Leadership effectiveness in military command and organizational contexts

¶ … Decision Making & Creativity, Power and Influence in the Workplace, and Leadership in Organizations

Creating a platform for leadership that is agile enough to respond quickly to unforeseen events, yet stable enough to ensure team and group solidary is one of the most challenging aspects of any leader's long-term growth. Coupled with the need for having a solid foundation of leadership skills including Emotional Intelligence (EI), situational awareness and transformational leadership (Purvanova, Bono, 2009) is the need for leaders to thoroughly understand power and influence not just in their departments but across their entire organization as well. The five dominant forms of organizational power, ranging from coercive, to reward, legitimate, referent expert and informational power, all must be orchestrated successfully by a manager if challenging, often time-constrained objectives are to be attained (Drea, Bruner, Hensel, 1993). This self-reflection analysis includes insights into specific types of power from the context of their use in military scenarios. Third, leadership from an organizational context is also evaluated both from a transactional and transformational perspective, as each are required to successfully lead an organization to accomplish its objectives and mission (McShane & Von Glinow, 2010).

Decision Making And Creativity

It has often been said that the difference between a manager and a leader is a manager is what one does and a leader is who one is. Decision making approaches, frameworks and methodologies vary across the spectrum of leadership styles today yet all share a common foundation of effectiveness from the standpoint of decision-making being effective not only from an immediate results standpoint, yet the ability to nurture collaboration as well (McShane & Von Glinow, 2010). The most effective leaders served under in the military have the unique ability to create a decision making environment that nurtures and continually foster autonomy, mastery and purpose including individual initiative, while also creating a clear delineation of roles, responsibilities and accountability for results.

Decision making and creativity in the armed forces is highly dependent on a given commander's ability to utilize the foundational elements of transformational leadership. These foundational elements include individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation and idealized influence (McShane & Von Glinow, 2010). In repeated experiences throughout the armed forces, even the best leaders have these qualities unequally distributed throughout their skill sets. In one instance a commander who had to mobilize a large supply chain operation was able to use EI skills to get an entire company not directly under his command to effectively cooperate with those under his direct command. The need for EI skills and self-awareness is so critical from a military leadership perspective in these areas; they are critical for missions to be accomplished. The best military leaders continually seek to balance the foundational elements of transformational leadership with their own unique approach to gaining cooperation. This ability to create a unique balance of transformational skills with insight into how best to attain the mission has often been discussed in our course and throughout the text (McShane & Von Glinow, 2010). In my experiences in the military those leaders who delegate intelligently to create a high level of task ownership also often create a culture of creativity where subordinates are encouraged to take on responsibilities for specific missions after they have defined tactics and approaches to goal attainment. In this way, the best leaders met in the military create a continual culture of accountability supported by a create yet very focused culture of attainment and progress. It is a unique balance to see, yet the most skilled military leaders are capable of accomplishing this while attaining greater commitment and loyalty in the process.

Leadership In Organizational Settings

The nature of leadership in the military is in the midst of significant change, with the shift in power away from purely transactionally-based approaches to those more transformational based. The foundations of leadership power are also changing significantly, shifting from coercive, reward and legitimate power to expert and informational power over the long-term. These shifts in power and leadership styles are comparable to the many examples in our text (McShane & Von Glinow, 2010) and also support the contention of leadership theorists that transformational leadership is essential for any organization to continually evolve and stay agile over time (Purvanova, Bono, 2009).

One final observation also needs to be shared. The organizational structure of any enterprise changes over time, as the leadership shifts and its power components (Drea, Bruner, Hensel, 1993). This is happening increasingly in the military with the more traditional structures giving way to smaller teams with more responsibility and greater accountability as well. The continual shift in power in the military will only accelerate, which will make leadership all the more critical as a skill set in my military career over the long-term.