Army - The Soldiers' Newspaper

RSM-A WO Brian Boughton, centre, shares a story with Lt-Col Jack Gregg, left, and Pte Chris Davey.
Photo by Pte John Wellfare, Army newspaper

Top soldier moves on
RSM-A WO Brian Boughton retires in January

By Pte John Wellfare
JUNIOR leadership and the small team are keys to the Army's future success according to RSM-A, WO Brian Boughton, who retires in January.

WO Boughton, who enlisted in 1968 and served in Vietnam, said it was important to manage people above all else.

"We can have tanks and we need tanks, we can have helicopters and we need helicopters, we need all the mobility they provide, the communications and so on, but in the end people make them do what they do," he said.

"The basis of this organisation is and always has been that it's the soldier who goes in and gets the job done."

WO Boughton said the Australian Army's success throughout history and in the present related to the quality of individual soldiers.

"It's the raw product. People often ask me to compare soldiers from when I joined to soldiers today and I think the raw product is still the same.

"Australians as a group grow up differently to other people in the world ... our kids are generally pretty good and then we in the Army get the best of the best, so that gives you a person who's motivated, who's keen and gets on with the job.

"Add to that a pretty good training system ... which trains our people in the basics, performing their soldier skills so that no matter who they are or what job they're in, they're a soldier first."

Leaders, particularly at the junior levels, had a responsibility to make their small team work, WO Boughton said.

"The examples that we see where things have gone wrong, in a lot of cases it will come back to somebody who didn't lead properly.

"I think there are some issues that, as an Army, we could look at the way we do business and what we expect of junior leaders and make sure that we're setting them up for success.

"There are a lot of good people doing good things and I implore them to keep doing that, because that's what is the backbone of the Army.

"Small teams make it happen. It's that small team of loggies who are loading stores on a truck, it's the small team in the kitchen with the caterers who are cooking the meals, it's the small team of an infantry section doing the business and it's the small teams of all those other corps break-ups and make-ups.

"The small team is the basic cog of the organisation and everything revolves around that, if all those teams are humming and we're all working together, this organisation will be absolutely fantastic."