Leadership After the Departure of LTC Wood

Leadership

After the departure of LTC wood the lieutenant colonel that was in command a battalion in the 56th Heavy Brigade Combat Team (HBCT), there was a change of command. There was a new brigade leadership team that assumed responsibility for the period of pre-deployment and train-up. The paper will look at an analysis of the leadership problem that the new brigade leadership had. There will be a proposal on the solving of the leadership problem and finally an analysis of the expected outcome from the solutions that have been proposed.

Problem identification

There was an indication that the leadership performed well within Afghanistan given the circumstances. However there were various leadership challenges that were presented which required attention. First of all there were incompatible communication systems that crippled command and communication throughout the brigade. Due to the varied battlefield, electronic and environmental conditions leaders were often required to carry multiple radios for there to be effective communication. All these communication problems were as a result of the leaders of the brigade chose to forego an upgrade in the satellite communication which was a necessity and was to be done before their deployment. Another problem with the leadership was personnel authorization on the battalion staff. This was not sufficient enough so as to allow operations for a 24-hour throughout a sustained period.in many occasion battle captains were expected off their hide out so as to conduct the mission. The resultant effect was untrained and unqualified personnel attempting to perform the tactical operations in the battalion particularly in the evening hours.as a result of this there was an increase in friction between the battalion staff and brigade. Another problem was the varied missions of the DCO that led to confusion within the brigade thus there was a weakened HBCT command structure. There were a lot of training challenges due to the modular BCT structure which had been initially implemented. Due to poor leadership there was wrong mission training done to the 56th HBCT (Sieck, 2013).

Another problem in leadership is the fact that the commanders lacked the will of including other subordinates in the decision making process. As a result of this they fell short of the expectations when it comes to the development of subordinates, counseling and coaching. Another leadership problem is the lack of understanding on how to run staff. The commanders often complain that they have no support from the S4 section especially when it comes to the critical support efforts pertaining to operations support. There is also a lot of workload from the leaders to the soldiers. Another problem is the fact that some leaders are not allowed to make some routine decisions thus they jump from one crisis to another without defined goals, visions or objectives.

Explanation of problem

All these problems in leadership are what led to lack of effectiveness of the soldiers during their deployment. Despite the fact that the soldiers had gone through sufficient training they were still not able to be effective within their mission.it is quite evident that the new leadership had brought about so many changes within the brigade. This is had a lot of problems which led to a lot of changes within the brigade (Sieck, 2013).

Defending the identified problem

This same brigade was quite different three years back.it was considered to be the best maneuver brigades and it was excellent by all measures. There was a high morale among the brigade. The leaders were so much into their leadership and soldiers were into being soldiers. There was a lot of coordination among peers that led to a lot of information being exchanged. There were meet up for brigade and battalion officers frequently whereby there were discussions on how to better the brigade despite these meetings being social events. This is clearly a different thing that is being observed now there years later. Presently since the brigade returned from deployment the number of soldiers who can not deploy due to medical reasons has increased above that prior to deployment. This means that the soldiers who were deployed experienced a hard time during the deployment and thus many of them developed some medical complications. There are no such things occurring due to the kind of leadership that is in place. This means that a lot of changes have been made by leaders that such a good brigade that existed before is now no more.

Problem solving

There is need for the brigade to reclaim its former glory.it need to return back to the position that it held initially. This can only be achieved if some of the problems in leadership are addressed. First of all the leadership should embrace the upgrading of the satellite equipment's. This will make it possible and easy for communication to be done among the leaders and to the soldiers.it will lead to an easy and fast means of communication and thus resulting to less problems of miscommunication during deployment. There should also be changes made in the system for authorization of personnel. This should be clearly laid out such that there is an effective 24-hour operation by soldiers during the entire period they are deployed. The leaders should ensure that under no circumstance are captains who are not properly trained called out to duty while in the real sense they are incapable of carrying out these duties effectively. Another thing is that the DCO should be assigned specific duties which will not bring any confusion to the soldiers. With their duties clearly understood and stipulated there will be little or no problem from the soldiers (Cherry, 2013).