Why Can't the Military Track Leader Retention Impact?

Right now, a battalion commander can receive an outstanding evaluation while every single junior soldier under their command chooses not to reenlist. There is no formal mechanism connecting leadership performance evaluations to the retention outcomes of the people they lead. A toxic leader can build an entire career on the backs of service members who leave broken and disillusioned — and the system not only allows it, it rewards it. The data exists. The Army tracks who reenlists and who doesn't. OER/NCOER ratings are recorded. Assignment histories are in the system. Connecting these data points is technically trivial. So why doesn't it happen? More broadly: should every service member get an anonymous, permanent 'thumbs up / thumbs down' for every leader they serve under? Should this follow the leader's record? Should retention rates be a data point in promotion boards?

- DoD spends ~$15,000–$30,000 per recruit in training costs - Average first-term attrition rate: ~33% across all services - The Army's 2024 retention miss was 10,000+ soldiers short of target - A single toxic leader can cause dozens of experienced soldiers to separate - 360-degree feedback programs exist in the civilian world and have been piloted (then abandoned) by the military multiple times