How military experience develops human resource leadership skills

¶ … military experience relates to HR concepts

Most of the organizations that adopt a classic approach in their management tend to follow a comprehensible, coherent, planned and premeditated strategy in their running. This is the case of a Military camp. Most of the lessons and trainings involved illustrate a close link with Human Resource concepts. This is in terms of employment skills, leadership qualities and the connection between power and politics. Having worked in a military camp for a couple of years, I can strongly link my military experience with the Hr concepts. In terms of Leadership and followership, the military has played a larger role in improving my leadership skills, since; currently I have confidence in making crucial decisions and offering potential solutions (Armstrong, 2008, P.11)

Furthermore, through motivation and engagement, I experience a new personality in my career path and I am capable of improving my relation with others and delegate assignments when offered a high rank. In addition, power and politics is one area that conflicts with almost every discipline, but this is different in my experience. From Hr perception, I have adequate skills of balancing authority and politics without causing any conflicts whatsoever. In this essay, I shall base my argument on how my military experience relates to Hr concepts, and the essay shall revolve around theses three topics 1) Leadership and followership 2) Motivation and engagement 3) Power and politics.

2) Leadership and Followership

Military service played a big role in enhancing my leadership skills because presently I have gained confidence in initiating significant decisions and generating reliable solutions. This is something that is evident from the appraisal outcome frequently conducted in the camp. In most case, the performance appraisal carried out demonstrates the performance of every individual within the organization. The appraisal team takes their time in evaluating the personalities of every individual, and they mostly concentrate on how one handles situations and various scenarios, the relationship one exhibits and other aspects that seems petty but are significant in performance appraisal system.

In organizational point-of-view, this is a task designated to the Human resource manager. In every organization, there is a personnel involved in addressing the welfare of the individuals, and Military camp is not an exclusion. Prior to joining the military service, I was a careless, lazy and a person who never adhered to deadlines. This are qualities that no longer exist in my life, in that, the military experience, which includes, both learning and training, have totally transformed my life. I know the values of being disciplined and adhering to strict exercises because I know the repercussions thereafter (Gratton, L et al., 1999, P.7)

The image or rather the reputation of an individual's behavior details the personality of the person. In essence, the outcome of the behavior depends on how the person handled various things or related to people. If the outcome is positive, this means that the person possess the qualities a strong and responsible leader. In other words, the outcome is very significant because it explains the sustainability of a person in a certain place. I managed to complete my military without causing any conflicts or indulging in any disciplinary cases.

I relate the positive outcome with two prime models of leadership that I posses. The first model of leadership is the task-oriented leadership. Task-oriented leader's main objective is getting the work completed. However, they are sometimes autocratic. They enthusiastically define the task and the roles required, develop necessary structures and put them in place and plan, organize, and keep an eye on the work. They perform other major tasks, for instance, developing and preserving principles for performance (Gratton, L et al., 1999, p.7)

The strengths involved in this leadership model is that, leaders involved are time conscious, and in that, they adhere to the deadlines. Observing time is one of the disciplinary procedures in the military service as well as a key Hr concept. Even though, task oriented leaders are mindful of getting the work done within the stipulated timelines, they have a weakness, in that, and they think less about the welfare of their team members. This leadership model suffers great flaws of dictatorial leadership, for instance, increasing motivation and retention problems.

Another model of leadership is Charismatic Leadership. A charismatic leadership model is similar to transformational leadership since these leaders encourage enthusiasm in their teams and are active in motivating others to make a step forward in their endeavors. There is always an excitement and devotion from teams, and this is a tremendous benefit for the well-being of the entire team. However, there is a difference between charismatic leadership and transformational leadership and this lies in their objective.

Transformational leaders intends to change their teams and organizations, while as Charismatic leaders are often focus on themselves, and are reluctant in bringing transformation. However, as much as charismatic leadership is excellent in encouraging enthusiasm, their downside is that they believe in themselves more than they believe in their teams. This weakness is risky and can bring down the entire organization if such a leader leaves the organization. On the other hand, their strong believe in their potential can cause great achievement in the organization because they are devoted towards the success of the organization (Gratton, L et al., 1999, P.7)

3. a) My professional development on Motivation and Engagement

My military service immensely improved my professional development regarding motivation and engagement. I learnt that motivation depends on engagement and without engagement; it is difficult for any person to get motivation in one way or the other. For instance, in my case during my service at the military my motivation originated from succeeding in the engagements I made in the field. Even though, some conquests seemed impossible and discouraging, in the end came motivation and desire for more achievements. Things, which seemed difficult at first paid off in the end resulting into motivation to achieve more during my service in the military. Achieving the positive leadership skills, which played vital roles in my life in times of handling certain situation or making crucial decisions lead to greater motivation in my life. From this experience, I realized that there is no motivation without engagement in life activities in any field. Engagement is the backbone to motivation in life (Boxall, & Purcell, pg. 225, 2011).

4. Power and politics

Relevance of military service to power and politics

My four months in the military service served significantly in influencing my perspective about power and politics. The military service presented me a lifestyle that is relevant to the everyday politics and power. Both power and politics are important in the HR practices considering that power is the resistance to change while politics refers to the ability to influence stakeholders. This relation, concerning politics and power makes it easy to relate the military life and the HR concepts (Furnham, 2010, p. 36). Human resource management concept always involves molding individuals to be resistant to change while also having the capability of convincing the shareholders. The two factors, resistance (power) and convincing (politics) serve both world of military and HR. My military service is relevant to power and politics considering the various experience I had during the training process. I had to develop resistance to the prevailing conditions that I had not previously experienced.

Everything in the environment was new, with most of the daily experience proving to be worse than the previous ones. There were only two options, to either drop out of the military or develop resistance for the prevailing conditions. Considering that I completed my military sessions is enough evidence to show that I developed a resistance, which I had not expected myself to develop (Goldman, 2007, p. 77). The life made me to develop a rational view towards every condition with the belief that I can succeed in anything provided I developed resistance. Further, military have also helped me in developing ambivalence that I never had in my previous life. It has improved my leadership skills since the experience taught me to develop confidence whenever am making important decision. Due to these leadership skills, I can easily have a lead over other people since I am always ready and confident in making important decisions.

Reasons for resistance

The military life presented situations, which made me to develop resistance; otherwise, I could not have succeeded out of the institution. I had to develop resistance against the daily "monotonous" exercises that I had always seen as an obstacle to completing the military life. The army life involved waking up very early in the morning to go for the exercises, something that I had not experienced in my life (Goldman, 2007, p. 77). I had to develop a resistance through convincing myself that the exercises were for the human beings. I convinced myself that there are other people, before me, who had also passed through the same experience without quitting. This imagination brought me into believing that I could make it just as the other people had made it. Further, I also got encouragement from some of my colleagues who had used themselves to the situation. I was not going to drop out when some of my friend were already getting used to the life. The only option I remained with was to develop resistance.

Power techniques applied

Some of the power applied to resistance enabling me to change included education and persuasion, participation and involvement and facilitation and support. For education and persuasion, I had to seek for information from the people who were a year ahead of me. The individuals informed me that the military will always be rough for any beginner but after getting used to it, an individual would always find the life easy. They persuaded me to develop a positive attitude towards the life in order to succeed. Participation and involvement in groups of other individuals also made me develop resistance. We were able to encourage each other that at the end we will be able to succeed. In our group, containing my friends, we were able get used to the situation because of the encouragement arising from the involvement. Further facilitation and support was also important especially to the individuals who believed they could not make it. We supported each other during the hard times because of the unity built thereby lessening the burden of the whole experience.

Significance of backstage activity

In order to get used to the life, I had to use backstage activity as one of my strategies. Backstage activities are important in improving resistance since they help in enhancing the process of development and implementation of strategies.

My professional development on Power and Politics

My four months in military services served significantly in influencing my perspective about power and politics. The military service presented me a lifestyle that is relevant to the everyday politics and power. The military life helped in shaping my professional development in relation to power and politics. It allowed me to learn both the bad and the good side of life. Even though the military life presented some situations, which I considered as hard, it was upon me to find ways of succeeding. I was able to develop resistance and confidence (making up politics and power) which form part of the HR concept. The HR practices require an individual to be ready for any type of situation just like the military life (Caldwell, 2001, p.45). Further, the HR practice also requires me to be ready with solutions which am confident can lead me through to achieving success. Further, the military experience taught me that I should be firm on the decision I make since any variations will influence the results.

Conclusion

"The military experience served in influencing my perspective about the HR concept. The HR concepts act as a reflection of the things happening in the military life. In order for an individual to adapt to the two situations there is need for developing Leadership and followership, Motivation and engagement, Power and politics, Organizational culture, the strategic impact of HR (Goldman, 2007). The military service presented me a lifestyle that relates to the everyday politics and power. Both power and politics are important in the HR practices considering that power is the resistance to change while politics refers to the ability to influence stakeholders. Both the military life and the HR concept require an individual to develop motivation while also engaging with others in a beneficial way. Both of the environments also contain the concept of leadership and followership.