By Derek Prario
Particularly in the time of preparation, modernization, and ‘culture reset’ that we find ourselves in, an effective military leader must develop others for future battles. The mandate to ‘develop leaders’ is essential and commonly discussed. But in practice it is often nebulous, defined and enacted differently depending on the unit and leader. The best leaders are extremely effective at developing their subordinates, who in turn, become far more effective at accomplishing the higher leaders’ goals. Conversely, some leaders don’t realize that their organizational dysfunction is often a result of poor leader development in the past. The Army would enable success in developing leaders by publishing an ATP (or similar) filled with best practices and example products. This would enhance the Army’s leadership development efforts and create a more effective and lethal Army for the future.
The Rewards of Systematic Leader Development
Although establishing a systematic leader development program from scratch can be a challenging endeavor, I have personally witnessed its remarkable benefits. I have had the privilege of working alongside company commanders to design programs aimed at sending Soldiers to military training schools, thoughtfully planning Leader Professional Development (LPD) presentations, and enhancing existing Physical Training (PT) planning. Together, these intentional efforts built more effective leaders.
At the outset, this programming placed strain on other company systems. We faced the challenge of temporarily losing valuable NCOs while they attended military schools. Additionally, we allocated the time of company leaders to attend important LPD sessions when they could have been focusing on more urgent tasks. Moreover, a substantial amount of time was devoted to researching physical training methodologies and coordinating with the battalion’s holistic health and fitness trainers (H2F). The leadership development focus did not come without costs.
However, upon persisting through the short-term pain, the benefits were abundant. The company had multiple graduates of the Marksmanship Master Trainer course, a course many do not even know exists. This significantly improved the planning for small arms ranges, and dramatically improved the training value at the ranges. The LPD program enabled the Company to forecast LPDs that covered a specific range of topics that later directly led to success in major training events, instead of merely cobbling together random presentations. The Company’s PT plan changed from ‘make sure you do cardio, strength, and HIIT training each week’ into progressively tracking Soldier performance through data. This enabled PT planning specific to each Soldier, which almost doubled the number of Soldiers from the year prior who passed the physical tests on Expert Infantryman Badge testing. All of these benefits came at the cost of a small amount of short term pain, and even more benefits were certain to come over time with these programs sustained.
In my personal experience building an LPD program, my company based the program around a matrix that matched LPD topics with development goals / important tasks, and assigned a date and primary presenter to each presentation. The Company was able to plan a full training cycle worth of LPDs using this product, enabling us to systematically and empirically track progress and development of the Soldiers. Providing an array of products such as these with guidance on how to utilize them would kick-start junior leadership looking for ways in which to begin enacting their own programs.
Creating a publication similar to ATP 5-0.2-1 or a Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) publication, filled with best practices and example products for junior leaders to use and reference, would facilitate leader development at all levels. This would give leaders a general framework from which to edit, snip, and adjust to fit their needs.
Barriers to Leader Development
FM 6-22 Developing Leaders offers valuable insight on how to develop and build leadership attributes. However it’s sometimes vague or even confusing for junior leaders. The FM does not offer many specific or direct tools to help leaders develop their Soldiers into better leaders.
Most junior leaders understand that they are supposed to develop ‘two levels down’. Platoon leaders train team leaders so that they become effective squad leaders; in the same way, battalion commanders develop platoon leaders so that they become effective Company Commanders. But, most leaders have trouble implementing processes or setting specific goals that measure and guide their actions to reaching the aforementioned goals.
In the Army today, effective professional development often takes a back seat to other more seemingly pressing tasks like mission planning, training, or equipment maintenance. This issue can be further intensified due to structural conditions. Generally, officers and NCOs hold their position for anywhere from one to three years. This timeframe is sometimes not long enough to ‘bear the fruits’ of a good professional development program. Why would a leader spend time and energy developing a subordinate leader for the far future when the impending consequences of more short-term tasks are looming? This question has many potential answers.
The argument to ‘operationalize’ garrison tasks like professional development does come with some potential drawbacks. There is always risk of overcomplicating straightforward tasks by introducing new tools. For example, Army Planning Methodologies (e.g. Army Design Methodology, Military Decision Making Process, and Troop Leading Procedures) help commanders and staffs understand complex situations, but they’re likely unnecessary for planning the Battalion Holiday Party. Almost any member of the military can remember an experience where they were forced to spend hours planning an event that, in retrospect, could have been efficiently coordinated using basic common sense and intuition.
From a long-term perspective, prioritizing and utilizing a rigorous planning process for leader development is the ‘hard but right’ choice to make. The Army does not offer pay incentives or bonuses to leaders based on short-term performance, freeing leaders to make decisions that may not provide value until well down the road. Leader development is important enough for the long-term strategic goals of the Army at whole to demand detailed attention.
But even in the medium- to short-term, deliberate and detailed leader development is still worth focusing on. Leaders at all echelons have inherent generational gaps, from a societal and experience perspective. A rehearsal for a military operation ensures that all members of the operation have a shared understanding of the mission and their respective tasks. Leader development is similarly essential to ensuring that, for example, a Platoon Leader understands how a Company Commander and Battalion Commander think about problem solving and job expectations in general. A Platoon Leader who has been consciously developed by their Battalion Commander over the course of months or years will be far more effective at enacting their intent and completing any given tasks.
The Path to Stronger Teams and Leaders
Developing subordinate leaders, like any task or mission, succeeds only when well planned. Too often leaders ignore this facet of their responsibilities because they think other problems in front of them require more of their attention. The Army way is to plan and define problems, and then give leaders the initiative to ‘shift target’ to accomplish the goal. The current problem is there is no clear definition of what ‘developing leaders’ truly means on a granular and day-to-day level, solely general and sometimes ambiguous rhetoric. Overall, successful leaders may suffer slightly in the very short-term, but inevitably benefit both themselves and their subordinates by turning their subordinates into better versions of themselves.
Derek Prario is a Captain and Intelligence Officer currently serving in the 207th Military Intelligence Brigade at Caserma Ederle in Vicenza, Italy. He previously served as an Infantry Officer in 3/10th Mountain Division at Fort Johnson, Louisiana.
