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Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
The Soldier As Servant: A Leadership Paradigm Shift for the 21st Century
By Dr. Philip Smith-Eivemark
As the world changes, so must our leadership skills. This gets to the heart of the military culture. Some will find it uncomfortable to lay bare the soul of our institution; but address it we must. 1
This paper will argue there is an inherent contradiction within the Army’s command structure which mitigates against its goal of training soldiers for this unsettled time. The main thesis of this paper is that this central contradiction underlying the leadership problem has neither been dealt with nor identified. This paper will argue the hierarchical leadership model is inadequate to meet the demands placed on it, and the leadership crisis stems directly from the assumptions, the fundamental philosophical outlook, and both the day-to-day actions and long term thinking of this model of leadership. The aim of this paper is to outline this flaw and to suggest a different leadership paradigm to challenge these assumptions, philosophy, and the thinking and actions of the present leadership model. This is done with the hope of spurring the necessary dialogue and subsequent actions needed to create a stronger and more flexible army to carry out its present responsibilities and to face the changing challenges of the new millennium.
The present military command structure is based upon a traditional, top-down hierarchical paradigm. This hierarchical paradigm, thousands of years old, is a culturally formed model which, while still partially functional today, bases itself on a worldview which is inadequate to our complex and chaotic times. 2 In addition to this obsolete worldview, soldiers, for almost all of recorded history, were considered the very dregs of society. David Bercuson captures this viewpoint when he writes:
As late as 1831. . ..the Duke of Wellington . . ..declared that the British Army was composed of “the scum of the earth—the mere scum of the earth.” Officers were distinguished from the men they led by the accident of birth. . ..and in most cases were no better qualified than the horses they rode into battle. 3
Such individuals needed a coercive hierarchical leadership structure if they were to be formed into an effective fighting force. Within such a structure, personal responsibility and personal accountability were rigidly defined within the boundaries of military rules and discipline. Personal initiative was actively discouraged and individual authority, except for those in key command positions, was vigorously dissuaded. To be a good soldier one did what one was told and nothing more. Fundamental to this model of leadership was the belief that a thinking soldier was a liability on the battlefield. The dynamics of this hierarchical structure demanded that responsibility, accountability and authority rested at the top of the structure and this dynamic was reinforced both by law, class and tradition.
Canada’s present soldiers definitely do not fit the mold of the scum of the earth! Soldiers and officers 4 no longer come from the dregs of society. They are educated in a society that prizes individualism. All have been formed in a world that is rapidly changing and has no common or shared worldview. Indeed our age has been given its own title—the Postmodern World. While basic training is designed to break down this individualistic bent and give the recruit a shared worldview, basic training cannot wipe out what society has implanted in the new recruit in the 18-20 years the recruit existed outside the military environment. In addition, Canada ’s army has a very different view of what a modern soldier should be. Compare this quote from CFP 300 with the Duke of Wellington’s earlier assessment of a soldier:
It [the new view of a soldier] begins by recognizing that moral factors are superior in war and that the value of soldiers lies in their inherent worth as autonomous, free thinking individuals, each having something to contribute. 5
A radical shift in thinking has taken place here! The Concise Oxford Dictionary states that “autonomous” means “self governing, free, independent.” “Free thinking” means that one’s thought processes are self-regulated such that one forms one’s own opinions by critically evaluating outside information through the filters of one’s own value system and freely presenting one’s so formed opinions. This process ends when the filtered information initiates new behaviour which in turn becomes experience.
Unlike his/her predecessors of even 25 years ago, the modern Canadian soldier must be encouraged to think for him/herself. 6 However, the point of this paper is that the Canadian Army, indeed any modern army, cannot really produce this autonomous, free thinking soldier because its leadership paradigm can allow neither a truly autonomous nor a free thinking soldier to exist. This is the internal contradiction of the present leadership paradigm—it cannot, by its very being, support its stated goal of creating an autonomous, free thinking soldier. Why? Because the present structure, by its very nature, concentrates power, authority, and ultimate accountability in the hands of a few. Autonomy and free thinking both threaten this leadership structure because they cannot be controlled and lead to uncertainty which is highly problematic in a hierarchical structure which values control. Hence, the present leadership paradigm in practice suppresses free thinking and autonomous behaviour. This paradigm produces its own often unexamined assumptions about its own activity which allows it to believe it actively encourages autonomous, free thinking behaviour when in fact it suppresses such behaviour.
To be autonomous and free thinking, one needs to take personal responsibility for one’s actions, to be personally accountable for those actions, and to have the authority to perform those actions if one is to claim ownership of the actions. While a hierarchical structure can demand personal responsibility and accountability from those within the structure, it cannot give soldiers the authority to act as free thinking, autonomous persons. Authority within a hierarchical paradigm lies with those called superiors. A leadership system which demands responsibility and accountability but does not allow the individual the necessary authority to be truly responsible and accountable has the considerable potential to create cynicism and produce a CYA (cover your ass) syndrome.
The present leadership paradigm stresses accountability of the leaders for their followers. The immediate superior is responsible and accountable for the soldiers’ behaviour. If that behaviour has serious negative ramifications, then accountability will move up the chain of command looking for “leaders” to be held accountable for their soldiers’ behaviour. The message is that “leaders” are responsible and accountable for the behaviour of their “followers” twenty-four hours a day. Such an accountability system demands that “leaders,” in order to protect themselves, take away from their subordinates the all-important factor of personal authority. Decisions which affect the individual soldier will be made by those in leadership positions rather than by the soldier. Such a process creates a soldier who is firmly caught in a net of paternalism and dependency.
While large scale warfighting on formation scale is the historical reason for the existence of the army, in reality warfighting on such a scale is not what the Canadian army does for its taskings. Much of its time is spent fulfilling UN Peacekeeping commitments or aiding the civil authorities. While these peacekeeping taskings have become increasingly dangerous over the past decade, the main brunt of dealing with actual incidents on these taskings has fallen upon soldiers at the section/troop or even the individual level. With the exception of 2PPCLI’s encounter in Bosnia, almost every incident of troops coming under fire in the former Yugoslavia was at the section or the individual level. Note also that Canada ’s initial ground taskings in Afghanistan were performed through small group JSTP2. It is at this ground level where the autonomous, free thinking soldier must come to the fore. At this level, training needs to have blended these individuals into a small team which functions effectively under conditions of extreme stress. Such a team needs to be trained, and function, under a different style of leadership than a traditional top-down model. Here we need that seemingly paradoxical blend of an autonomous, free thinking soldier who functions well in a team setting.
The present struggle in the army is how to train this autonomous free thinking soldier. There is much talk about accountability, responsibility, the need for ethical behaviour and improved leadership training within the Canadian army. Each of these factors is looked at in themselves as part of the solution. However, these factors are symptoms of the problem and not the problem itself. The problem is a leadership model which cannot permit individual autonomy and therefore real personal responsibility and accountability which, in turn, are the basis for individual and group responsibility and accountability.
In a hierarchical leadership structure, each leader is attempting to be “in command.” Under the present conditions of our rapidly changing world, this form of control is a mirage. One cannot control what will happen in the future. What can be controlled is the ability creatively to adapt to new challenges. Today’s soldier is faced with vastly different problems which leaders of other generations did not have to face: the speed of unstable events taking place in the world, a society with no common worldview, new societal expectations, taskings which seem like an open floodgate, the technological underpinnings of war which have revolutionized the battlefield and thus the leadership necessary for such innovations, the overwhelming onslaught of information, the soldier’s increased level of education, sophistication, and expectations, and the list goes on. These very challenges have shown that the hierarchical paradigm is not up to the challenges of training/molding the type of soldier described in CFP 300 as necessary effectively to function within the context of this constant change.
Control, the foundation of the hierarchical paradigm, yearns for, and seeks at all costs, certainty. Unfortunately, we live in a time of uncertainty and uncertainty means there are increasing levels of choice and anxiety. Leadership must embrace this fact of uncertainty and work with it rather than try to control change—an oxymoron if ever there was one—and its subsequent uncertainty. This is a major shortcoming of hierarchical leadership—it cannot deal effectively with continual change. Change, by its very definition as something different, is dealt with in a hierarchical model by attempting to make change the same, or at least similar to, as what has gone before it. 7 At its very core, a hierarchical leadership model lacks the courage to face the new and faith to trust in its followers to deal creatively and effectively with change. Hence its need to try and control what is, by definition, uncontrollable.
Courage and trust are two of the fundamental values the army needs. These virtues function on two levels. First, at the level of military action where these two virtues mould the army into an effective fighting organization, the hierarchical model can evoke and nurture these values. However, in times of continual change and societal upheaval, hierarchical leadership is unable to fully serve these two virtues. For example, on UN taskings the rules of engagement (ROE) are set by NDHQ staff officers and not the commander on the ground. Practically speaking, I think most soldiers would consider this to be a ludicrous situation. So why is it happening? We are brought back to the accountability issue. If something should go “wrong” on one of these taskings, we are brought face-to-face with ultimate accountability and the subsequent effect of this form of accountability upon trust. Not only is the local commander held accountable but the accountability factor will surge up the hierarchical structure looking for further individuals to be held accountable for the local commander’s decision. The entire Somalia serves as an example of this accountability ripple transforming itself into a tidal wave of finger pointing.
What message is being sent to the local commander by such a command structure? Foremost, he or she is neither trusted nor considered competent enough to make such an important decision as ROE. The craziness of this structure is that who is trusted more is a faceless staff officer(s) far removed from the evolving situation on the ground. However, if anything does go “wrong” and the ROE are part of the problem, try and find the individual, other than the local commander, who will be held accountable. Accountability becomes not a duty but a hot potato passed from staff officer to staff officer. Under such a leadership paradigm, ultimate accountability will be assessed to the local commander (at least) even though he was never given the complete authority to use his own judgment because that judgment is, ultimately, in a hierarchical model, not to be trusted. This lack of trust will be passed down to the soldiers on the ground such that they as well are not truly trusted to use their own judgment and discretion. Under such a command structure it is little more than a miracle that soldiers in such hot spots as Bosnia, Kosovo, or Afghanistan do take initiative as much as they do!
Lack of trust is at the heart of any hierarchical model. The inefficiency of this lack is that the army has recruited the best possible people and then trained and prepared them as far as training can prepare them. But then it fails to take the last critical step. It fails really to trust its soldiers to do the job they are trained to do. It cannot let go of control. The army can talk trust, it can demand trust, but in the end, it cannot create trust. Trust is created by letting go of a stifling need to control.
If this argument is even partially correct, then the present hierarchical structure can neither produce nor support the new soldier called for in CFP 300. The question now becomes what kind of leadership structure can? Here a dialogue must take place which can grapple with this problem. Certain questions must be asked which will form the framework of this dialogue: What kind of soldier or leader do we want? 8 How is such a soldier recruited and trained? What leadership structure is best suited to train and sustain such a soldier?
To begin this dialogue, the role of the soldier must be defined. Let us say the role of the soldier is to serve. The discussion must then begin by asking how the organization can best assist the soldier described in CFP 300 to serve. First of all, the Canadian army is distinct from all other military establishments in the world. That is because the soldiers are Canadian and they have grown and matured in a culture which, despite some arguments to the contrary, is distinctly Canadian. This existential fact makes the Canadian army unique. As such, the Canadian army must look to itself for the solution to its leadership difficulties and not seek to implement models from other military establishments. 9 If the solution does not fit the army’s uniqueness, it will not work. The journey to a solution(s) is not a psychological journey—we are not “getting in touch” with our feelings, trying to fix the corporate personality, or probing into the collective and personal unconscious of the military establishment. It is not a philosophical journey—at least not in the sense of the journey being abstract, dense or theoretical. The journey must be a highly practical and grounded one which focuses upon actions. It must be a holistic one which focuses upon what philosophers refer to as ontology. Ontology deals with reality, how we view and react to reality, in its everyday manifestations. What is needed is a transformation in how leadership is viewed. Even the word “transformation” belays the profound shift in thinking which needs to take place. 10
Here, then, is the first major hurdle to be faced—each individual leader, nurtured, trained, and thinking as taught and encouraged by the present leadership paradigm, must undergo a personal transformation and accept that new leadership paradigms need to emerge. This new way of leading can only be successfully introduced if the present individual leader believes the current way of leading is inadequate for the challenges the army faces. This is the most difficult task of all. We all resist change and the more fundamental the change the greater the resistance to that change.
At this point each leader must be willing to take a crucial step. This step moves the leader from a mindset of trying to improve or fix how they do the leadership role to how they be with the reality of our unstable world and its demands for incredible degrees of flexibility by each soldier and the army as an organization. What is required is a transformation of the army’s way of being and not merely a change in the manner it is presently doing its role. Change is a function of adjusting what you are currently doing in order to improve what is already both possible and feasible within your old reality scheme. Transformation is a function which changes the very being in order to create a different kind of soldier—an autonomous, free thinking soldier. The fear of any organization undergoing such change is that things will be so different after such change as to be unrecognizable. However, the end product of this process of change is not the complete replacement of the hierarchical model with one so completely different as to be unrecognizable. The change process involves the dynamic encounter of the hierarchical model of leadership with another way or ways of understanding leadership in order to create a new, different, model which best serves the needs of the Army in the 21st century. For those who have studied western thought this process is the Hegelian dialectic of thesis (hierarchical model of leadership) ⇒ antithesis (different model of leadership) ⇒ synthesis (new model of leadership). While this may seem to some to be merely an academic exercise in semantics, nothing could be further from the truth. Mere change will keep the army mired in a repetitive cycle of imposing cosmetic changes to a structure which fundamentally cannot produce the soldier envisioned by CFP 300. 11
What is needed, then, is to change the way we think about leadership and then re-create the organization in light of our new understanding. By concentrating upon the being of the army we concentrate on the sources of its reality which in turn will directly affect its actions. The first step, then, in transforming the army’s being is to concentrate its energies upon the human environment within the army which will determine the limitations of the army’s actions which will in turn limit the range of results which the army can produce. This means coming to an understanding of the army’s habitual manner of thinking, its assumptions (both acknowledged assumptions and those unexamined assumptions) which drive its current thinking and actions, the language used to transmit its thoughts and way of life, and the way the army acts in accordance with the language it speaks. By engaging in this process the army will come to a better understanding of its present state of organization and individual being such that it may clearly see where the transformation must take place.
To transform the army’s human environment it must re-invent its present mode of being by creating new human environments from which it can then relate itself to the continually changing circumstances and conditions of our world. When a new human environment is created an entire new realm of possibilities, ones that could not have existed in the previous environment, come into being.
The next step is to create a new leadership paradigm, which may well be radically different from the hierarchical paradigm, which can foster the emergence of the type of soldier needed for our times. To begin this dialogue, the paradigm I wish to introduce to interact with the hierarchical model of leadership is that of the Soldier as Servant. The servant paradigm, while having central differences from the present hierarchical paradigm, has enough similarities so not to be too radically different from the known present paradigm. The servant paradigm is a logical outgrowth of the role of the soldier as one who serves his/her country. What does a good servant do? A conscientious servant is always seeking better ways to serve. If one sees oneself through the eyes of a conscientious servant then one will always be searching for the better way to carry out the task at hand. Further, within this paradigm
The only authority deserving one’s allegiance is that which is freely and knowingly granted to the leader in response to, and in proportion to, the clearly evident servant stature of the leader. Those who follow this principle. . .will freely respond to individuals who are chosen as leaders because they are proven and trusted as servants. 12
Thus we lead through serving and through service we attract allegiance.
A condition which arises here but has always been the underlying foundation of any effective fighting force is trust. Trust is the bond which holds the army together and makes the individual fighting soldier agree in his/her heart to the unlimited liability condition of military service. Within a hierarchical structure trust must be pushed from the top downwards. If this push is not constantly present, or the one doing the pushing is not considered trustworthy, then the level of trust will drop. On the other hand, in a servant leadership model trust is freely given to the leader and freely flows among the members. Such trusting is both instilled and created anew daily within a servant model. The hierarchical model depends upon forces outside the soldier to compel trust while the servant model requires that the soldier, through his/her own actions and decisions, develop self and group trust.
The most important qualification for any leader within a servant model is that the leader cares for the army. This means the leader cares for all the people the army touches and is determined to make his/her caring count. The commander of any organization leads his/her people by serving them such that each individual soldier (and consequently the team each soldier belongs to) becomes a more effective soldier by personally accepting his/her individual and group responsibility, accountability and authority. Within the servant leader paradigm, the well being of the army itself and each individual soldier completely supercedes any particular individual’s career aspirations. 13 The role of each individual leader, by his/her service to the army, is to leave the army a better organization than it was before that leader first joined. This is not a job for someone who is out to make a name for himself, to be a star, whose ambition is to get the top. Such an individual, in the end, is self-serving and will eventually undermine the trust needed for an effective fighting force to emerge. A servant leader will be the one who serves those entrusted to him/her and who will receive his/her satisfaction from a job well done. These suggestions for a different view of leadership are made in the belief that the questionable performance of the army in recent years is not the result of incompetence, poor motivation, or lack of drive in the internal leadership and administrative structure. The problem stems from an inadequate understanding by the leadership of how trust is best created and nurtured among individual soldiers and within the various army formations. This inadequate understanding is the result of each individual leader being caught in a one dimensional view of leadership, the present leadership paradigm, and thus missing the opportunity to accept a more demanding role for themselves in the creation of a truly modern army.
The central principle of the hierarchical paradigm—that control is maintained by the usurping of ultimate authority of the many by the few—stops one enmeshed in this paradigm from questioning if this is the best form of leadership for a modern, highly mobile and multi-tasked army. Those held captive by this paradigm avoid critical thinking about this form of leadership. 14 Because those trapped in the hierarchical structure have obtained their position and stature by conforming to the dictates, assumptions, and myths of the paradigm, discussion of any other form of leadership is mainly spurned—often with considerable emotional heat. This state of mind exists because those trained and indoctrinated within this hierarchical paradigm have an intuitive sense that questioning the only leadership structure they really know will open a Pandora’s Box 15 of trouble.
Hand in hand with the fear of the new, hierarchical thinking is also mainly crisis oriented. 16 In a crisis one makes do with what one has at hand, including the existing organization with its accompanying beliefs and structures. Consequently, even when there appears to be concern that the army is failing or in continual crisis, the problem is approached within the closed conventional limits of the present boundaries of the army’s hierarchical reasoning processes. The push for ethics training and the creation of the office of the ombudsman are two good examples of this internally limited reasoning. Rather than see the problem as structural, the solution, isolated from the real structural source of the problem, is approached within the tried and tested—more enforced training or the creation of an autonomous structure driven by its own need for power and control—rather than the insight that the entire pattern of thinking needs to be transformed. 17 One is reminded of the saying when you are up to your waist in alligators its difficult, if not impossible, to see the swamp!
In a hierarchical structure the leader has no colleagues, only subordinates. This structural principle is so embedded in this paradigm that few ever question the assumptions which underlie it. In this structure we see no other way but to hold one person responsible and accountable and so the natural inclination of the present paradigm is to call for a stronger leadership which only increases the control of the person at the top. 18 This paradigm is highly wasteful of leadership talent. The abilities and the innovative thoughts of those in subordinate positions are most often not employed to their maximum effect. Micromanagement is a child of this form of thinking. The one at the top is expected personally to have all the leadership traits, all the innovative ideas, and all the abilities to initiate and implement every leadership initiative. Definitely a tall order for any one individual and a situation which is bound to produce feelings of isolation at best and a distorted viewpoint at worst. Others within the organization are both formally (by way of rank and position), and informally (don’t be seen as a nonteam player), discouraged from using their strengths unless this is formally or informally approved by the commander. Such commander/subordinate relationships seriously penalize the entire organization. While initiative is said to be prized, in reality there can be a great reluctance to use personal initiative due to the adverse consequences inherent in a hierarchical structure if the initiative is not in line with the commander’s way of doing things.
Communication also becomes warped within a hierarchical model. Few subordinates are courageous enough to speak frankly to their superior as they would to their colleagues. This dynamic of power weakens informal links, at best limits and at worst can completely block avenues of honest response and constructive criticism. When faced with situations which threaten the structure the common response is to do more of the same. The few at the top more than likely do not have access to the full talents of their subordinates and must fall back on what is available to them—their own insights and assumptions which either did not foresee the problem in the first place or could not provide an effective strategy to deal with the problem. As well, the hierarchical leader, like most human beings, is incapable of getting outside the structural shortcomings of his own operational paradigm which originally created the problem. Unfortunately, the type of response produced by these inherent shortcomings is more likely to magnify than to mitigate the problem.
I hold that it is worth the short term upheaval and uncertainty which such a paradigm shift would engender if it results in an army where a high level of trust and pride is created through a quality of service that is exceptional both when compared to what has gone before it and compatible with the demands of our frenetically changing world.
What are the intermediate steps necessary to create the free thinking, autonomous soldier of CFP 300? In outline, I propose the following:
The model needs to be based on a common worldview. Earlier we stated that we live in a world which does not have one, predominate worldview, but the critical discussion needs to begin by trying to identify what such a worldview will be. This discussion, while employing reason to its utmost capacity, will have to rely heavily on intuition and foresight. 19
The mission and objectives of the Army must be thoroughly understood in relation to both the new leadership model and the understood worldview.
Throughout this procedure, two questions must be constantly asked: “Is what we have now the best possible given the state of the world and how we understand ourselves?” and “What are the underlying assumptions which are driving this process?”
Given the limitations present, we must develop the optimum leadership model. As argued in this paper, the dialectic thesis (hierarchical leadership paradigm) ⇒ antithesis (servant leadership model) ⇒ synthesis (the leadership model best suited to the mission, aims and limitations of the Army) is one possible framework for this discussion and development.
Enter into a similar process with the new model by which CFMP and LFSDG were developed for a hierarchical leadership model.
The challenges facing the Army today can only be met effectively if there are more people who are willing to serve as leaders everywhere throughout the organization. A new leadership paradigm needs to be developed which will create leaders and team oriented, autonomous, self thinking soldiers in a manner in which the present hierarchical paradigm cannot. Hopefully, this paper will spur further critical discussion and evaluation as to how the army will approach its crisis in leadership. Either the army will proactively create the environment in which it must meet the demands of the present and the future or it will become a victim of those demands.
Endnotes
Note 1: Land Force Strategic Direction And Guidance, Part II—Chapter 1, Section 3, para 5. Back.
Note 2: We are presently in what social scientists refer to as the Postmodern Age. In the first great age of human development, the Agrarian Age, dominated by first the hierarchical Greco-Roman world and then the hierarchical Christian world, there was a definite top/down understanding of the world theologically, philosophically, and politically. This was the age of rule by divine right and it was in this age that our present military model of leadership developed. The Agrarian Age came to an end in the seventeenth century with the rise of science and the ascendancy of the role of human reason. This period of history is called the Modern World. Still a hierarchical world, it was now a world in which we humans felt confident we, by our reason, could figure out everything. Hence, Isaac Newton could say: “O God, I think your thoughts after you!” The Modern World was founded on three basic assumptions: the world is ordered, our reason is able to discern this orderliness by our understanding of the laws of nature, and human fulfillment consisted in our discovering these laws of nature and employing them for the benefit of humanity. The twentieth century saw the end of the Modern World and the inception of the Postmodern World. In the Postmodern world, driven by the findings of Quantum Physics and the bloody history of the 20th century, present day thinkers hold that we can no longer be sure the world is orderly (at the quantum level, reality is not ordered but paradoxical and contradictory to reason) and human reason is incapable of understanding reality. In the Postmodern world, for the first time in human history, there is no shared worldview except, perhaps, uncertainty. Adding to this uncertainty is the onslaught of technology which is overwhelming us with information and changing the very ways in which we view the world. The point of all this is that the present day military leadership paradigm is based on a worldview which doesn’t exist any more. Back.
Note 3: David Bercuson, Significant Incident. Canada’s Army, the Airborne, and the Murder in Somalia, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Inc., 1996), 25. Back.
Note 4: These terms will be used interchangeably throughout this paper. Back.
Note 5: CFP 300 Canada’s Army, 3rd Draft: 31 Oct 96, 2-8. Italics mine. Back.
Note 6: Bercuson, in Significant Incident, 37, states: “It is more difficult to train soldiers than ever. This is partly because war is more technical and weapons more sophisticated than in the past, but it is also because battlefield conditions these days are likely to be so fluid that much depends upon the individual soldier’s ability to react appropriately to sudden changing conditions. Consequently, modern armies have learned that they must encourage their soldiers to think. (My italics) Bercuson,goes on to quote John English on the necessity for training which focuses on thinking: “Teaching a man how to think rather than what to think is a far better method of preparing him for the unexpectedness of war. A discipline of a kind that has nothing to do with common prescriptions drills is therefore required. . ..The most effective soldier thus appears to be one who is mentally resourceful and capable of a certain amount of inventiveness or creativity.” (38) In Part II, Chapter 1 “The Commander’s Intent” Section 4, paragraph 3, Land Force Strategic Direction and Guidance, the need for different training for today’s soldier is also emphasized. Back.
Note 7: For example, with reference to change, look at how the present leadership paradigm views change as something which can be controlled. The following quotes are from Land Force Strategic Direction and Guidance, Part II—Chapter 2 “Building The Army Of Tomorrow”: “All change will be conceptualized and managed. . .” (para 2); “An Army committed to intellectual investment oriented to future success, taking a coherent, holistic approach to development of the Army and management of change.(my italics) Section 3, para 2e. These statements are logical from a hierarchical leadership point of view which is invested in control. However the point is, change, as something new and different, cannot be managed because we don’t know what it is, what its effects will be, or where it will take us. The only option opened to us is to react as creatively as possible to change. Creativity is not a basic tool of the hierarchical paradigm. Back.
Note 8: The following is a description of the needed leader: “An Army in which leaders have earned the trust and confidence of their troops through proven, professional competence, genuine caring for the welfare of subordinates, and ethical and accountable behaviour. As required by their responsibilities, leaders possess the education, communication skills, decisiveness and breadth of vision required for dynamic military leadership and innovative resource management.” Land Force Strategic Direction and Guidance, Part II—Chapter 2, Section 3, paragraph 2b. Back.
Note 9: A trademark of any hierarchical structure is to look at some other seemingly similar organization and try to graft the solution of that organization onto itself rather than create a solution which is unique to the original structure. In the business world this borrowing of solutions successful for one organization and trying to graft it on to another organization has been found to be, on the whole, disastrous. Back.
Note 10: The nearest word that I can think of which encompasses such change that is needed comes from Christian theology and has its origin in koine Greek. The word is metanoia and it means to turn around, to leave your present path and go in a different direction. Back.
Note 11: For example, in “Arms And the Canadian: The Future of the Military Profession”, Canadian Defence Quarterly 26:3 (Spring 1997)” 7, the authors, General Theriault and Dr. Douglas, in the wake of the army’s leadership crisis, call “for policy reviews and reassessments of force structure.” The position of this article is that unless the very nature of military leadership is effectively addressed, the military can do policy reviews and force restructuring until the end of time without ever dealing with the core problem—the leadership paradigm itself. Back.
Note 12: Robert K. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership. A Journey Into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness, (New York: Paulist Press, 1977), 10. Back.
Note 13: This statement may sound quite familiar to the often heard admonition to all army officers that the soldier’s well-being comes before the officer’s own well-being. The key underlying difference between a hierarchical paradigm and the servant paradigm is that the former approaches this task from a paternalistic standpoint (the officer knows what is best for the soldier) while the latter approaches from a standpoint of trust that an autonomous, self thinking soldier is quite capable to contributing to the discussion concerning his/her well-being. Back.
Note 14: General Theriault and Dr. Douglas in “Arms and the Canadian”, 7, touch on this factor by stating that there is an overall “rejection of analytical thought by the officer profession in anything but technical expertise.” Back.
Note 15: Those familiar with their mythology will recall that even though Pandora released disease and discord, when she, through her insatiable curiosity, opened the box she also introduced us to the one main element we need to be spirituality alive. Hope was left in the box and it is hope which is the basis for all our drives for excellence. Back.
Note 16: I know of a former Chief of Staff of a major army formation who stated to me that almost all his day-to-day efforts were concentrated upon confronting and solving a continuous stream of crises. Back.
Note 17: Training in ethics, how to think ethically, how to make ethical decisions, is a life-long endeavor. After having provided training seminars in ethical leadership to two large army formations and a number of business organizations, I am coming to the understanding that such training needs to be focused on the idea of ethical fitness. Here each individual has the strength or the ability to see enough choices for each faced dilemma to make a thoughtful choice from a number of possible solutions. Such a developed ability requires each individual to be trained to recognize all the variances which go into choosing the best choice or aim, and then encouraged to develop the moral courage to pursue that choice over a period of time. Back.
Note 18: Have you heard the complaint that there are not enough good leaders within the army? A major reason is that a hierarchical structure actually mitigates against the emergence of more than a few good leaders at any one time. Subordinate leaders tend to tow the line more than really lead. In a hierarchical model, control is given precedence over leadership. Back.
Note 19: This first step could well be the most difficult. However, it must be engaged in or the resulting leadership model could well be based on sand and not on a solid, intellectual, philosophical, and doctrinal foundation. Back.