Leadership Development and Army

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Force Management

The most important priority for the army in today's increasingly sophisticated defense landscape is to ensure it has adaptive leaders for a complex world. Today, the army as part of the military faces an ever more uncertain world due to factors such as greater proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), augmented cyber threats, increased threat of terrorism from groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), as well as reduced government spending on the military. These events pose a significant challenge to leadership in the army. Army operations are now more complicated than ever before, demanding leaders with enhanced skills, knowledge and experience. Accordingly, leaders in the army must remain strategically adaptive if they are to effectively address the increasingly complex responsibility of defending the country.

In a constantly evolving environment, leaders must continuously adapt their tactics, strategies, and processes to the prevailing operational environment. They must try new ways of solving problems, demonstrate flexibility in decision-making, anticipate change, be willing to learn, and become accustomed to uncertainty. Adaptive ability is important for organizations in not only the private sector, but also the public sector. The army is particularly no exception, with the challenges it faces expected to be even greater and more unpredictable in the future. To win in land defense, leaders in the army must effectively adjust to the progressively complex challenges presented by the defense environment.[footnoteRef:1] They must have the ability to work with leaner budgets and a smaller workforce, shift to proactive as opposed to contingency response, perceive threats as they emerge and respond to them accordingly, effectively mentor and coach subordinates, as well as to discard what does not work. Adaptive ability in the army means that leaders understand that strategic and operational challenges in the army do not always have predetermined solutions -- at times, the situation at hand may require a new way of doing things.

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Adaptive leadership in the army is crucial for supporting the Joint Force as well as the National Security Strategy, which expressly identifies the importance of the U.S. military in adapting its tactics to the complexity inherent in today's and future defense environment. [1: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. 2014 Army Strategic Planning Guidance Excerpt (U.S. Department of the Army, June 2014), 1.]

Similar to most organizations, both in the private and public sector, the army has programs for leadership development and training. The army understands that training and development is crucial for enhancing the skills, knowledge and capabilities of personnel. Training and development programs in the army are intended for preparing leaders for future's unknown challenges, making them more agile and adaptive, improving their knowledge of the operational environment, and enhancing their capacity to respond to contingencies. Training and development is also aimed at equipping leaders with the relevant experience, boosting their awareness of and competence in cyberspace threats, as well as honing their tactical judgment, individual toughness, intellectual capacity, and strategic thinking ability.[footnoteRef:2] Nonetheless, there is still room for improvement. There is need to pay greater attention to leadership development and training in the area of leadership adaptability. More time, efforts and resources should be committed to the program. This may, however, be a challenge given that the government has increasingly reduced spending on the military in an attempt to make the institution leaner and more proactive as opposed to reactive. Even so, the significance of preparing army leaders for a more complex security environment cannot be overemphasized. [2: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. 2014 Army Strategic Planning Guidance Excerpt (U.S. Department of the Army, June 2014), 8-9.]

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