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ACCORDING TO U.S. Army doctrine, "leadership is key, and the actions of leaders often make the difference between success and failure, particularly in small units."1 Leadership is a deciding factor on the battlefield and takes many forms. No one leadership style, action, or trait is universally effective for all situations.
What, then, should be the focus of Army leader development? Which traits should the Army develop? Which actions should the Army emulate? Which examples should the Army study as models of leadership behavior, and which should the Army ignore as historical anomalies? The dynamic nature of the environment in which officers will lead is also an important consideration in making any future determination.
To maximize the benefit of its technological edge in materiel in any future conflict, the Army must adapt its leader development system to changes in social, political, or military domains. As societies change, new types of missions emerge and new organizations form. The Army must anticipate leadership requirements and develop the attributes its future leaders will need rather than relying on old leadership theories.
One glaring weakness in the Army's current leader development system is its development of lieutenants. The Army's leader development program emphasizes three pillars of development: institutional training, operational assignments, and self-development.2 Because most new lieutenants have little operational experience, their leadership development rests primarily in the institutional domain.
Because of their limited experience, lieutenants are likely to be unsure of what aspects of leadership they need to focus on for self-development. Young leaders begin to understand where to focus self-development activities only after experiencing situations that call for leadership skills and receiving feedback on their performance.3 lieutenants rely primarily on the Army's institutions for their initial development. Unfortunately, the institutional training portion of the Army's leader development system has failed to adapt to the changing nature of conflict and does not adequately prepare lieutenants to lead soldiers in today's environment.
Changes in the conflict environment have created doubts about the relevance of the existing leader development paradigm as it prepares leaders for today's environment.4 junior leaders must now lead soldiers in increasingly complex and ambiguous circumstances where seemingly simple tactical decisions can have dramatic strategic implications.5 Potential unintended second- and third-order effects of tactical decisions are not always...