Military leadership essay sample

Question 1

The context in which leadership is being implemented in organizations is changing constantly. The problems and challenges faced by most organizations are becoming also complex. This is certainly the case for military organization. This is so because not only the threats to the nation’s defense more difficult to predict, but the very nature of the mission have changed, from traditional warfare to humanitarian aid and peacekeeping. Therefore, the necessary approach to military leadership should be considered. The environment and goal should be a starting point when considering the military leadership.
Currently, the military leaders have opted to adaptive leadership, which is used to train leaders to meet the challenges of the contemporary operating environment. Adaptive leadership is an accepted leadership practice, which facilitates leading in difficult and changing environment. It is extremely useful to the military because it helps them to encounter threats that changed and evolve their tactics and procedures constantly. Adaptable leaders will be in a position to scan the environment, establish the main traits of the situation, and be aware of what it will take to perform in the changed environment. This ensures leaders are comfortable when entering unfamiliar environment, and have the proper frame of mind for operating under mission command orders (Marrone, 2006). Adaptive leadership includes being a change agent, which means helping other members of the military. Therefore, military organization should consider adaptive leadership because it has ability to identify the essential elements vital for performance in each new situation.
Similarly, shared leadership is extremely vital in the military organization. Shared leadership involves creating a broader and deeper capacity for leadership to go beyond formally appointed leader. Since the goal of the military is to work as a team, shared leadership should be considered because it ensures everyone on the team is responsible for leadership. Moreover, in the context of the military of the military environment where military rank is constantly salient, shared leadership will be vital to initiate discipline and prevent over-dependence (Riggio, 2006). Thus, shared leadership appears to be a possibility for military because of the increasing complexity of the mission.

Question 2

The environment and goals should be starting point when establishing what behavior and practices are vital for leaders. Currently, military leaders face a host of challenges and roles, which are timeless and new. Therefore, the military leadership is something to do with the character of the leader because the environment is challenging, and only leaders with proper traits and principles can survive. Leaders in the military expected to be a warrior and only those with character that can comply with this trait. They are expected to prepare, train, and lead their units to face a range of missions and must balance the welfare and safety of their units with the need to achieve success in missions that hold inherent dangers (Stewart, 2002).
Military leaders should have character because they are expected to protect the welfare of service members and families which facing challenges such as suicide and stress disorder among others. They are responsible for creating environments that fosters the learning, development, and retention of service members during a period of war. They are also expected to create a tone within their limits that fosters ethical decision making in often challenging situation for which the rules of engagement are not always vivid (Morgeson, 2005).
Research indicates that a personality trait is associated with leadership. Therefore, to have effective leadership, I believe leaders must be born. Born leaders have inspirational motivation that keep them enthusiastic and focused on goals. They also have intellectual motivation, which promote creativity, and have thoughtful problem solving. The born leaders have individual motivation, which helps in defining team objectives.
I believe leadership can be taught. This is so because the current organization requires leaders with high potential, flexibility manage change and meet demands. In order to have these leaders, several organizations are spending much time and resources in selecting and training effective leaders. The leaders should be trained in order to develop and maintain technical and tactical expertise required by their professions as leaders. They must possess the capacity to lead across ever-broadening missions and operating environments, which can be achieved via training.

Question 3

A significant consideration in understanding leadership is the situation or the environment in which leadership is exercised. The situation influences the character and principles of a leader. Therefore, I believe leaders rise to the occasion. This is so because leaders must be equipped to execute diverse missions and rapidly changing conditions. They must be in a position to realize the situation, reach decisions, formulate plans, and adjust to unexpected situations. For instance, the emerging U. S army leadership doctrine focuses on the development of leader qualities such as flexibility, creativity, motivation and an ability to engage in a constant learning in order to deal with contemporary and future operating environments (Wageman, 2006).
Mission diversity facilitates the need for occasion leaders. This is so because the mission that military leaders must perform has become diverse. The leaders must be capable of operating in conditions ranging from stable peace to general war. In this case, the leaders must have courage to face this challenging situation because they are expected to prepare for to perform a wide range of military missions (Judge 2002). Not only the military units are expected to perform multiple missions, but also they must be able to change from one mission to another rapidly, which requires adaptive trait.
The cultures and values living in an area of operations always differ from that of soldiers’. Similarly, in the multinational operations, the culture of allies and coalition partners differs significantly. This calls for a change of leadership traits in order to cope with a new culture and values. To engage effectively with the citizens of the region and multinational partners, military leaders must possess cultural awareness and proficiency in order to change their leadership style (Mastroianni, 2006). In this situation, leaders must understand, respect, and accommodate cultural differences so that reputable relationship and cooperation favorable to the mission may be established. Therefore, these situations lead to rise of occasion leaders, which will manage the new challenges.
The technological change also led to a rise of occasion leaders. This is so because there should be leaders to deal with change in the operating environment because of advanced technology. Technological advances in military equipment and systems give greatly enhanced capabilities to military and require leaders who have technical knowledge to manage the change. This result in training and career development programs in order to deal with technological advances. These leaders will be equipped with skills and knowledge to operate new technological facilities such as satellite.

Question 4

In the military organization, the leadership is best understood as the combination of functions in order to meet the need of the group. In order to achieve this team leadership, there is a need of an individual within the group. In this case leadership is expected to emerge via the patterned interactions of group members in order develop effective social processes and structure. The team leader is capable of freeing the external leader to focus on other things such as identifying external threats and opportunities, and widen the entire leadership repertoire of a team (Gronn and Salas 2004). It ensures members of the team are no longer dependent on a single leader to solve their issues or set the direction for the team.
The military doctrine tends to equate leadership with the actions of an individual leader. It defines leadership as the process of influencing people by offering purpose, direction, and motivation while working to complete the mission and to promote an organization. This emphasizes that the leadership development is significantly based on the development of individual leaders. Therefore, military doctrine promotes solely the idea of individual leader development and think leadership as a wide team capacity issue. This is so because multiple leaders depend on the combined knowledge and individual authority to achieve a common goal (Day, 2000). In military, leadership is perceived to involve sharing authority and responsibility among the leaders in decision-making, planning, and to execute the functions of units.
Similarly, in military leadership is understood as the combination of function that achieves the needs of a team because it uses review tools to help followers to learn from their mistakes and enhance the entire learning orientation. This is so because their doctrines expect leaders to learn from mistakes and work as a team for a common goal. The military understands that, via effective leader development, organization can plug any leader in any given situation and have effective leadership (Millett, Maslowski and Feis, 2012).

Question 5

The military understands leadership as the capability of an individual to motivate, influence, and enable others to contribute toward the success of the organization. This is similar to military command where leadership is about influencing people by offering purpose, motivation and direction while working to complete the goal of promoting an organization (Brown, 2003). Military leadership relates to the military command that they both understand the significance of a mission. They conduct mission analysis in order to understand the situation and the problem and identify what the leader and command must accomplish for the purpose of the operation. Understating the mission is vital to both command and military leadership because it allows them to visualize the operation and plan how to integrate the adaptive leadership.
In both organizations, leadership is based on interpersonal interactions with the need of increasing organizational effectiveness via teamwork. The aspect of leadership is most useful in the context of functions of these organizations because it cultivate individual attributes such as endurance and discipline in order to be successful. They both experience the challenges of the responsibilities as a result of a change in environment and culture diversity. These organizations control the functions in different departments by ensuring their values are achieved. Therefore, military leadership and military command relate to the way they control their organization.

References

Bunamo, M. (2008). Excellence in leadership: Lessons learned from topperforming units. Air & Space Power Journal, 22, 44–48.
Brown, F. J. (2003). Leaders for America’s Army. Military Review, 83, 68–78.
Day, D. V. (2000). Leadership development: A review in context. Leadership Quarterly, 11, 581–613.
Gronn, P., & Salas, E. (2004). Leadership capacity in teams. Leadership Quarterly, 15,
857–880.
Judge, T. A. (2002). Personality and leadership: A qualitative and quantitative review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 765–780.
Marrone, J. A. (2007). Shared leadership in teams: An investigation of antecedent conditions and performance. Academy of Management Journal, 50, 1217–1234.
Millett, A. R., Maslowski, P., & Feis, W. B. (2012). For the common defense: A military history of the United States from 1607 to 2012. New York: Free Press.
Morgeson, F. P. (2005). The external leadership of self-managing teams: Intervening in the context of novel and disruptive events. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 497–508.
Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational leadership (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Stewart, G. L. (2000). Leadership for self-managing work teams: A typology and integrative model. Human Relations, 48, 747–770.
Wageman, R. (2005). A theory of team coaching. Academy of Management Review,
30, 269–287.