[Joe 6-pack]

"The problem for the military is that while in war leaders are required, in peacetime, managers are rewarded ahead of leaders."

Bingo. When I was an ROTC cadet, virtually everything we did was a study of leadership with the prevailing philosophy that "management" was but one tool under the broader umbrella of effective leadership. That is, in order to be a good leader, one needed to be able to exercise some management skills. As a new Lieutenant in the active force, that seemed to invert itself with the emphasis on "management", recognizing that a few good leadership qualities were probably necessary for one to be a good manager. It wasn't exactly what I'd signed up for :-)

In any case, over my career I distilled things down to the conclusion that leadership was essentially the ability to get people to do things they generally would not do of their own accord. Even if somebody was passionate about being a soldier and soldiering, that enthusiasm would need to be channeled and directed to make them part of an effective unit.

I observed that there were about as many leadership styles as there were leaders, and the only "wrong" style was the phony style. A quiet, deliberative person can in fact be an effective leader, but not if he puts on a false facade of brashness. Troops will see right through that.

There are a million variations on the stick and carrot approaches, but I always noted those to be external motivations. The very best leaders, and the kind I always aspired to be, were those that sold a vision and made the troops embrace and internalize the higher mission. The leader's goal and the unit's objective became the passion of every soldier.

That's leadership...

[Night Hides Not]

The best leadership training I ever received was during my first ARTEP. Why was it so valuable? I flunked it. Not my platoon, not my squad leaders, but me. It didn't matter that I had been handed the platoon the week before, while at NBC School at Vilseck.

In other words, it all came down on me...a real live lesson out of the Platoon Leader's Handbook! LOL!

From that point on, I was determined to do what I thought was best, because it was my a$$ on the line. At times, I was a thorn in my superiors' side, and I knew that I could often be an SOB.

Was I an effective leader? Good question. I had more hits than whiffs, i.e. passed ARTEPs, IG inspections, pretty much all the definables. Had great OER's from all but the two raters that I had clashes with, but that's the breaks. Virtually all memories of my eight years in the service are awesome, and the years have washed away the few bad memories.