Joint Leadership (eBook)

Leading in a Joint and Combined Military Organization

Ted G. Roberts (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022 | 1. Auflage
130 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-3415-3 (ISBN)

Infos

'Joint Leadership' is an impactful guide that shares game-changing information for any mid-level to senior-level military officer who finds themselves assigned to a Joint (multi-service) or Combined (multi-national) military organization. These officers have a good grasp of operating and leading personnel in their respective services at the tactical level, but leading at an operational-level headquarters, which includes leading personnel from other services, requires different methods. This book seeks to define those environments and offers insights into how they are different and what those officers need to know to navigate the Joint and Combined environments.

---

"e;Joint Leadership"e; is an impactful guide that shares game-changing information for any mid-level to senior-level military officer who finds themselves assigned to a Joint (multi-service) or Combined (multi-national) military organization. These officers have a good grasp of operating and leading personnel in their respective services at the tactical level, but leading at an operational-level headquarters, which includes leading personnel from other services, requires different methods. This book seeks to define those environments and offers insights into how they are different and what those officers need to know to navigate the Joint and Combined environments. This book first offers a definition of what constitutes the "e;Joint"e; environment and the "e;Combined"e; environment. It further delves into the rich history and traditions of the different military services and seeks to provide some understanding of their unique organizational cultures and sub-cultures. When writing this book, author Ted Roberts asked himself some questions "e;What do I wish I had known when I went to my first Joint assignment? What do I wish my supervisors would have known? What would I like to tell an officer who finds themselves departing for their first or subsequent assignment to a Joint or Combined organization?"e; His book seeks to answer those questions and help the reader mentally prepare for their role as a leader in that new environment. His hope is that military officers assigned to those organizations will find that this book offers valuable insights and continues to serve as a helpful resource and reference for them as they lead in those organizations.

Textauszug

CHAPTER 2:

Service Cultures in a Joint Organization

Officers assigned to a joint or combined organization will have to accommodate organizational cultures on multiple levels. Edgar Schein identified four categories of culture.

Figure 1: Categories of Culture

Culture

Category

Macrocultures

Nations, ethnic and religious groups, occupations that exist globally

Organizational cultures

Private, public, nonprofit, government organizations

Subcultures

Occupational groups within organizations

Microcultures

Microsystems within or outside organizations

Source: Edgar Schein. “Organizational Culture and Leadership, 4th Ed.

Most combatant command headquarters will primarily be joint organizations; however, they will also have coalition officers assigned to them as liaison officers from partner nations. U.S. European Command headquarters, located in Stuttgart, Germany, will have German military officers present. These officers from different countries will expose U.S. officers to macrocultures based on nationalities. Additionally, the military profession exists globally, so while macrocultures based on nationality may present barriers, the macroculture based on the common military profession will make it easier to connect and work with officers from other nations.

Perhaps the biggest culture shock for a newly assigned officer arriving at her joint assignment will center around organizational cultures. After spending ten years or more working almost exclusively in service (e.g., Air Force, Army, Navy) organizations, the officer must learn to understand, work with, and lead officers from other services while respecting their service cultures. Each military service has its own strong yet unique culture that has evolved over decades or even centuries of history. While U.S. officers will share a common macroculture based on mutual nationality, these officers will each bring their own unique organizational service culture rooted in the traditions and histories of their respective services. Additionally, each service contains subcultures associated with career fields within that service. Air Force officers can come from the pilot (rated operations) community; space, intelligence, air battle manager, and cyber communities (nonrated operations); or non-operational career fields such as personnel, finance, legal, or medical career fields. Each service has similar subcultures based on functional areas.

United States Army

The United States Army is the senior service, established first in 1775. The Army has a strong organizational culture that has evolved over its 244-year history. Names of great historical figures like General George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, John Pershing, Douglas MacArthur, George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, Norman Schwarzkopf, and Colin Powell have formed the culture and ethos of the United States Army. Army officers have great pride in their Service and view their branch as the “senior service.” This fact is embodied daily with every Joint Service Color Team that places the Department of the Army flag as the rightmost flag next to the U.S. flag. The Army’s mission statement emphasizes the Service’s focus on land dominance as part of the joint force.

“The Army Mission – our purpose – remains constant: To deploy, fight and win our nation’s wars by providing ready, prompt and sustained land dominance by Army forces across the full spectrum of conflict as part of the joint force. The Army mission is vital to the nation because we are the service capable of defeating enemy ground forces and indefinitely seizing and controlling those things an adversary prizes most – its land, its resources and its population.” 1­

Army officers learn at the earliest point in their careers the importance of detailed planning using the Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP). The Army emphasizes individual and small group leadership at the earliest point in their careers when new Army Lieutenants serve as platoon leaders in charge of 20–40 enlisted soldiers. By the time they reach captain, Army officers lead companies consisting of as many as 200 soldiers. As a result, by the time Army officers reach senior levels, they have extensive leadership and planning expertise that the Army has drilled into them at the core cultural level. As a result, Army officers often arrive at joint assignments as very adept planners based on their extensive planning experience.

The Army is the largest service with over 500,000 soldiers. General George Casey, the Army’s Chief of Staff from 2007-11, stated that “three traits—vision, courage, and character—will form the essence of effective military leaders in the years ahead”2 The Army places a strong emphasis on building character, and it accomplishes this by instilling the Seven Army Values from day one—Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage—values that Army holds form the basis for morally strong and ethical Soldiers and leaders.3 Within this Army macroculture, reside several strong subcultures. Most Army officers identify with their combat arms specialties such as Infantry, Artillery, or Armor, and with this comes a strong sense of belonging to a sub-organization with its own unique history, tradition, and artifacts.

While the Army possesses a strong organizational culture grounded in 240 years of tradition, it also has strong subcultures among its combat arms divisions. Soldiers typically work in either the Infantry, Armor, Artillery, or Aviation units. Each of these career fields within the Army has developed a strong subculture within the Army, and often rivalries between these sub-organizations influence how the Army operates and prioritizes its resources. These subcultures also heavily influence who advances and leads in the Army, and therefore who holds command during military operations. Dr. James M. Smith stated, “The Army organizational essence is defined in clear terms of ground combat. The infantry is the ‘Queen of Battle,’ artillery is the ‘King,’ and armor (the ‘Prince’?) is also a traditional member of the core combat ‘elite.’”4

United States Marine Corps

The U.S. Marine Corps is the United States’ second oldest service. According to former Marine Corps Commandant, General James T. Conway, “Marines and their officers are different,” and this difference “starts with the Corps’ culture.”5 One key reason stems from the Marine Corps’ focus on every Marine as a rifleman first. General Conway cites four reasons why Marine officers are different from their peers in other services. First, every officer, regardless of specialty, begins their career with six months learning how to command a rifle platoon.6 This method inculcates a deep sense of belonging to the Corps and its organizational culture first, and places subcultures in a secondary position. Second, all Marine officers view their primary purpose as “to enable, support, or lead grim-faced 19-year-old Lance Corporals.”7 Third, Marine officers hold a strong sense of and loyalty to the Corps’ history and view it as their personal responsibility to maintain the legacy of their unit. Finally, Marine officers feel confident that they will have to deploy to some austere location on the earth where they will have to lead their unit “to adapt and overcome both the environment and the enemy.”8 These facets of Marine culture readily emerge through the Marine Corps’ mission statement.

“As America’s expeditionary force in readiness since 1775, the U.S. Marines are forward deployed to win our Nation’s battles swiftly and aggressively in times of crisis. We fight on land, sea and air, as well as provide forces and detachments to naval ships and ground operations.” 9

The Marine Corps is also the United States’ smallest service, with only 180,000 members. The Corps has a very strong organizational culture steeped in over two centuries of history and tradition. The Marine Corps song, that Marines sing at many events, contains words that harken back to its earliest exploits. “From the Halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli” reminds Marines that they trace their history to the earliest battles of the country. “The Halls of Montezuma refers to the Battle of Chapultapec in 1847 that Marines fought during the Mexican-American War.10 According to the Marine...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.4.2022
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Technik
• ISBN-10: 1-6678-3415-0 / 1667834150
• ISBN-13: 978-1-6678-3415-3 / 9781667834153