Kimberly Nock Insubordination in the Army 31MAR2014
Insubordination in the dictionary is defined as follows: “defiance of authority; refusal to obey order”. Following orders and having faith in your Noncommissioned Officers and leaders is crucial to completion of the mission. Without following instructions or complying with orders when given to you the trust your leaders have for you has been compromised and puts unnecessary stress on everyone involved. The timeliness of a task being completed has a spiraling effect if it is not met. If the task is not completed by when it was ordered other parts of the unit are hindered from completing their tasks as well. It is considered insubordination under Article 91 in the UCMJ when you do not comply and abide by guidelines given to you. The outcome of these effects hurts the unit because it consumes more time and energy. As a soldier you must be reliable and held responsible for your actions. The relationship between a Noncommissioned Officer and a soldier is crucial to unit cohesiveness and accomplishment of the mission. The soldier must abide by and respect the orders given by their NCO. NCOs have earned their rank and have knowledge that a lower enlisted soldier does not. An NCO must make crucial decisions when put under pressure and soldiers must respect that. If a soldier does not abide by the decision when it is made the NCO cannot trust that soldier to accomplish tasks that the NCO has given them, taking man power and time away from the mission for counseling and corrective action. When the trust is severed it creates a rift in the unit. This fractures the unit cohesiveness and delays the accomplishment of the mission. A soldier is given a timeline that a task must be completed by. It is not because the Noncommissioned Officer decided on a time that best fit their schedule it is because there are other sections in the unit that are waiting for you to accomplish the task so that they will be able to accomplish theirs. If this timeline is not met it is considered insubordination because the soldier is not following their orders and hinders the time frame of the mission. Simple tasks become major issues and take more time to correct. A unit has different functions that, when time frames are met, operate smoothly. But, once one function has a set back or adjusts the time frame the rest of the unit has to adjust to catch up. A unit only has only so many soldiers and a work day has only so many hours. If you think about the effects insubordination has on man power it encompasses more than just the soldier in trouble. When the soldier has chosen to not complete orders by the time frame given there must be a repercussion to their actions. Right away the Noncommissioned Officer who is their first line supervisor must take time out of their work day to
