Leader Development at the Organizational Level

COL (Retired) David G. Cotter

In 2013, Secretary of the Army John McHugh, Chief of Staff of the Army GEN Raymond T. Odierno, and Sergeant Major of the Army Raymond F. Chandler III all endorsed the Army Leader Development Strategy (ALDS) which makes clear that leader development is the sine qua non for a successful present and future force.¹ That ethos carries through in Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 6-22, Army Leadership, which identifies “develops” among leader competencies in the Leadership Requirements Model. Thus, it’s patently clear that the Army is dedicated to leader development as evidenced by the focus it receives from the very highest levels because, after all, organizations do well what the boss declares as important. The ALDS describes leader development as a responsibility that is shared by the institutional Army, the operational force, and the individual. It further describes this in an ends-ways-means construct that describes training, education, and experience across the institutional, operational, and individual domains.² But the ALDS is short on the “how.” How do we do leader development at the organizational level?

Successful commanders develop leaders. It’s an investment in the future and part of the stewardship role to which all commanders are beholden. We all strive to constantly improve our organizations with the goal of achieving mission excellence as well as passing on a formation that is better than the one we inherited. To this end, many organizations employ qualification programs (for example, spur rides in cavalry units and prop blasts in Airborne formations). These are developmental in that they require some level of certification. Each leader must successfully perform a myriad of mission and unit-specific tasks that grant them entrée into the ranks of the accepted. These programs are of great benefit because they help keep the organization operating within the band of excellence and are fundamentally developmental but tend to be narrowly focused on the competencies required for excellence at the specific organization. If properly executed, staff rides are also excellent, albeit resource intensive, development opportunities that can be employed to great effect at organizational level. Staff rides have the advantage of a more expansive professional focus which addresses the ALDS’s priority to broaden leaders by stretching them professionally and intellectually by requiring them to operate beyond their core competencies. This enhances their value to the Army at large. Other organizations focus less on the unit and more on the individual by utilizing professional reading programs that are developmental at the Soldier level but only derive tangential benefit to the unit.

At the Command and General Staff College (CGSC), the Department of Command and Leadership offers an Advanced Application Course entitled “Organizational Leadership Case Studies” that can be easily and inexpensively adapted by a battalion or brigade commander/command team to work at organizational level.³ The course, authored by Dr. Tom Bradbeer, is purpose designed for majors at the CGSC, using popular films as leadership case studies. The focus is on organizational leadership and requires the officers to “... evaluate the leadership competencies of organizational-level commanders that weighed heavily on the outcomes of their decision making in combat or preparing for combat with the intent of deducing implications that relate to your future roles as an organizational leader in full spectrum operations.”⁴ The library of films used for this course totals 18 and includes Glory, Breaker Morant, The Lost Battalion, A Bridge Too Far, and A Bright Shining Lie among others (see Figure 2). Each officer is required to watch the film individually and conduct some background reading before coming together in a group to discuss the protagonists as they deal with the problems within their organizations and what challenges that unit must confront to accomplish its mission. Not a history course, each session is inaugurated by a 15-20 minute overview that puts the case study into context for application by the assembled leaders. To give some structure to the discussions, we pose the following questions, in various formats, for each case study:

1) In each case study, there are at least two main protagonists that are in conflict with one another. What are their purpose, mission, and anticipated endstate?

2) What Army values are in conflict with one another? Explain?

3) Identify at least three competencies or attributes from the Leadership Requirements Model that the protagonists demonstrated as organizational-level leaders.

4) If the organizational-level leader was successful, explain why?

5) If the organizational-level leader failed, explain why?

6) Identify and explain the environment, culture, and climate you observed in the case study.

Using this construct, with just a DVD (generally available from the post library) and access to the internet for some background reading, an organization’s leaders can gather to perform a case-study analysis of a complex organization facing a perplexing problem(s). Leveraging the LRM, the discussion leader can initiate and vector the discussion among the assembled leaders. For example, in the case of The Lost Battalion, the battalion commander finds himself deep in enemy territory in a communication blackout, cut off from contact with units that were supposed to be on his flanks. With dwindling resources and no anticipated resupply, facing a numerically superior enemy, the commander must hold his position in order to meet his mission requirements. After watching the film, the leaders can assess the commander’s ability to:

• Be a leader with presence, demonstrating resilience that contributes to the unit’s mental and physical well-being and morale
• Create a positive environment in the face of daunting odds
• Communicate a vision that motivates others to achieve the desired endstate
• Lead by example by demonstrating a competent and confident approach to the high-pressure conditions of combat
• Lead others by example and by direction
• Prepare self; self-aware leaders are capable of anticipating and exploiting both expected and unexpected opportunities
• Get results by achieving the mission by gaining and maintaining situational awareness and situational understanding.

As the discussion unfolds, it is important to make sure that the process has relevance to the leader. Specifically, how will what we observed in this film and gleaned from the group discussion be of benefit to the individual as a leader in the future? Just as importantly, it is every leader’s responsibility and duty to develop subordinate leaders. How can leaders use what was discussed to assist their subordinate leaders?

Following the discussion, each leader writes a short, single page paper, a précis, that provides a concise summary of the essential facts of the case. To ensure brevity, the leader should focus on the principal protagonist of the case study and use one attribute and one competency from the LRM as the basis for the prose. The leader can then finish up with the key reason the case study analysis will be of use in the future.

There are some potential traps that can make this approach to leader development problematical. For instance, depending upon the audience, some movies may fail to c

onnect. Specifically, here at CGSC, we are focused on the organizational level of leadership and, as such, shy away from films that operate at the direct level. For instance Saving Private Ryan is an extraordinary case study, but it reflects direct level leadership and is appropriate for junior NCOs and company-grade officers. Apart from entertainment value, it has no real developmental benefit for senior NCOs or field grade officers. Conversely, Glory is an excellent example of organizational leadership for both senior NCOs and field-grade officers. Glory would not provide the same value for a squad or platoon-level leaders. In a related manner, Ike: Countdown to D-Day is an excellent case study vehicle for strategic-level leaders.

This model provides an inexpensive and flexible means of leader development that can be executed at unit or organizational level with a minimum for resources in a format that is not daunting to most leaders. It has the added benefit of entertainment value. Moreover, commanders can also leverage individual development opportunities within the context of this methodology by causing junior leaders to plan and lead discussions. With due care taken in case study selection, the leader development requirements of any formation in the Army can be achieved using this case study methodology.

Notes

¹The Army Leader Development Strategy 2013: Training, Education, Experience. Department of the Army, 2013.

²Ibid, 10.

³Command and General Staff Officers Course, Advanced Application Program, Elective A724, “Organizational Leadership Case Studies,” Lesson Plan.

⁴Ibid, Advance Sheet, A-724-AS-1.

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COL (Retired) David G. Cotter is an assistant professor with the Department of Command and Leadership, Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kan. His previous assignments include serving as director of the CGSC; assistant professor, Department of History, U.S, Military Academy, West Point, N.Y. He also commanded at company (A Battery, 2nd Battalion, 5th Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Infantry Division), battalion (180th Transportation Battalion, 64th Corps Support Group, Fort Hood, Texas, and Iraq) and brigade (Area Support Group-Qatar, Qatar and Afghanistan) levels. COL (Retired) Cotter graduated of the Naval War College and earned a master’s degree in history from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.