Counseling
Counseling Overview
Counseling delivers performance feedback. Coaching, teaching, and mentoring sit alongside it. Eight occasions trigger a mandatory session. The six functional areas frame the conversation.
Leader Steps
- Distinguish counseling from coaching, teaching, and mentoring before scheduling
- Identify which occasion triggers the session
- Frame the agenda against the six functional areas
- Document per the leader notebook standard
The Four Terms You Owe Marines
Per MCO 1500.61MCO 1500.61 paragraph 4.c.(1), four leader actions develop a Marine. They overlap. They are not interchangeable.
- Teaching. You impart knowledge to a Marine without your level of experience. Continuing action.
- Coaching. You encourage and demand output. Forward looking. Daily action.
- Counseling. You deliver feedback on performance. Backward looking with forward implications. Scheduled and event driven.
- Mentoring. You build a voluntary, longer relationship outside the immediate chain when commonality exists.
The Eight Mandatory Occasions
MCO 1500.61MCO 1500.61 paragraph 4.c.(2) sets the floor.MCO 1500.61 4.c.(2) You owe a counseling session at each of these triggers:
- New senior or junior relationship is established.
- A FitRep is issued.
- A JEPES evaluation is rendered (the system replaced Pro and Con marks for the junior enlisted tier).
- Marine becomes eligible for promotion.
- Marine joins a new unit.
- Marine executes a PCS.
- Marine is assigned to Force Preservation.
- Marine takes a major change in billet responsibility.
The list is the minimum. Stack additional sessions on milestones. Birth of a child, first home purchase, selection to a school, completion of a deployment.
The Six Functional Areas
Per MCO 1500.61MCO 1500.61 paragraph 4.a.(2)(d), six areas frame Marine development.MCO 1500.61 4.a.(2)(d) Touch each at least once during the initial counseling session.
Fidelity, Fighter, Fitness, Family, Finances, Future. The dedicated leaf in this branch builds out the prompts and resources for each.
What Counseling Is Not
Performance evaluation is past tense. Counseling references the past to redirect future performance. The senior who counsels is not always the senior who writes the FitRep.NAVMC 2795 1004
Personal counseling sits inside the conversation, but the program is performance counseling.NAVMC 2795 1004.4 Refer matters outside your authority to chaplain, behavioral health, or legal.
Same topic, other roles
References