ARMY Leadership roles


by Alan King - Date: 2007-02-28 - Word Count: 498 Share This!

The US Army is in many ways all about leadership. Certainly any intention to stay in will revolve around leadership.

The Army is organized around leaders and how missions and information are transmitted up and down the chain of command. Each level of command has a number of subordinates, with the exact number determined by how many subordinates the commander can control at the pace of activity required at that level.

The Army divides leaders into several categories. First, there are NCOs, or Non Commissioned Officers. These are the supervisors who will ensure that tasks are carried out. Often referred to as the backbone of the Army, the NCO corps prides itself on making things happen.

Warrant Officers are subject matter experts in some technical field. Their main value is their special skill, which might be helicopter pilot, photo interpreter, physician’s assistant or some other technical area. This does not excuse them from leadership duties.

Finally, we have the commissioned officers. They are the ones who shoulder the responsibility and burden of command. They range from the Second Lieutenant, an entry level position which is often the butt of humor due to lack of experience, on up to the rare Four Star General. These officers are expected to deal with huge portions of the Earth’s surface or functional levels like “Training and Doctrine.”

The best example might be the movie Aliens. There is a drop ship pilot, functioning like a warrant officer. There is corporal Hicks, who makes sure that the things happen which are needed to accomplish the mission. Ripley functions as the commissioned officer, deciding priorities and goals that the corporal carries out.

Leadership is a complex process, but there are some constants. Leaders should lead by example. Hypocrisy and demanding from others what you won’t demand from yourself will lead to failure. Leaders must be fair, or the soldiers will learn bad habits. Leaders must enforce standards, since we do the same things when it matters that we did in practice. Leaders must know when soldiers must be kept busy to keep them out of trouble, and when soldiers must be allowed to rest to recover for next time. Leaders must take care of themselves, as a leader who can’t function when needed is useless. Good leaders train their subordinates so that if something happens, the unit can function without them. This is part of grooming the soldiers so they are ready for growth and promotion as well.

Leaders in the Army will go through a series of schools and classes over their careers designed to ensure they know all of the things expected of a leader at their level of responsibility. These classes range from teaching the leader more about the tasks the units will perform than the soldiers so the leader can deal with problems, to exposing the leader to hypothetical problems so the classes can figure out the optimum solution and practice counseling soldiers to improve their performance.

Leadership is serious business, and will remain so for a whole career.


Related Tags: leadership, army, responsibility, joining, recruits

For more information on the US ARMY please check out the authors site at http://USARMY.COM

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