When I think back to my youth and the show the A Team, a television show featuring the larger than life Mr. T and a caste of eccentric experts capable of accomplishing any and all of the complex missions given to them, I clearly recall the unspoken meaning it then became to participate in a group as a member of the A Team. In sports being a member of the A Team meant being apart of the varsity squads as starters, in academics it meant getting invited to help the teachers during class or going on special field trips, and as a member of the Coast Guard, being apart of the A Team means, you were always on the primary duty Search and Rescue (SAR) crew.
What does that mean? The A Team always got to spend more time underway than they did back at the unit doing the days work. It meant patrolling on the water, away from the command during the workday, and enjoying the sea breeze and fresh air. It meant mooring up at the local municipal pier midway through you patrol in the summer and getting ice cream from the local creamery and enjoying a refreshing treat the last half of your patrol. Finally, being a member of the A Team meant you got all of the exciting SAR cases and the official and unofficial rewards that came with it.
In coming to understand what Northouse (2021) meant regarding Leader-member exchange (LMX) as being a “conceptualize[d]… process that centered on the interactions between leaders and follower” (p. 300), I have come to realize as a young Coastie I unwittingly participated in LMX as first a follower and then later a Leader. Researchers, according to Northouse (2021), “found two… types of [relationships]: those…based on expanded and negotiated role responsibilities [or] the in-group, and those… based on the formal employment contract… called the out-group” (p.303). The difference between these two relationship groups, or vertical dyads, is that they each possess their own type of relationships with Leadership, defined by the extra role responsibilities for members of the in-group and a stricter adherence to the bare minimum expectations of the performance of members within the out-group (Northouse, 2021). Members apart of the in-group Northouse (2021) explains, performed more responsibilities then might normally be expected of them, for leadership, who in exchange, would spend extra time mentoring, unofficially rewarding, and providing more opportunities for larger responsibilities and career advancement. Out-group members on the other hand, have a less involved relationship with leadership, because job performance often only met the minimum standard of expectation (Northouse, 2021). For instance, an out-group member is less likely to come in early or stay later for the sake of finishing a time sensitive project needed by their supervisor. In-group members, however, would be most likely be willing to spend the extra time and energy to complete the project for their organizations. Leaders then, from the lens of understanding LMX Theory, are more likely to reward and favor in-group members over out -group members as a result (Northouse, 2021).
When I first reported to what was my second unit in the Coast Guard, USCG Station Portsmouth Harbor, NH, I quickly came to understand that the quality of my experience there depended on a number of unspoken rules. Northouse (2021) would likely refer to the “quality of one’s experience” depending on which of the two relationship groups you fell into, the in-group or the out-group.
Rule one, the amount of desire and extra work in which you were willing to expend getting qualified matters to the leaders within the unit. Given usually six months to get qualified as a crew member, and an additional six months to get boat engineer or coxswain qualified (more advance crewman certifications), a member who spent time after the work day looking for qualified members to teach them these roles, or who stayed late on days they were relieved and were willing to come in on the days off, quickly became members of the units in-group. As a leader within the unit, members like this were given more opportunities to get underway, and often taken under the wing of senior crew members whose wanted to help feed their enthusiasm for qualification. Out-group members on the other hand, rarely were willing to do these things, which was less favorably received by leadership because the sooner a member got qualified, the less burden to the rest of the qualified crew there was in performing the unit’s mission. While I never witness overtly unfair treatment in regard to the relationship between leaders and out-group members, I myself felt less inclined to help those that seemed not interested in helping the rest of us.
Rule Two: Once qualified, look for ways to help others in all aspects of your job. This could be as simple as securing the boat and assisting the engineer with shutting the boat off correctly, so that they were not left at the pier alone after the rest of the crew had gone to change. It was a willingness to volunteer for the less desirable watches, or coming in without complaint when the other duty section needed an extra hand. It also might be volunteering to help a more senior petty officer perform their collateral duties so as to relieve some of their workload. Leaders tended to remember these moments and would often look for ways to reward these members officially and unofficially, with positive administrative remarks or opportunities for responsibility and leadership.
Finally, Rule Three: Look for ways to build connections with your shipmates. This last rule is likely the most controversial, because in essence, you needed to get others to like you. If the qualified crew of at your unit thought you were weird or struggled to build trustful comradery with you, there would be less opportunities to be apart of the in-group within your unit. The reason for this, I believe, has mostly to do with the homogeneous nature of military organizations in general. Right or wrong, my lived experience of this reality meant me learning how to talk about sports, keeping up with whatever the latest show was everyone was watching, socializing outside of work, and staying quiet about my political and religious leanings. When I eventually became a leader myself, I worked really hard to be more inclusive and focus on rules one and two, in managing the nature of my relationship with my followers.
The Coast Guard as an organization is extremely small despite having a vast spectrum of missions it performs for the United States. As a result, if every member behaved as Northouse (2021) describes out-group members behave in organizations, the Coast Guard would be unable to meet their congressionally mandated responsibilities to the nation. In order to accomplish this, Northouse (2021) explains “leaders and followers are tied together… In effect, [a partnership] … transformational in that… leaders and followers mov[e] beyond their own self-interests to accomplish the greater good of the team and organization” (p. 312). So, while from my experience unconscious, the Coast Guard’s organizational success relies heavily on her members “devotion to duty” (one of the Coast Guard three Core Values) as might be found in the behavior of members of her in-groups and the positive (mostly) relationships with leadership.
References
Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory & Practice (9 ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, Inc.
