Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Military leadership development
The importance of military leadership
Obligation of Military Leadership
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Military leadership development
In the military, regardless of whether or not they are in one’s chain of command, virtually all military members practice a form of passive management by exception dimension of transactional leadership. This means that members address each other about failure to comply with standards, correcting each other to help maintain a culture of excellence. The function of a leader in this dimension is a more active role of identifying and avoiding deviations from standards, correct the issue, and provide remediation if necessary areas in a more active role.
Transformational leadership goes beyond defining roles and duties and consistent quality performance of organizational members in favor of an approach that affects member’s values in an effort to improve worker satisfaction and success. Transformational leadership, as the name implies, focuses on change and reform by, “influencing, inspiring, moving, and literally transforming followers to achieve organizational goals beyond their self interest” (Burns as cited by Weiss, 2011). Bass
…show more content…
Military organizations are constantly changing, as are their business counterparts. With these changes, leaders and their leadership styles must change as well. Effective leaders utilize changing environments to their advantage as opportunities for growth as well as lessons to impart to subordinates. The more adept a leader is to handling change, the higher the likelihood of increased leadership responsibility is. Not only are leaders required to ensure self-development is ongoing, they must also provide developmental opportunities for their subordinates. Imparting new skills and enabling personal growth opportunities for subordinates is also a necessity due to the importance of developing team members as people, experts, and future leaders
Natural born leaders are almost nonexistent in today’s military. Military members have to complete numerous leadership classes as you progress through the military ranks whether you are an enlisted or as an officer. There are many attributes that people would have to possess to be considered a great leader. Some of those attributes include honesty, respect, trustworthy, and enthusiasm just to name a few. There have been many leaders I have worked with or for over my past 19 years in the Army. One of the most important one would have to be honesty. Honesty is important because if the people that work for you cannot believe what you tell them, they will never trust you or support you. Employees can make or break their supervisor. If they do not like or trust the manager they will not respect them and they will only do the least amount possible. When your employees believe that, you value their opinion and their work ethic. Like you and trust, you they will do anything you ask of them. Whether the decision is right or wrong it is a decision, a leader never want to leave their subordinat...
Part 1, The Basics of Leadership, Chapter 1 covers Fundamentals of Leadership while Roles and Relationships are covered in Chapter 2. This section describes and depicts levels of Leadership. We as a military are set apart from other non-military professions in that Soldiers must be prepared to use deadly force and have the courage required to close with and destroy the enemy. All leaders, from non-commissioned officers and warrant officers, to commissioned officers, inherently possess a great responsibility. The repercussions of decisions and actions impact the lives of Soldiers and their families. Additionally, these decisions affect the battlefield environment including enemy and non-combatants, both military and
...e reasoning behind how we lead should not change no matter what environment we are in. Troops listen and absorb our demeanor no matter what disposition we display. When Leaders fail to take initiative as problems present themselves in the rear, junior marines observe this complacent attitude and accept indecisive attitudes that decrease the unit’s ability to problem solve and act as issues arise. Breaking down our role as Marines we are expected and known by the outside world as hard charging, fearless men who ruthlessly wage and win wars by crushing our opponents with relentless force. However, with the ever evolving Marine Corps and the vast differences in MOS and job training we have to hold these Marines accountable, and in order to do so we must continue our long tradition of confident men, who trust their own skills and who make decisions without hesitation.
We can identify three major cultural dimensions that help us to understand what leaders must focus on as they guide the transition of the Army. First, professional Identity, which is guided by Soldiers at all levels who are striving for excellence in their functional specialty, i.e., HR Sergeants. Soldiers who have goals and ideals of the Army to ethically put service and duty first. HR Sergeants are trained and well educated in their field. They are taught to put Soldiers first and have great customer support skills. Second, community, the sense in which Soldiers stop thinking about “I” and start thinking “we”. The bond among units who not only believe in cohesion with Soldiers, but their families too. The HR Sergeants are there to take care of Soldiers when financial issues arise with them or their families and don’t back down until the situation is solved. Last, hierarchy, which leads to order and control and provides Soldiers with moral reference and a sense of direction. The HR Sergeant has the mentality of mission first, knowing who to contact at the next level for assistance helps get the mission
This piece serves to describe acquired PL499 course concepts and their relevance to my project team and the West Point Leader Development System (WPLDS).... ... middle of paper ... ... Even though the external consequences of breaking trust (perhaps by not completing my interviews on time like I said I would) are not as severe as breaking trust in combat, establishing the pattern at West Point that it is acceptable to fall short on commitments when they are “not important” is a terrible habit.
There are many excellent takeaways that Army leaders at all levels of war can implement when making a change. Lessons learned by many companies were thoroughly discussed and clearly highlights the pitfalls and traps leaders fall victim to when making a transformation. Therefore, Leading Change is a must read for military professionals because there are two critical tools that all leaders need to put into their kit bag, the eight reasons why change initiative fail and the eight-stage process to lead the organization through successful
Thomas N. Barnes Center for Enlisted Education (U.S.) United States. Department of the Air Force. (2012b). Ethical Leadership (LM01). Maxwell-Gunter Annex, AL: Department of the Air Force.
ADRP 6-22: Army Leadership; Chapter 10: Organizational Leadership, HQ, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C, 10 September 2012
As our forefathers before us stated, ‘‘No one is more professional than I. I am a Noncommissioned Officer, a leader of soldiers. As a Noncommissioned Officer, I realize that I am a member of a time honored corps, which is known as “The Backbone of the Army (“The NCO Creed writing by SFC Earle Brigham and Jimmie Jakes Sr”). These words to Noncommissioned Officer should inspire us to the fullest with pride, honor, and integrity. The NCO creed should mean much more than just words whenever we attend a NCO’s school. For most of us this is what our creed has become because we learn to narrate or recite. The military from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard has an overabundance of NCOs who fall under their pay grade of E-5, E-6 and etc. Yet somehow there still not enough leaders. I believe that the largest problem afflicting the military today is our lack of competent leaders, ineffective leader development, and how we influence our subordinates under us who are becoming leaders.
Regardless of the career you choose in your life, whether it be an accountant or a Soldier in the United States Army, someone, somewhere most likely had an influence to bring you to that decision. The Army defines leadership as the process of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation while operating to accomplish the mission and improve the organization (JP, p. 1). Now imagine you are a young Private, in one of the most dangerous places in Iraq and you have constant leadership changes, and not much support from your direct leadership. I am sure at this point you can imagine, it is not the best scenario to be in. Throughout the duration of this essay you will read about Sergeant First Class Rob Gallagher and Sergeant First Class Jeff Fenlason, their leadership abilities, and the techniques they attempted to use to resolve the issues in this Platoon that was in a downward spiral after losing many leaders to the hell of war.
In summary, transformational leaders through their behaviors of compassion and selflessness encourage followers to emulate them. Through persuasive communication and confidence building, leaders advocate the adoption of new values and endorse the goals of organizational to their followers. Accepting of change, they focus upon coaching, communication, and mentoring to promote organizational success. Leaders challenge the process by encouraging others to challenge themselves to a higher performance. They create an open environment in which followers can create and innovate to meet the increasing challenges of tomorrow. Transformation leadership provides a model for impacting employee empowerment, developing an innovative culture and fostering organizational success in the ever-changing healthcare arena
Looking back over 20 years of service and experience, I have determined that leadership has many attributes. Leadership is not simply “Influencing others to achieve a goal” like the definition the Coast Guard provides. Every leader wants to set and achieve goals for themselves, their subordinates, and the organization but leadership is much more than just achieving those goals. Leadership incorporates elements of respect, dependability, trust, service and empathy; when put together a leader can inspire others to accomplish nearly anything. I have encountered both a positive and negative characteristics to these traits, throughout my career, giving me learning moments for what I would like to be and what I don’t ever want to be.
In this time of transition and uncertainty, research suggests that transformational leadership is highly effective (Straight, 2006). Leadership research has drifted from emphasis on the competence of leaders to “manage change” to the ability to “transform” organizations. Transformational leaders have attributes and behaviors needed to successfully motivate and empower employees. According to Bernard Bass (1990), transformational leadership occurs when a leader transforms, or changes, his or her followers in three important ways that together result in followers trusting the leader, performing behaviors that contribute to the achievement of organizational goals, and being motivated to perform at a high level. Transformational leaders can achieve greater performance by stimulating innovative ways of thinking and transforming follower’s beliefs and aspirations. Maxwell (Maxwell, 2007) articulates that most of the time, influence is more important than formal power or authority. I agree with him. Influence is very important in organizational and co...
As an officer in the United States Army, it has been imperative for me to understand every facet of leadership and why it remains important to be an effective leader. During this course, I have learned some valuable lessons about myself as a leader and how I can improve on my leadership ability in the future. The journal entries along with the understanding of available leadership theories have been an integral part of my learning during this course. For all of the journals and assessments that I completed, I feel it has given me a good understanding of my current leadership status and my future potential as a leader. All of the specific assessments looked at several areas in regards to leadership; these assessments covered several separate focus areas and identified my overall strengths and weaknesses as a leader. Over the course of this paper I will briefly discuss each one of these assessments and journal entries as they pertained to me and my leadership.
As General Dempsey states in his White Paper, “Leader development is an investment required to maintain the Army as a profession and is a key source of combat power. Leadership entails the repetitive exercise of discretionary judgments, all highly moral in nature, and represents the core function of the Army professional’s military art, whether leading a patrol in combat or making a major policy or budget decision in the Pentagon.”