Re-Assessing the Assessment
By Master Sgt. Nathan P. Feinberg
III Armored Corps and Fort Hood NCO Academy
August 14, 2026
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In a recent NCO Journal article by Staff Sgt. Austin Baker, titled "Beyond Points: Reevaluating Army Leader Development Admittedly" (Baker, 2025), the author posits that the current promotion system is failing to promote the right leaders.
However, he and I disagree, not on the issue, but on the solution. He wants to focus more on leadership intangibles, whereas I believe we need to emphasize clear success benchmarks.
Though he makes salient points, the argument for an even broader view of leadership qualities exacerbates the issue with current talent evaluations. We consistently try to develop and measure leader strength, but much of the Army depends on leaders' ability to be good managers, and that's where many fail.
We have plenty of leaders who look the part, speak with confidence in front of formations, and hold the line on standards and discipline, but who can't manage time, personnel, and equipment effectively. So, expanding leadership narratives, instead of focusing on whether leaders produce measurable outcomes, only masks actual top performers.
Army leaders are already assessed holistically in the current NCO Evaluation Report (NCOER), which views leaders as the sum of their parts. Fitness, for instance, as mentioned in Baker's article, is a component of the larger "presence" attribute on the NCOER. "Presence," in turn, is one of six attributes and competencies that comprise a complete assessment.
Keeping What Works & Tweaking What Doesn't
Admittedly, for junior leaders, this is a concern due to the promotion points they stand to earn with higher Army Fitness Test (AFT) scores. However, in the profession of arms, and especially for leaders at the direct leadership level, their ability to "hang" with the young Soldiers they're directly responsible for is critical.
No one expects a 40+-year-old command sergeant major to outrun a private first class, but there is every expectation that a sergeant sets the fitness training standard.
Promotion points go away at sergeant first class and above for a reason. The Army weighs organizational and strategic-level leaders against a different set of criteria. However, even in centralized board after-action reviews (AARs), physical fitness scores are often mentioned.
Fitness assessments offer a clear example of what we need to be even more deliberate about: change from heavy, art-based to balanced, science-based evaluations.
Instead of trying to assess the art of leadership, which is nebulous to the point of near impossibility, it's better to measure leadership science as applied. The Army needs to look at NCOs' measured effectiveness, not within units, but across their designated fields of expertise.
Suppose the Army takes on the issue of bloated evaluations and leaders' ability to promote beyond their capacity (an issue for a different day). In that case, it needs to find harmony between current subjective narrative-based evaluations and an objective, clear, metric-driven performance component incorporated within it.
Yes, the Army promotes based on potential, but the best predictor of future performance (potential) is past performance. When there's no predictive data, centralized board members can't make the best promotion decisions.
As the Army modernizes its equipment, looks to reshape the force, and moves to overhaul fitness and food services, it seems the right time to reorient on the best way to assess talent.
Reorienting the NCOER
Though every organization's mission is different, the NCO Common Core Competencies (NCO-C3), as found in Training Circular (TC) 7-22.7, The Noncommissioned Officer Guide (2025), involve all NCO ranks and formations in what NCOs must "Be, Know, Do" (p. 22).
Using NCO-C3 levels the ground regardless of differences in localized or specialized mission sets. Incorporating reportable data points aligned to certain NCO-C3 topics would retain holistic leadership requirements model (LRM)-driven narratives with objective NCO-C3 performance metrics.
Incorporating specific data metrics for tracked NCO-C3 areas would enable centralized board members to not only read the existing, but also subjective, LRM comments. It would also show whether NCOs are able to deliver in specified performance areas.
Once revised and published, leaders would invariably turn their efforts to these benchmarks. Forcing leaders to monitor data would shift the Army's culture and outcomes as a sum of its organizational parts.
It would compel better management practices and, as such, would not only help the Army to better manage its talent but also make real and verifiable changes to organizations that align with their priorities.
Pinning the Problems and Presenting the Data
The difficulty in finding solutions is determining the most pertinent issues leaders should address at their level of responsibility, as well as what system would collect and report the data.
As an example from the NCO-C3 from the master sergeant/first sergeant population, they have the potential to be assessed in eight areas of expertise under the Readiness competency (2025, p. 2-8).
Not all are as impactful as others, nor are all quantifiably measurable. From the list, there are three key metrics by which to judge NCO performance, regardless of leadership level: medical readiness, unit physical fitness, and Army Regulation (AR) 350-1, Army Training and Leader Development, training compliance.
All three metrics have data that exists on the Medical Protection System (MEDPROS) and the Digital Training Management System (DTMS). Data is collected at the beginning of NCOs' annual assessment periods and again at their close (30 days after the start date and 30 days before the through date).
These two data snapshots, though they don't show the whole story (hence retaining LRM narratives), demonstrate a positive trend if NCOs effectively manage time, personnel, and opportunities.
In keeping with NCOs' current developmental assessment schedules, quarterly reviews would not only assess leadership attributes and competencies, but also the data that assesses managerial effectiveness.
Quarterly reviews help NCOs tweak their management style and systems to make them more effective in managing time, personnel, and equipment/opportunities. It not only benefits NCOs and their Soldiers, but also organizations.
Just as Career Management Fields (CMF) and organizational missions are different, so are organization sizes. NCO data collection needs to be normalized and given a weighted average to account for population size differences, improvement in averages, etc.
Calculating this data offers an objective representation of leader effectiveness in maintaining high readiness (90% or higher as an example benchmark) or improving readiness (percent change over time). Though not pertinent to this article, these calculations can easily done, especially in the era of machine learning and artificial intelligence.
More Than an Evaluation
The revised NCOER would not only be a tool for cultural change from the bottom up, but would also force the top down to define the metrics that matter most. So often, the lament is that everything is a priority, so nothing is truly a priority. Evaluation changes would require leaders at the highest echelon to focus subordinates on the things that drive the Army forward.
Additionally, as data inputs are focused and refined, the Army will see itself more clearly across CMFs, organizations, and the force.
This conversation needs to continue, and I applaud Baker for starting it or continuing it. We must keep trying to fix what is most assuredly still broken.
Talent management demands both talent in management and talent to manage. Over the past 250 years, technology has changed, but the constant in every formation are the ever-vigilant NCOs, the backbone of the Army, who must continue to refine themselves, or all the technological overmatch in the world will not guarantee victory.
References
Baker, A. (July 25, 2025). Beyond Points: Reevaluating Army Leader Development. NCO Journal. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/NCO-Journal/Archives/2025/July/Beyond-Points/
Department of the Army. (2025). The Noncommissioned Officer Guide. (TC 7-22.7.) https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN44634-TC_7-22.7-000-WEB-2.pdf
Author Biography
Master Sergeant Nathan P. Feinberg is deputy commandant of the III Armored Corps and Fort Hood, Texas, NCO Academy. In his 16-year career he has served in every leadership position as an infantryman from team leader to first sergeant. He received his bachelor's degree in business administration with a concentration in economics from American Military University and is currently working on a master's degree in business administration from the University of Wyoming.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the NCO Journal, the U.S. Army, or the U.S. Department of War.
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