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority.

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