Colonel Candid

  Today is a day to encourage interactive dialogs and display the benefits of being a mentor and being mentored. National Mentoring Day started in 2014 with a key message to raise awareness of the invaluable and rewarding contributions that mentor makes to their recipient’s life. For those looking for a mentor, continue searching because mentors enable their mentees to achieve higher compensation, faster salary growth, increased promotions, increased job satisfaction and greater commitment to the organization. To the multitude of mentors recognized on this day, the benefits of mentoring are numerous. Mentors often have higher job satisfaction, stronger personal relationships, loyalty of supporters, and mentoring others allows for one’s own growth.   Both Anthony Tjan and Dr. Joyce Russell provide the following guidelines to becoming a better mentor.  Put the relationship first. Set realistic expectations and goals in the mentorship relationship. Create short wins a...

  Motherhood in National Security and Defense by Candice E. Frost How to maintain your sanity as a professional, spouse, and mother during a highly tumultuous period in the nation's history. Perspectives given on motherhood during children's infancy, preschool, elementary school, middle school and high school. Wonderful women in national security and defense, welcome to mothering in chaos…feels like episode 5,000 Motherhood is a high cost/ high reward activity I received, “What to Expect when you’re expecting” by three people. I then asked, where’s the next edition, “When to Expect for the rest of their lives”? First thing you can check out is Love Rutledge’s “FedUpward” podcast, especially episode 40, and her facebook page FedUpward parents I also appreciated her appro contextualize this time frame as “Wakadoodle” when it comes to finding childcare. During the months of March and April mother’s work hours fell 4-5 times as much as fathers. Women scaled back 5% o...

Photo by  Christina @ wocintechchat.com  on  Unsplash The Mentorship Blueprint Mentorship is not a foreign concept to those who succeed in national security career fields. Most people understand mentorship is important, and they likely have several types of mentors on whom they can count. To establish this lasting relationship requires an individualized approach because each relationship is unique. What is required to create a unique relationship is not foreign, and this document serves to outline the best method to map out mentorship approaches and goals. Tried and true methods are gathered here to guide and develop the mentorship relationship, to help ensure it remains on course and productive with both quantitative and qualitative results.   Mentorship relationships begin with a sharing the mentor’s experience, a long iterative phase of discovery and development, and lastly, a mentee’s expansion in talents and skills. Following this blueprint, a men...

As we reflect on this Memorial Day, a day to solemnly remember those who died in active military service, I’d like to share the memory of my sister-in-arms Lieutenant Colonel Jaimie E. Leonard. Sisters-in-arms, not a common phrase uttered too often outside of a small circle of women who serve but one worth highlighting and explaining. Of those serving in the Army today, approximately 14% are women. When Jaimie and I attended West Point together women made up just slightly above ten percent of the Corps of Cadets. Of those women who continued serving past our initial obligation the percentage of women serving fell into single digits and the small circle of sisters-in-arms formed an even stronger bond. Ja imie and I last spoke in 2011 when she was serving in Afghanistan. We were both military intelligence officers and we combined work efforts to ensure the success of a critical mission. In a field where time is always of the essence, we had little time to reminisce, but we caught up on...

Determination, Patience, and Perseverance are Key Finding Mentors in National Security and Defense: Determination, Patience, and Perseverance are Key Successfully finding your mentor in the national security field takes perseverance and effort. Courageously entering into the field takes herculean efforts to get a foot in the door and once established, growing within this arena takes meticulous skill, determination, and tenacity. Finding someone to help decode the system and who knows the processes is critical. To find the right mentor, whether internal or external to your agency takes work; you must be persistent. I am sharing with you steps used over my twenty years for finding the right fit and attributes to look for in a mentor. The right time to find a mentor is now. The current political, economic, and social environment matters not. Follow the example of great business that began during a depression or economic crises. For instance, UPS began during the panic of 1...