Initiative always sounds great but it only works in a proper information environment. This is where the officer/ncm divide comes into play. Showing real initi

Initiative always sounds great but it only works in a proper information environment. This is where the officer/ncm divide comes into play. Showing real initiative means apparently disobeying "orders". To do that you have to understand both your commander's intent when giving those orders and your commander's commander's (your 2-up) intent. That means knowing about other units and their roles in the operation. That's the stuff of officers. Supporting initiative means pushing information down, keeping lower-level officers aware of what is happening in other units. A senior NCM will spend time with his subordinates getting and keeping them ready. The officer will spend time way from his subordinates at meetings/briefs learning about what other units are doing. Long-winded chats with senior officers is how junior officers come to understand their intent. WWII Germany was very good at pushing that information down to junior officers. Russia, recently, has not. Example: A platoon sergeant may know that the platoon has been ordered to be at X location at Y time. They can do lots of interesting stuff to make that deadline. But they don't have eyes on the entire reason for being at that location because they weren't in the planning meetings at the HQ. The LT was. The LT may "show initiative" by deliberately being late/early to the location because he perhaps sees that the operation is progressing more slowly/quickly than anticipated. The sergeant's job it to know everything about his subordinates in order to get them to do what is needed. The officer's job is to understand everything about how his platoon fits into the larger picture and, occasionally, adapt orders to support that vision.