The Sacred Duty of Military
Leadership
Because we believe leadership is a fundamental
determinant of group cohesion, and cohesion is a fundamental determinant of
organizational performance, leadership is a concern of almost every human
organization. In spite of its obvious importance, there is no widely held view
of what leadership consists of or how to foster it. I present here a
simple theory of leadership and argue its powerful utility. I also show how the mortal consequences of military service uniquely obligates military leaders while also showing how inherent internal conflicts place extraordinary demands on the integrity of military leaders.
For thirteen years I directed a program treating
returning combat veterans experiencing PTSD and/or medically unexplained
physical symptoms (e.g., Gulf War Illness) at Walter Reed AMC. Based in part on that
experience, I was hired as a subject matter expert providing services to the
Defense Center of Excellence. One of its projects was improving background
material in support of the Army Total Force Fitness campaign. I was part
of the team examining social fitness through the lens of leadership. Our task was to find a concise method of improving the
leadership abilities of senior enlisted and junior officers. After a
thorough review of the literature, we had found nothing suitable. Then
I came across this:
Muzafer Sherif, a founder of modern social
psychology, had formulated a technical definition of a social unit as consisting
of a number of individuals interacting with each other with respect to:
1. Common motives and goals;
2. An accepted division of labor, i.e. roles;
3. Established status (social rank, dominance)
relationships;
4. Accepted norms and values with reference to
matters relevant to the group;
5. Development of accepted sanctions (praise and
punishment) if and when norms were respected or violated.
Sherif was trying to identify the necessary and
sufficient features to distinguish a social unit from an unrelated aggregation
of people, for example, a bunch of people walking down the street. It
seemed to me, however, that in doing so he had also inadvertently provided a
useful definition of cohesion. I believe most readers would agree that if
all five of these elements were true of a group of people, we would expect it
to be quite cohesive. Indeed, it's hard to imagine them being true of a
group and the group not being
cohesive. Perhaps it's also evident why this formulation seemed to me to
be just what the Defense Center of Excellence sought: It
provides a framework that focuses a leader's attention on critical issues while at the same time defining success as the creation of these
conditions.
The word cohesion comes from the Roman military
term "cohort" which was the name of a sub-unit of a Roman Legion
containing five to eight hundred men. Consider what it says about the
consistency, reliability, solidity, focus, cooperation, and drive of Roman
cohorts that they became the very definition of unified, coordinated, goal
directed action: cohesion. Indeed, the mental image of lines and
rows of soldiers all marching in step in the same direction with determined
purpose is probably a commonly held defining metaphor of cohesion. That
same image also defines our view of how it is leadership that takes a group of
aimlessly milling individuals and transforms it into a cohort: a
cohesive, purposeful group. It is due to the very fact that Sherif's five
elements of a social unit so closely define what we think of as a cohesive
group that their relevance for leadership becomes immediately clear and why,
therefor, studying their implications has value. Less obvious, possibly,
is that this definition has some subtle and important implications.
1. The "truth" that matters here is
not the objective specification of these elements, but rather the subjective,
psychological realty of each group member.
2. Group members will be simultaneously
members of multiple other groups which may have similar,
competing, or antagonist goals and this fact defines much of the challenge in
creating cohesion.
3. Group norms and values concerning the
behavior and motivation of the leader in particular have unique importance in
determining group cohesion.
Subjective vs. objective reality
As a social scientist, Sherif was no doubt
attempting to develop an objectively verifiable definition of a social
unit. While an important goal, it is interesting to note his use of
language. Notice that "accepted" appears in three of the
elements. "Accepted" is inherently a psychological term,
referring to the outcome of a process internal to an individual: starting
from a place of doubt or uncertainty and then yielding to an experienced or
perceived truth. There is no way to determine if a person has acutualy accepted something; even asking will not suffice since there is always social
pressure towards conformity that may influence what people say as opposed to
what they truly believe. Nonetheless, we know that people constantly
evaluate information and accept or reject its truth according to its fit with
their view of the world.
Thus, the accepting that really matters lies in the
internal state of each group member. Written policies and procedures may
exist that detail goals, job descriptions, rules and regulations, etc.,
but each person is only "in" the group to the extent that they
personally accept the goals, etc. as binding on them.
Obviously the degree of acceptance can vary for each person on each element
over time. The essential point is that each member is "in" or
"out" of the group to the degree that their lived experience in the
group leads them to believe that what the group says it is about is really
what it is about. Put another way: Their perception is that what really
happens in the group is close enough to what should happen
according to their understanding of the five elements. Each
italicized word in the previous sentence is a subjective judgment each person
makes in accordance with his or her experience. I emphasize this point
because it is critical to understanding the utility of this approach to
leadership. Leadership is the process of influencing those many personal
judgments in a desired direction.
Simultaneous memberships and
competing goals
People are always members of multiple groups (and
sub-groups) meeting these criteria even though some of those groups may have no formal
or written explication of the elements. Families, for instance, meet this
definition of a social unit even though nothing may be explicitly written (or
even said) about an element. Sub-groups of a larger group may coalesce
around variations of the group goals, roles, or rules. When one
recognizes the sheer number of formal and informal groups a person belongs to, the potential for internal conflicts in a member regarding her/his
obligations towards various groups becomes obvious. Less obvious,
perhaps, is the inevitable additional conflict between group goals and the
deep, often unconscious, personal goals of the individual.
Physiological needs, safety, and belonging are well
recognized basic goals people pursue. There are, however, many goals we may pursue that are unacknowledged, such as revenge, rivalry, status seeking, power, and
excitement. Individual (often called "selfish") goals potentially
conflict with group goals. We are inherently attentive to whether we are
able to meet our personal goals in a given group or whether membership in the
group requires too great a sacrifice on our part. We constantly monitor
the balance between self-sacrifice and self-interest, between the costs and
benefits of membership versus going it alone. If we feel that the group
is providing us less than it should, we may not necessarily leave it, but we
may psychologically abandon it and put more effort into meeting our individual
goals, obviously affecting our contribution to the group.
Just as members are assessing their own goals in
relation to those of the group, they are also constantly assessing every
other group member's adherence to those same group goals and standards.
Since they know that the true degree of a person's acceptance can never be
fully known, their assessment is based primarily on observing the behavior of
the other group members with respect to the other elements and making their subjective
assesments. Are they doing their job? Following the rules?
Respecting others' positions? How these evaluations turn out determines
how each member sees every other member as being in and of the group versus
pursuing personal, "selfish" goals. Even though everyone
knows that it is possible to act one way while believing something completely
different, we all nonetheless carefully scrutinize the acts and statements of
others, believing this is still our best source of information.
Each group member is always somewhere on a
continuum from complete buy-in to being on the verge of exit. By buy-in,
I mean that based on the person's lived experience this is a group that
she/he is a member of. The more true that is for the more members
of a group, the more cohesive that group will be. Conversely, the more
that group members experience other members as pursuing their personal goals
within the group, the less connected and committed to the group they will be,
and the more inclined to pursue their own goals and/or exit the group they
become. Clearly then, a fundamental task of leadership is to facilitate
the belief that group membership will fulfill individual goals.
Leaders and norms
What was said above about members' scrutiny of
other members with respect to their fidelity to the group is far truer for leaders. Most organizations delegate authority to leaders which gives
them the power to direct members' behavior. All but the most oppressed
individuals, however, carry some desire for personal autonomy - a desire to do
as they see fit. Given the ever-present conflict between group and
personal goals, the directives of the leader will be minutely scrutinized to
determine how congruent they are with respect to the leader's proper authority
and the group goals.
In addition to that concern, however, there are
also many group norms and values that apply primarily or exclusively to
leaders. While many such norms and values may be explicit, many also may
be individually or collectively held yet never voiced. For example, the
fact that we frequently refer to leaders as "authority figures"
indicates we have a generally widespread knowledge that leaders are both seen
as who they are and also as whom they represent. One representation that
is nearly ubiquitous is that we tend to relate to leaders in a manner similar
to how we related to our parents. As a result of this tendency, there
almost always exists an unspoken expectation that a leader, like our parents,
has a duty to care about members' personal well-being. This dynamic is particularly salient in the
military due to the fact that the military recreates many aspects of families
that effectively invite such expectations. In the military there
are designated authorities, expected obedience, sanctioned punishment,
restricted liberties, and explicit care-taking (in the form of benefits such as
housing, health care, commissaries, etc.) Put another way, in some ways
military life psychologically replicates parent-child relationships. As
will be shown below, this "duty to care" in the military context
takes on extraordinary valence.
It is also worth noting that leadership will almost
always be contested within groups. Each of Sherif's elements, along
with every one of its numerous specifications, is a subject of scrutiny,
interpretation, and debate within the group. Is this person doing his/her
job? Was that punishment fair? Did that person get fair
recognition? Is this the best way to achieve our goals? Any deviation
from either official policy or widely held group norms can be used by the
ambitious or the disaffected to lobby for a change of perception about the
group, even, on occasion, a change of goal(s). Open rebellion is not
necessary for leadership challenges to be successful; the spreading of
discontent is enough to effectively change the direction and/or performance of
a group.
The Special Case of the Military
Up till now, what I have said applies to all
groups. But leadership in the military is an immensely more vital issue because
the stakes are so high. The military's job is to preserve the nation,
often the most over-arching goal to which people give allegiance. In pursuit
of that goal, military leaders have the authority to order, and the power to
compel, people to risk their very lives to attain the group goals.
Although this fact has many implications, this present conception of cohesion
and leadership suggests that for military leadership, one implication is
exceedingly important: Everything a military leaders does will be
viewed by group members through a lens that evaluates whether or not s/he truly
cares about the members, and anything that a leader does that is
seen as putting his/her personal goals ahead of of group goals will be
experienced by members as destructive to group members and cohesion. Any hint that their sacrifice, their acceptance of another's authority, is being used, taken advantage of, to further that other person's personal goal is extremely toxic - - corrosive to trust, self-esteem, hope, fairness.. everything that makes mutual effort possible. While this may seem obvious, I believe failure to appreciate the importance of
this dynamic is a fundamental cause of many, if not most, of the major problems in the military.
This issues is well illustrated by considering this quote attributed to
General Eisenhower: “I believe the American soldier can endure almost
anything as long as he knows his generals are looking out for him.” Every
soldier has a pretty good idea about what is meant by "almost
anything:" everything we understand "War is Hell" to
mean. But “looking out for him” is more complicated. It surely
includes the obvious concerns such as training, equipment, food, medical support,
and all the other support services necessary to putting an army in the
field. However, while these are unarguably important aspects of generals’
jobs, they are not the foundation of soldiers' endurance. What the
soldier needs from the general, what is literally vitally important, is
that the soldier believe the general is "looking out" for the
soldier's life: he/she will conduct military operations so as to spend
the soldiers' lives as dearly as possible consistent with victory. Every
action that puts soldiers’ lives at risk must be based on mission necessity and
only on that necessity. If necessary, the soldier can and will endure
"almost anything" in the attempt to execute the order and complete
the mission. In the absence of necessity, however, the soldier’s goal becomes
survival, dying becomes meaningless, killing becomes murder, self-sacrifice
becomes suicide, and service becomes servitude. This reality defines the
sacred duty of military leadership: A leader must purge all
self-interest from any decision that puts soldiers' lives in jeopardy.
And, because every military leader also relays orders from a superior: A
leader must also be willing to sacrifice his/her ambitions, even his/her
career, if necessary, in opposition to an order that unnecessarily puts his/her
soldiers’ lives in jeopardy.
The importance of this duty can also be illustrated by
appreciating how delicately vulnerable troop morale is to the subtlest
violations of it: Any act or statement by any decision-maker that casts any
doubt on a leader's commitment to these principles will have a corrosive effect
on morale, cohesion, and, ultimately, effectiveness. This fact underlies
the central importance of Sherif's definition: it identifies the many essential
issues wherein actions by leaders have the utmost impact on creating or
destroying cohesion. This is true even when the issue may seem to be only
tangentially related to combat decisions.
To illustrate this tangential vulnerability, I'll
describe two examples of leadership failure that had negative consequences for
morale: one profound, well known, and from our common cultural
inheritance, the other trivial and from my personal experience. Both
cases indicate how attentively leaders' behavior is scrutinized and how impactful
are the consequences.
Homer's Iliad provides a well-known example of a failure of leadership that nearly had disastrous consequences for the
Greeks. The precipitant was Agamemnon's abuse of his power to seize a war
prize that should have belonged to Achilles. While we may have no
clear idea how the Greeks decided on who earned what by valor in combat, it is
clear that the seizure was experienced by Achilles (and most of the other
Greeks) as an obvious violation of Scherif's fifth element. The outrage due
to Agamemnon's misappropriation is usually explained as its having been an
affront to Achilles's "thumis" or manly pride. The magnitude of the disruption to the war
effort that this act produced suggests there is a deeper meaning. Recall
how, in response to Agamemnon’s testing of morale, the Greek forces attempt to
abandon the war until halted by Odysseus. Though there may have been many
other reasons for their discontent and desire to cease fighting, lack of faith
in Agamemnon's leadership as a result of his seizure of the war prize clearly
played a role. Agamemnon's act reveals his corruption. He shows
that he is not motivated solely by the desire to achieve victory, but by
jealously and/or competitiveness and a desire for personal gain. He shows
that he is willing to abuse his authority in service of attaining his
personal goals, thus acting in a way that violates Sherif's elements one,
three, and five. If the kin, in effect, abandons the war effort by pursuing
personal gain, why shouldn't the common soldier do the same and go home?
This example of leadership from our common heritage
illustrates a gross failure, obvious to all. In order to show how more
subtle violations can also have negative impact, I will share an episode from
my time as a young Naval Officer on a destroyer in the South China Sea during
the Viet Nam war.
At this time I was a newly commissioned Ensign
three or four months into my first deployment and was the Junior Officer of the
Deck, learning ship-handling and Naval operations while seeking to become
qualified as the Officer of the Deck. The OOD is the person with
immediate authority to direct the ship's actions in accordance with the Captain's
directives and attaining the qualification is a vital milestone on the road to
command. As the JOOD, I was responsible for maneuvering the ship under
the oversight of the OOD. Our destroyer was following in the wake of the
aircraft carrier, in "plane guard" position where we were ready to
rescue any pilot whose plane might crash on landing or take off. Though
an important function, at that time we were merely "station keeping"
as there were no planes taking off or landing. The task force was simply
tracing an imaginary square in the ocean while awaiting the next operation.
The aircraft carrier signaled and then executed, a
90-degree left turn. My ship, however, doesn't make the turn at that same
moment. As we are supposed to follow a mile behind the carrier, we
proceed on the old course until we come to the point where the carrier turned
and then make our own turn. But, of course, there is no road, or any
marker where the carrier turned. As JOOD, it was my job to take into
account all the available information and turn our ship at just the right
moment. Too soon and we end up of to the left and too close to the
carrier, too late we end up off the right and too far behind.
I had a nickname then of "Bullet," given
me by another OOD for the way I ricocheted around the bridge checking the
course, wind, carrier's position, etc. Obviously, then, I did not take my
duties lightly. As I took in a breath to give the order to the helmsman,
the OOD said, "Put the helm over."
By not letting me execute my decision, and bear its
consequences, the OOD robbed me of the opportunity to hone my judgment and
increase my ship-handling skills. But far more important here is why
he elected to make that decision. I believe he feared negative
consequences if my decision was at all off. Worse, I believe he had good
reason to.
If our ship ended up "off station"
because I turned too early or late, there was a real possibility that the task
force commander might send the ship a message directing us to resume station.
If that had happened, the Captain would likely experience that as a reprimand,
however mild. Depending on his leadership abilities, he might very
well chastise the OOD. The OOD prevented this possible negative outcome
by temporarily relieving me of my responsibility and authority and issuing the
command.
For learning to occur, mistakes must be
made. Only by seeing the result of my decision would I be able to see if
my judgment had been correct and be able to make corrections if it
weren't. Learning, and its consequent improvement of performance,
therefore depends on leaders being willing to accept a short-term performance
loss in the interest of long-term performance gain. In the military,
where performance has life or death, mission success or failure, consequences,
skill learning is of the highest importance. Yet this OOD elected to
sacrifice my learning, with its benefits to me, and hence, to the Navy, instead
selecting "CYA."
This is a trivial failure of leadership, but that's
exactly the point. It is an example of a common occurrence and anyone who
has spent any time in the military could come up with examples of their own
including ones far more consequential. On a daily basis, in war or
peacetime, leaders make decisions and take actions that experientially define
Sherif's five elements for the group members. In the military, every one
of the elements is fully specified by written rules and regulations and
everyone knows exactly the way "it's supposed to be." Any
perceived difference between how things should be done and what a leader does
will be scrutinized. If a leader is seen as unwilling to do the right
thing out of fear or self-interest, it will have substantial impact. For a military
leader to display any lack of moral courage during peacetime, let alone
during war, is to call into question his/her character, his/her willingness to
"look out" for the troops, his/her commitment to act only out of
necessity and, hence, his/her fitness to lead. In combat, any such
failure will be experienced as a betrayal of sacred duty.
Every decision or act, in war or peace, by every
leader contributes to the lived experience of every soldier who then holds a
view of each leader as fitting somewhere on a continuum of acting out of duty
or self interest, and therefore, as trustworthy or not. If a leader is seen as not trustworthy, the soldier’s
commitment to the group and the group’s goals will be affected negatively as will group morale and performance. A thorough understanding of this argument
defines the content, scope, and vital importance of training in
leadership for all military leaders.
There is, however, one aspect of military culture
that makes such training exceptionally difficult and merits mention. The
military values of duty, service, and self-sacrifice are deeply held.
Emphasis on them may cause conflicts with the various personal goals mentioned
above. If, though, personal goals are devalued they may become harder to
acknowledge, be suppressed, and may come to operate outside of conscious
awareness. We all have the capacity for self-deception and are capable of
denying motives that may cause us shame (e.g., being “selfish.")
Successful leadership training in the military will require a recognition of
this dilemma and a cultural change which allows for acknowledging the
legitimacy of self-interest while helping leaders develop the self-knowledge
necessary to see and shun it when unit cohesion is on the line. The toxic
effect of covert career ambition and avidity for war on unit morale and
performance demands no less.
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