The power of passion: instructing the instructors

The Indonesian Army soldiers (TNI) were already impressed with the fact their Australian counterparts at Exercise Wirra Jaya 26 had just returned from training Ukrainian soldiers in Europe as part of Operation Kudu.

But then the Australian soldiers started going through a rapid tactical shooting demonstration – reloading on the move on the Semarang firing range – and impressions went up a notch.

“This is like watching a movie,” TNI’s LTCOL Afdhal said, and asked whether his troops could replicate it.

As the man tasked with fulfilling that request, 5/7RAR’s WO2 Chris Hayden said, “That is just another Tuesday for us”.

But for the TNI to learn the new skill, WO2 Hayden said he had to instruct his instructors.

He said that while his soldiers, who were still quite junior, had the technical mastery and skill set to pass on techniques, he told them that to successfully teach the TNI, they required passion.

WO2 Hayden has spent half his 26 years in the Army as an instructor and now instructs the instructors.

'When you instruct you are not just passing information on, you have to be a bit of an entertainer. You have to come in, grab them and their attention and get them thinking.'

WO2 Chris Hayden

He said being an instructor made him a better soldier and had taught him that passion was at the centre of teaching.

“I am passionate about instructing, I have done it for more than half of my career, training at both 2nd Division and School of Infantry,” WO2 Hayden said.

“When you instruct you are not just passing information on, you have to be a bit of an entertainer. You have to come in, grab them and their attention and get them thinking, ‘I had better listen to this guy because it sounds like he knows what he’s talking about’.

“If your projection and passion gains their attention that’s the start state. Now they are in my hand, how do I make them do the things I need them to do and learn?”

WO2 Hayden said he would encourage all junior soldiers to consider instructing at home and abroad.

“For me, I didn’t find out I was a really good soldier until I started training. I left the School of Infantry and thought, ‘Yup, I think I know what I am doing’, and then when you start teaching it you remember you had forgotten a lot of basic soldiering stuff,” he said.

“Having that instructor qualification I now understand the why behind the thing I’m learning and I can pass that on to my soldiers and I am doing better, continually developing it, rehearsing it, reading up on what might have changed, and so I am becoming a better soldier/NCO.”