Under Duty of Care, as a flight commander your manpower must matter to you otherwise you might as well have been commissioned as admin. You should know enough about your people that you can pick up on changes in their demeanor or character, which tend to highlight stress and other problems. You should also talk to others in the chains of command regularly and highlight any concerns you may have of either workloads or individuals. By keeping an open mind and ,dare i say it, an open door, these stress related issues come to you, you don't have to go and find them. I know we are all stretched past a comfortable elastic limit with all the lean, cost savings and reducing manpower numbers as a result of redundancy, but by accepting the commission or promotion you are placed in a position of authority, the guys might hate you, if you are lucky they will tolerate you but your job is to look after the most important resource the Services have, the manpower. Just because the ivory towers have lost the plot does not mean that those of us lower down have to. I fully acknowledge that my career will go no where because I look after my guys first and the job second but that is my interpretation of my commission.
Stress is out there and some of the troops handle it differently, the trick is to know when it is kicking in, identify how your guys handle it and look after the ones who have problems and 'Could be the last' you are liable because they are your guys but you are not the only one, when a problem is detected that is beyond your capabilities their is a vast support structure that takes it off your hands and either makes it better or move the individual to a more suitable post, in consultation with you both. You will not get sued if you miss it because the individual has hidden it really well from everybody but if it was obvious and everyone new except you I would think that you would deserve to get a hammering for it.
I am sorry the above is written as I thought it and not laid out as per JSP101 but this is a subject I have strong feelings for having seen how it can fail an individual but also recently how for a couple of my guys the system kicked in and made it better.
This is one thing that as a flight commander you can make a difference and not blame the system.
PA