STEP provides noncommissioned officers roadmap to promotion

  "The message is that STEP is important, and if you want to get promoted, you've got to get to school," said Command Sgt. Maj. David S. Davenport Sr.

Davenport, who serves as the command sergeant major of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, or TRADOC, spoke during a media roundtable, Feb. 17.

STEP stands for "select, train, educate, promote," and on Jan. 1, it became the roadmap that noncommissioned officers must follow if they want to be promoted.

STEP requirements for promotion are as follows:

-- To make sergeant, Soldiers must complete the Basic Leader Course, formally known as the Warrior Leader Course.

-- To make staff sergeant, sergeants must complete the Advanced Leader Course.

-- To make sergeant first class, staff sergeants must complete the Senior Leader Course.

-- To make master sergeant or first sergeant, sergeants first class must complete the Master Leader Course.

-- To make sergeant major, master sergeants or first sergeants must complete the Sergeant Major Course.

-- Sergeants major and command sergeants major who are selected to work for general officers must additionally complete the Executive Leader Course.

IMPORTANCE OF STEP

The STEP program "will help our noncommissioned officers become even more professional so they can operate as adaptable leaders in the chaotic and complex world as described in the Army Operating Concept," Davenport said.

The other important aspect of STEP is that it will provide a talent management tool "to retain and promote the best of the best," he said.

STEP will ensure that "a Soldier's stripes will not just be an indicator of rank or pay -- it will be an indicator that each NCO has been appropriately trained as a leader," he added.



http://www.army.mil/article/162606/STEP_provides_noncommissioned_officers_roadmap_to_promotion/