Dear members,
The purpose of this thread is to educate and encourage new members on
TG (and we have alot of them lately, this is good!), to start practicing Squad Leading and Commanding.
As for the veteran SLs and COs, I believe a refreshment is always welcome
.
Regards,
Rasta-GR
1) Leadership Defined
Leadership is influencing people, by providing purpose, direction, and motivation, while operating to accomplish the mission and improving the community.
2) Leadership Context
The Led
The Leader
The Situation
Communication
The Led:
- Correct assessment by the leader of the soldiers being led
- Subordinates competence
- Subordinates motivation
- Subordinates commitment
- Proper leadership actions taken at the correct time
- The leader must create a climate that encourages subordinates active participation to accomplish the mission. Key ingredients to develop this are:
- Mutual Trust
- Respect
- Confidence
The Leader:
- Honest understanding of yourself
- Who you are
- What you know
- What you can do
- Knowledge of: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWAT Analysis)
The Situation:
- All situations are different
- Leadership actions which work in one situation may not work in another
- Consider available resources and the factors of: Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops, Time and Weather
Communications:
- The exchange of information and ideas, from one person to another
- Effective Communication = others understand exactly what you are trying to tell them AND when you understand precisely what they are trying to tell you
- The Leader must recognize that you communicate standards by your example and by what behaviours you ignore, reward, and punish.
- Effective communication implies that your soldiers listen and understand you, the leader
3) Principles of Leadership
- Know yourself and seek self improvement
- Be technically and tactically proficient
- Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions
- Make sound and timely decisions
- Set the example
- Keep your subordinates informed
- Know your soldiers and look out for their well-being
- Develop a sense of responsibility in your subordinates
- Ensure the task is understood, supervised, and accomplished
- Build the team
- Employ your unit in accordance with its capabilities
4) What a Leader Must Have
Beliefs:
- Assumptions or convictions you hold as true about some thing, concept, or person
- People generally behave in accord with their beliefs
Values:
Attitudes about the worth or importance of people, concepts or things
Values will influence your priorities; the stronger values are what you put first, defend most, and want least to give up
Individual values all soldiers are expected to possess are:
- Courage (Physical and Moral)
Physical courage is overcoming fears of bodily harm and doing your duty. Moral courage is standing firm on your values, your moral principles, and your convictions
- Candor
Is being frank, open, honest, and sincere with your soldiers, seniors, and peers. Also called personal integrity
- Competence
Is proficiency in required professional knowledge, judgement, and skills
- Commitment
Means the dedication to carry out all unit missions and to serve the values of the community, the team and the unit
Norms:
- Formal norms such as the
TG primer, SOP's and server rules
- Informal norms are unwritten rules or standards
Character:
- Describes a person’s inner strength and is the link between values and behaviours
- A soldier of character does what he believes is right regardless of the danger or circumstances
- Soldiers want to be led by leaders who provide strength, inspiration, and guidance and will help them become winners. Whether or not they are willing to trust their lives to a leader depends on their assessment of that leader’s courage, competence, and commitment.
Duty:
- The legal or moral obligation to do what should be done without being told to do it
- Accomplishing all assigned tasks to the fullest of your ability
- Selfless Service
- Put the community welfare and mission accomplishment ahead of the personal safety of you and your troops
- As a leader, you must be the greatest servant in your unit. Your position is not a personal reward. Serve your subordinates, your unit, and your community
Integrity and Ethics:
- Loyalty to the community, the team and the unit
- Support and defend the
TG Primer
- Being honest and upright, avoiding deception, and living the values you suggest for your subordinates
- Ethics are principles or standards that guide professionals to do the moral or right thing
- Leaders have three general ethical responsibilities:
- - a) Be a role model
- - b) Your actions must be more than your words
- - c) You must be willing to do what you require of your soldiers and share the dangers and hardships
- Develop your subordinates ethically
- You develop subordinates by personal contact and by teaching them how to reason clearly about ethical matters
- Avoid creating ethical dilemmas for your subordinates:
- - “I don’t care how you get it done - just do it!”
- - “There’s no excuse for failure!”
- - Setting goals that are impossible to reach
- - “Zero Defects!”
- Interpret the situation. What is the ethical dilemma?
- Analyze all the factors and forces that relate to the dilemma
- Choose the course of action you believe will best serve the community
- Implement the course of action you have chosen
Authority:
- Legitimate power of leaders to direct subordinates or to take action, within the scope of their responsibility
- Leaders have command authority when they fill positions requiring the direction and control of other members of the Army.
Accountability:
- Soldiers have individual responsibilities, they are responsible for their own actions; they assume them when they take the oath of enlistment
- Command responsibilities refer to collective or organizational accountability
Assessment:
- Leadership assessment is to develop competent and confident leaders
- It should be a positive, useful experience that does not confuse, intimidate, or negatively impact on leaders.
- Conducted as follows:
- - Decide what skill, knowledge or attitude you want to assess
- - Make a plan to observe the leadership performance
- - Observe leadership performance and record observations
- - Compare performance you observed to a standard or performance indicator
- - Decide if the performance you observed exceeds, meets, or is below the standard or performance indicator
- - Give the person leadership performance feedback
- - Help the person develop an action plan to improve leadership performance
- Feedback Sources:
- - The person himself
- - Leaders
- - Peers
- - Subordinates
- - Trained leadership assessors
5) Elements of Leadership
Influencing
Direction
Motivation
Operating
Improving
Influencing:
- Getting people to do what you want them to do. It is the means or method to achieve two ends: operating and improving. There is more to influencing than passing orders along. The example you set is as important as your words you speak.
Direction:
- This gives people a reason to do things. You do not have to explain every decision to your subordinate’s satisfaction. It does mean you must earn their trust; they must know that you as the leader would not ask them to do anything dangerous -unless there was a good reason, or it is an essential task to accomplish the mission.
Motivation:
- This gives subordinates the will to do everything they can to accomplish a mission. It results in their own initiative when they see something needs to be done. To motivate your people, give them challenging missions.
Operating:
- Actions taken to influence others serve to accomplish operating actions, those actions you take to achieve the short-term goal of accomplishing the mission.
Improving:
- Leaders also strive to improve everything entrusted to them: their people, facilities, equipment, training, and resources. There will always be a new mission, of course, but part of the old one is improving the organization.
6) Levels of Leadership
Direct Leadership:
- This is face-to-face, first-line leadership. It takes place in those organizations where subordinates are used to seeing their leaders all the time: teams, squads, sections, platoons, companies, batteries, and troops-even squadrons and battalions
Organizational Leadership:
- This leadership level influences several hundred to several thousand people. They do this indirectly, generally through more levels of subordinates than do direct leaders
Strategic Leadership:
- These leaders include military and civilian leaders at the major command through Department of Defense levels. Strategic leaders are responsible for large organizations and influence several thousand to several hundreds of thousands of people. They establish force structure, allocate resources, communicate strategic vision, and prepare their commands and the Army as a whole for their future roles.
7) The Leader must "BE", "KNOW", "DO"
"BE"
Leader’s Values:
Loyalty:
- Bear true faith and allegiance to the US Constitution, the Army, your unit, and other soldiers.
- Loyalty is the big thing, the greatest battle asset of all. But no man ever wins the loyalty of troops by preaching loyalty. It is given to him as he proves his possession of the other virtues.
Duty:
- Fulfil your obligations.
- The essence of duty is acting in the absence of orders or direction from others, based on an inner sense of what is morally and professionally right
Respect:
- Treat people as they should be treated.
- The discipline which makes the soldiers of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment. On the contrary, such treatment is far more likely to destroy than to make an army. It is possible to impart instruction and to give commands in such manner and such a tone of voice to inspire in the soldier no feeling but an intense desire to obey, while the opposite manner and tone of voice cannot fail to excite strong resentment and a desire to disobey.
Selfless Service:
Put the welfare of the community, the Army, and subordinates before your own.
TG needs people who think in terms of service to their community and not in terms of their community debt to them
Honour:
- Live up to all
TG values.
- What is life without honour? Degradation is worse than death
Integrity:
- Do what's right, legally and morally. Keep your values up to the highest standards.
-
TG rightly look to their leaders not to be skilled in the technical aspects of the profession of arms, but also to be men of integrity
Personal Courage:
- Face fear, danger, or adversity.
- The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to the soldiers’ problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation, and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he’s wrong.
"KNOW"
Interpersonal Skills:
- Communicating
- Supervising
- Counselling
- Understanding Soldiers
- Using Dialogue
- Negotiating
- Achieving Consensus
- Building Staffs
- Decision Making
- Motivating
Conceptual Skills:
- Critical Reasoning
- Creative Thinking
- Ethical Reasoning
- Reflective Thinking
- Establishing Intent
- Filtering Information
- Understanding Systems
- Envisioning
- Developing Frames of Reference
- Dealing With Uncertainty and Ambiguity
Tactical Skills:
- Doctrine
- Fieldcraft
- Synchronization
- Orchestration
Technical Skills:
- Knowing Equipment
- Operating Equipment
- Maintaining Critical Skills
- Resourcing
- Predicting Order Effects
- Strategicraft
- Leveraging Technology
- Translating Political Goals into Military Objectives
"DO"
Influencing:
- Communication
Involves displaying good oral, written, and listening skills for individuals and groups
- Decision Making
Involves selecting the line of action intended to be followed as the one most favourable to the mission. This involves using sound judgement, reasoning logically, and managing resources wisely
Side Note: Forces that influence decision making:
-
TG values
- Traditional Army values
- Unit operating values
- Your values
- Motivating
Involves inspiring and guiding others toward mission accomplishment
Operating:
- Planing / Preparing
Involves developing detailed, executable plans that are feasible, acceptable, and suitable; arranging unit support for the exercise or operation; and conducting rehearsals
- Executing
Involves meeting mission standards, taking care of people, and efficiently managing resources
- Assessing
Involves evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of any system or plan in terms of its purpose and mission
Improving:
- Developing
Involves investing adequate time and effort to develop individual subordinates as leaders. It includes mentoring
- Building
Involves spending time and resources to improve teams, groups, and units and to foster an ethical climate
- Learning
involves seeking self-improvements and organizational growth. It includes envisioning, adapting, and leading change
Side Note: The leadership actions Influencing, Operating and Improving are the same at all the three levels of leadership that was mentioned on the previous chapters
8) Leaders Attributes
- Mental
- Physical
- Emotional
Leadership is not a natural trait, something inherited like the colour of eyes or hair… Leadership is a skill that can be studied, learned and perfected by practice.
Mental Attributes:
- Will
- Self Discipline
- Initiative
- Judgement
- Self-Confidence
- Intelligence
- Cultural Awareness
Physical Attributes:
- Health Fitness
- Physical Fitness
- Military and Professional Bearing
Emotional Attributes:
- Self Control
- Balance
- Stability
Human Dimensions:
- Discipline
This doesn’t just mean barking orders and demanding an instant response. You build discipline by training to standard, using rewards and punishment judiciously, instilling confidence in and building trust among the team members, and creating a knowledgeable collective will. The confidence, trust, and collective will of a disciplined, cohesive unit is crucial in combat
- Morale
Is the most important intangible element of the human dimensions. It’s a measure of how people feel about themselves, their team, and their leaders. High morale comes from good leadership, shared hardship, and mutual respect. High morale results in a cohesive team that enthusiastically strives to achieve common goals
- Taking Care of Soldiers
Creating a disciplined environment where they can learn to grow. It means holding them to high standards, training them to do so they function in peace and in war. You take care of soldiers when you treat them fairly, refuse to cut corners, share their hardships, and set the example. Taking care of soldiers encompasses everything from making sure a soldier has time for an annual dental exam to visiting off-post housing to make sure it’s adequate. It also means providing the family support that assures soldiers and their families will be taken care of, whether the soldier is home or deployed
9) Leadership Stress
Combat Stress:
- Will and Winning in Battle
All soldiers are warriors: all need to develop and display the will to win-the desire to do their job well-to preserve, no matter what the circumstances
- Stress in Training
Leaders must inject stress into training to prepare soldiers for stress in combat
Stress of Change:
- Technology and Leadership
Technology is here to stay and you, as the leader, need to continually learn how to manage it and make it work for you
- Leadership and the Changing Threat
Changing threats and situations, any of which can quickly mushroom into a major challenge
Climate and Culture Stress:
- Climate
How soldiers feel about their organization right now. As an Army leader, you establish the climate of your organization, no matter how small or large
- Culture
Consists of the shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterize the larger institution. It’s deeply rooted in long-held beliefs, customs, and practices
10) Leadership Styles and Consequences
Styles:
- Directing
Is leader centered. Leaders using this style don’t solicit input from subordinates and give detailed instructions on how, when, and where they want a task performed
- Participating
Centers on both the leader and the team. Given a mission, leaders ask subordinates for input, information, and recommendations but make the final decisions on what to do themselves. This style is especially appropriate for leaders who have the time for such consultation or who are dealing with experienced subordinates
- Delegating
Involves giving subordinates the authority to solve problems and make decisions without clearing them through the leader. Leaders with mature and experienced subordinates or who want to create a learning experience for subordinates often need only to give them the authority to make decisions , the necessary resources, and a clear understanding of the mission’s purpose. As always the leader is ultimately responsible for what does or does not happen, but in the delegating leadership style, the leader holds the subordinate leaders responsible for their actions
- Transformational
Allows you to take advantage of the skills and knowledge of experienced subordinates who may have better ideas on how to accomplish a mission
- Transactional
This style sounds like it uses a little of all the styles
Intended Consequences- are the anticipated results of a leader’s decisions and actions
Consequences:
- Intended
- Unintended
Are the results of things a leader does that have an unplanned impact on the organization or accomplishment of the mission
TG Leadership: "BE", "KNOW", "DO"
Re: TG Leadership: "BE", "KNOW", "DO"
But wait, I've got my Masters degree!
