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Editor's Note: This essay won the top prize in the Draper Essay Contest, sponsored by the Draper Armor Leadership Award Fund to mark the 75th anniversary of the program. Contestants were asked to write on the subject: "Leadership in the XXI Century - Digital Age." The second and third place entries will be published in future editions of ARMOR.
Ten soldiers wisely led
Will beat a hundred without a head.
- Euripides
A great deal has been written about how leadership will change fundamentally in the twenty-first century as a result of digital technology. I disagree. To lead means to inspire others to follow willingly. Leaders do this by articulating a meaningful vision and a sound plan to get there, by being trustworthy in terms of character and competence, by instilling discipline and a winning attitude, and by making sound decisions. Such fundamentals have been discussed extensively, not just by modern theorists but by ancient soldiers and philosophers such as Xenophon, Plato, Caesar, Cicero, and myriad others.1 Technology is merely a temporal condition. While specific leader competencies will change with technology, human nature does not. Leaders in the Digital Age will still have to inspire their soldiers with the same fundamentals as they did in the Bronze, Iron, Steel, and Industrial Ages.
A subject embedded in this discussion that bears serious consideration, however, is how digital-age technology will affect the role of the leader in combat. Will warfare in the twenty-first century be dominated by a "virtual" leader, a person who will become detached from the battle so he or she can process information and make decisions rapidly to keep pace with the tempo of information warfare? If the notion that combat is a contest of time-competitive decision-action cycles in which the side with the faster cycle will paralyze the slower side is accurate,2 then the idea of a virtual leader - an information warrior - seems logical. Military history, in fact, is replete with examples of smaller, more agile forces shattering larger formations because of faster decision-action cycles.3 According to the virtual leader argument, the side that can process information and make decisions the fastest will win.
The argument typically runs as follows. The advent of digital communications will speed the flow of...