Introduction
It is important to note that leadership is among the most critical aspect of the military since it is directly tied to the organization and structure of an army. The given writing will primarily address various fundamentals of army leadership as well as its functional manifestations. The foundation of army leadership stems from leading, developing, and achieving beside or at the front of the subordinates within both direct and indirect settings.
Leadership and Organization
Military and army are heavily organized structures comprised of people coordinating their efforts within strict and obligatory rules of interaction, command, and communication. It is stated that “leadership is the process of influencing people by providing them with purpose, direction, and motivation while you are operating to accomplish a mission and improve the organization” (Clark, 2021, p. 4). A study suggests that there is a “significant correlation between a poor perception of leaders and high behavioral health risk, while effective leadership was associated with improved behavioral health and organizational effectiveness” (Umbrasas, 2022, p. 100). Thus, army leaders have a profound impact not only on how the army performs during operations but additionally how the soldiers are in general.
One should be aware that a disorganized army is no longer an army at its core, which is why an organization is categorized as an essential centerpiece. However, organized behavior and cohesion do not appear on their own, which is the reason for having strong leadership permeating the ranks of the entire army. The organization enables a rigid structure, which turns a group of people into a unified army capable of functioning in a coordinated manner.
Leadership Philosophy
Since leadership is about influencing others to undertake specific and appropriate actions, a leader must have a specific set of qualities, attributes, and competencies. The leadership philosophy of an effective army leader is Be, Know, Do. The latter is “the key characteristics of an Army leader that summarize the leader attribute and core leader competencies” (Clark, 2021, p. 5). In other words, a person’s ability to lead in the army is dependent on his or her actions, competence, and character labeled by Do, Know, and Be, respectively. The seven key army values are personal courage, integrity, honor, selfless service, respect, duty, and loyalty (Clark, 2021). Thus, army leaders should focus on self-development and self-growth to obtain the necessary attributes and competencies before they can as such.
The Be dimension of the leadership philosophy primarily refers to leader attributes. These include identity through character, outward appearance and fitness, and intelligence (Clark, 2021). In a sense, an effective army leader must present himself or herself as a leader by looking like, and he or she must have a strongly appealing personality with rigid army values accompanied by a sharp intellect. Competence is directly relevant to the Know aspect of the army leadership philosophy. It is stated that the Know “is as important as good character in your growth as an Army leader. Without it, your command will lack substance” (Clark, 2021, p. 7). In other words, an army leader must be knowledgeable, communicative, innovative, mentally agile, and have sound judgment.
Three key components of competence include training, experience, and education. It might be helpful to add that self-development is of paramount importance for competence, and the outcome of an increase in this component is mutual trust. It is stated that “soldiers should continually develop competence through institutional education, realistic training, and self-development” (Tolman, 2020, para. 4). In addition, “mutual trust and shared understanding between leaders and subordinates will grow once competence is established” (Tolman, 2020, para. 4). In other words, not only competence in itself is critical for mission command, but it lays a foundation or basis for other key principles of the latter. These seven principles of mission command such as “competence, mutual trust, shared understanding, commander’s intent, mission orders, disciplined initiative, and risk acceptance” (Tolman, 2020, para. 3). Thus, all other elements are tightly reliant on soldiers being competent in their actions and knowledge.
The Do dimension is about how an effective army leader ought to act, where comradeship and devotion to the cause are of paramount importance. It is stated that “nothing speaks more clearly to your subordinates about your commitment to excellence and improvement than your ongoing assessment of the unit’s performance and your leading the way toward improvement” (Clark, 2021, p. 8). Therefore, an army leader leads, develops, and achieves alongside his or her subordinates. It can take some level of creativity, adaptability, and innovativeness to identify and utilize such an opportunity. However, it is interesting to know about the boundaries of freedom of action under the disciplined initiative since there is a certain degree of interpretation of what is the commander’s intent. In addition, a question might emerge about the perceptive aspect of the disciplined initiative, which leads to the failure of achieving this intent.
Leadership Types
It should be noted that leadership in the army can be direct or indirect. For the former, “direct leadership is face-to-face, first-line leadership. Subordinates of direct leaders see them all the time at the team, squad, section, platoon, company, battery, squadron, and battalion levels” (Clark, 2021, p. 10). For instance, a commander’s intent of mission command is a form of exercising one’s authority to utilize a commander’s intent to command through his or her leadership. In other words, it takes place when a commander uses mission orders to initiate a disciplined action with the use of his or her intent to enable adaptive and agile conduct of operations, which are based on authority and leadership.
Indirect leadership refers to a leader with no legitimate hierarchal basis but who leads through experience or character nonetheless. Unlike a direct form, it is a type of art of leadership, where confidence and trust are key ingredients to achieving a common goal. There is a strong element of empowerment and motivation involved in indirect leadership. The given exercise of authority avoids micromanagement by undertaking the risk of mistakes and execution errors based on reliance on guidance and parameters of action.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is critical to note that the foundation of army leadership stems from leading, developing, and achieving beside or at the front of the subordinates within both direct and indirect settings. A wide range of fundamentals of army leadership, as well as its functional manifestations, were assessed and analyzed. Since organization and structure are highly important for an army, leadership must be thoroughly studied as the sole enabler of cohesion, coordination, and unity in action. Army leaders can have a profound impact not only on how the army performs during operations but additionally how the soldiers are in general.
References
Clark, M. (2021). Introduction to army leadership [PDF document]. Web.
Tolman, F. N. (2020). Mission command: A senior enlisted leader’s perspective. NCO Journal. Web.
Umbrasas, K. (2022). Rediscovering leadership as an antidote to adjustment problems in the army[PDF document]. Web.