Military Culture:
Leadership and Introspection

David M. Keithly makes an important analysis of the prime goals for leaders to attain during peacetime.

Some British historians have observed almost ruefully that during the century-long peace between the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) and the World War I, Battle of Jutland (1916) the fighting spirit of the Royal Navy’s officer corps declined precipitously. Attitudes reflecting the complacency and self-satisfaction of Victorian society supplanted the warrior ethos that was the making of Great Britain’s decisive naval victories at the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar. Notions of comity and fair play mirroring an outlook bred on the sports fields of Eton and Oxford stood in the stead of the driving force of military leadership which had elevated Britain to the esteemed position of mistress of the seas. Recast by the society of which it was part, and having fallen victim to its very successes, the warrior class had virtually disappeared.

By the same token, the maintenance of the British horse cavalry through the First World War was proverbial. One historian described it as “a club, an exclusive one...a group of men who were at once hard-riding and hard-headed...The cavalry was the home of tradition, the seat of romance, the haven of the well connected.”1 Devoid of the crucible of battle, the horse cavalry would continue to harbour romantic illusions well into the twentieth century, during an era of automatic weaponry and aircraft. Known by every schoolboy in the chronicle of the march of folly is the tragic drama of Polish horse lancers charging armoured vehicles in the opening days of the Second World War.

During a long peace, insufficient opportunities to observe and learn from combat beset military establishments. Over the years dearth of combat experience is practically a given. But is the inevitable consequence an attendant loss of military leadership?

If the United States is now entering a long period of peace, as seems likely, are warriors then an endangered species? Woefully, unprepared for past wars, we cannot afford to be caught napping again. But how is fighting spirit in the officer corps to be engendered, and how is the military to foster the warrior ethos? To ask everything at once: Where are we going to find tomorrow’s combat leaders?

To these vexed questions no easy answers come. Frequently overlooked, though, is doctrine’s function. Doctrine comprises the shared beliefs and principles delineating the tasks of a profession. Shorn of leadership, the military profession is inconceivable. Doctrine serves to set down, in writing, how to fight. Embodying enduring principles and promoting unity of purpose, doctrine is a blueprint for identifying and capitalizing on expedients. Of equal significance, doctrine specifies the norm from which combat leaders are expected to deviate. In setting goals, leaders must weigh alternative courses of action with numerous possible outcomes, frequently choosing the least unpalatable as the good.

Doctrine must assume a weighty role in military preparedness during a long peace. In the U.S. Armed Forces joint and service doctrine constitute important tools for officers. As James J. Tritten has aptly pointed out, unless U.S. Naval officers become conversant with doctrine, service, joint and multinational, they will be at a loss to comprehend contemporary operations, not to speak of leading effectively in these.2 Effective leadership, conditional, situational, contextual, is predicated upon a commander’s facility to recognize the many consequences of a particular action.3 By furnishing context and through the provision of a conceptual framework, doctrine alleviates much of the abstractness bedeviling discussions of leadership.

Substantial amounts of literature on leadership exist, of course, but the analysis is sometimes lamentably limited in scope, seldom is specific reference made to the interrelationship between doctrine and leadership. Fresh thinking on leadership is thus always needed and too little work has been done on this telling interrelationship, especially in the U.S. Navy. What specific contribution does doctrine have to make in this area? Leadership in doctrine should be considered under the following headings: the role of doctrine, fostering the warrior ethos, and vision for leadership.

Role of Doctrine

The introduction of written core doctrine into the U.S. Navy, a visionary product of   senior officers, is a trenchant innovation serendipitously coinciding with the commencement of a long peace. The opportunity to develop and formalize naval leadership doctrine accorded by this concurrence must not be allowed to elapse. Now more than ever, shared, harmonious thinking about leadership in the sea-service profession is needed. Certain lessons from combat experience need to be promulgated. Since audience acceptance of significant change tends to be organization- and culture-dependent, tone and approach must be politic.

To a greater extent than in the Navy, Army officers hail from a culture placing a higher premium on reading and deliberation. Doctrinal development is among the facets of oncoming change in the Navy. To complement leadership doctrine on how to lead, the Navy requires combat doctrine on how to fight. Such leadership doctrine should not be prescriptive, but rather  should be inferential and stimulating, a touchstone and point of departure for individuals building their own leadership style. Leadership doctrine does not constitute any sort of official orders, much less a set of commandments, but a professional survey requiring development, dissemination, deliberation and eventual revision. As with all doctrine, it provides standardization without sacrifice of judgment or initiative.

Appreciation of the experiences and decisions of past leaders, especially in combat, is instrumental to the nurturing of tomorrow’s commanders. Leadership doctrine is the substantial connecting link between the past, present and future, something fundamental to the Navy, yet remarkably slighted in a service taking such pride in its traditions. It is hardly a pioneering revelation to point out that the U.S. Navy is rich in traditions. Core doctrine, though, does rank among these.

When IBM’s Thomas Watson observed that “any organization in order to survive and achieve success, must have a sound set of beliefs on which it premises all its policies and actions,” he could have been referring to the U.S. Navy, for the latter has followed such an axiom long prior to living memory.4 Here, Watson is actually describing doctrine. The Naval doctrine now emerging is unlikely to take seasoned officers unawares. Ambivalent, even antagonistic, postures on their part are, therefore, inappropriate. Indeed, most will find that the digest of doctrine represents a systematic compendium of useful sea-service experience and knowledge. Younger officers, those destined to serve during a long peace, arguably stand to benefit most from this systematic development. The reason is that doctrine, in whatever form, contains two basic elements: how the military operates and how it approaches warfare.5 These aspects, above all, tomorrow’s combat leaders must grasp.

Fostering the Warrior Ethos

Here, though, we encounter an intellectual problem. The question “How can leadership be taught?” has vexed societies through the ages. Suffice it to say, that no easy answers have ever come. In a recent treatise on military strategy, the eminent British military historian John Keegan addressed what is in fact a preliminary question: “Does the leadership of one age and place resemble that of another?” Keegan’s basic premise is difficult to take issue with: that societal change and technological development render comparisons across spaces of time dubious.6

Dubious, but not futile. What of some commonality of traits and behaviours in great leaders of all ages and places? Social scientists have on occasion employed the “traits” method in analyzing leadership, postulating that successful military leaders through the ages possess certain characteristics. In this approach, leadership is a quality embodied in certain personalities.

But such analyses frequently consist of little more than somewhat tired discussions of character elements such as decisiveness, boldness and initiative. Yet another method might be described as the “behavioural approach,” whose basic supposition is that certain patterns and paradigms of leadership behaviour can be ascertained through careful examination. Keegan advises that considerable caution be exercised with respect to both methods, since likeness of leadership trait and behaviour is usually enshrouded, if not supplanted, by dissimilarities in purpose and function.

Leadership, like politics, is an art of the possible, to rephrase Otto von Bismarck’s quip, and art the human endeavour in which the hand, head, and heart closely interact. Leadership, before everything, pertains to influencing and inspiring people. Since no two individuals are alike, and the circumstances in which leadership is exercised differ so widely, the study of leadership is inherently non-scientific. Once and again this involves coming to grips with contradictions. One observer, in examining leadership qualities in U.S. presidents, asserts that “virtually anything that can be said about leadership can be denied or disproven.”7

But for all the intangibles associated with leadership qualities, the art form requires considerable creativity, and both—leadership and creativity—are highly situational. Quandary is often a necessary precondition for creative thinking, and, analogously, fitting circumstances must present themselves for leaders to be in their element. Thus do leaders rise to the occasion. The hampering of creativity is one of the alarming shortcomings of modern education. Creative thinking and leadership development usually run afoul of the same impediments: convention and cultural constraints.8 The trend in American education has been to demure when it comes to teaching leadership, primarily because leadership studies are widely viewed as “elitist,” which in fact they are, almost by definition. “Elitism” is hardly an accolade in contemporary education and “elitist” notions tend to put American educators ill at ease. Labouring under no such constraints, doctrine should give encouragement to all varieties of leadership, endorsing creativity and fostering intellectual cohesiveness. Precisely because leadership is situational, it should demonstrate how past leaders have responded creatively in particular circumstances. Leadership doctrine should be unreservedly elitist: that is in the nature of things.

Just as military academic institutions should kindle intuition and afford a foundation for creativity, so doctrine should reflect the importance of intuitive thinking. Intuition and intellect should complement each other on the battlefield in order that leaders perceive opportunities without conscious reasoning.9  The upshot of profound knowledge and ample personal experience, intuition entails keen perception and swift apprehension. Intuitive evaluation expedites a grasp of war’s many intangibles. The intuition exhibited in the combat leadership of the Second World War was forged in part by prior military exercises and doctrinal study, strongly suggesting that doctrine can cultivate intuitive thinking. Intuition brought forth Erwin Rommel’s battlefield Fingerspitzengefuhl, a winning quality admired and emulated on both sides. To employ a sports analogy, teammates know intuitively what each will do, the outgrowth of intensive training and attendant likemindedness.

Why must more attention be accorded to intuition in the military? Because, as observers increasingly argue, leaders employ the textbook analytical method to decision-making perhaps one time in ten, while relying in the main upon intuitive evaluation.10 And yet, educational institutions, military and civilian, still frequently depict decision-making as a systematic thought process entailing scrutinization of multiple options. The disconnect is noteworthy: we are not training and educating the way we lead. Not to put too fine a point on things: military education is asleep at the switch. 

War is not mystical, but complex. Grasp of doctrine facilitates an appreciation of war’s various aspects, engendering an intuitive awareness of war’s intricate patterns.11 Similarly, leadership can be intricate and complex. Insofar as consensus among observers obtains on leadership theory, leadership is not so much a property of the individual as a complex interrelationship among several variables. Douglas McGregor identified these as: the leader’s characteristics, the attitudes and concerns of followers, the attributes of the organizations involved and the socio-political context.12 In short, leadership hinges on personalities and situations.

The recognition of potential leadership qualities in others requires good judgment, something doctrine can foster through the encouragement of likemindedness and the imparting of command experiences. Elite advancement and leadership development on that account go hand in hand. Painstaking selection procedures, even one-to-one professional relationships, are components of such development. “Hath he luck?” Napoleon Bonaparte habitually inquired in assessing a leader’s potential value. Bonaparte was renowned for making his own luck, for all that. Usually he knew intuitively what actions would be decisive on the battlefield, an adroitness described as coup d’oeil or the “eagle’s glance.” Equally important, indeed, an expression of his deft generalship, Napoleon was mindful of such leadership qualities in others. No exclusive club, seat of romance or haven of the well-connected here: careers were thrown open to talent. Napoleon himself was of humble birth and several of France’s marshalls rose from the enlisted ranks.

Ulysses S. Grant, grasping intuitively what was necessary to procure Federal victory in the Civil War, selected others possessing comparable understanding. No seat of romance here either: fancifulness was hardly the strong suit of either Philip H. Sheridan or William T. Sherman. Grant’s two celebrated deputies, among the real drivers of nineteenth-century warfare, given independent command, brought swift and stunning Union victories. In 1864 Sheridan inflicted crushing defeat upon the Confederacy in the Shenandoah Valley, heretofore, a bulwark of Confederate strength. The Union Army’s march through Georgia would have been unthinkable without Sherman’s leadership and coup d’oeil The military exploits of Sherman’s legions in the Carolinas were, according to the accounts of Confederate officers, unmatched since the Roman campaigns in western Europe. “The final test of the leader,” in the words of Walter Lippman, “is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.”13 Leadership doctrine gives being to such constancy, thereby establishing command legacies.

Identifying those exhibiting the special skills of the combat leader, while honing the combat skills of people serving most of their careers in a non-combat environment, is the two-fold dilemma of a long peace. That training and education programmes of the U.S. Armed Forces usually fail to differentiate between combat and non-combat leadership is, therefore, extraordinary. Nor do the Armed Forces seem to acknowledge the need to dovetail leadership skills to various forms of combat. Business schools would appear better to recognize crucial distinctions. The much-trumpeted Total Quality Leadership (TQM/TQL), characterized chiefly by “empowerment” of subordinates, involves leadership methods more appropriate in non-combat and low-stress environments, not in combat situations.14 Leadership simply should not be confused with management, although the intrinsic dissimilarity has become intermittently blurred in the military. Studies of leadership under extremely stressful conditions counsel that groups faced with crisis are inclined to shift their loyalties from a participatory-style leader to one more forceful and decisive.15 TQM/TQL training proffers no discourse on this.

Should the U.S. Armed Forces come to accept the critical differences between combat and non-combat leadership, then presumably they will alter professional training and education curricula accordingly. They will embrace mentoring programmes to a far greater extent than they now do, or introduce special notations on evaluations of combat leaders. Much necessarily turns on the question, though, whether basic differences in the leadership skills required of officers in peacetime and wartime obtain. The U.S. Armed Forces, the Navy in particular, do not as a rule view combat leadership as a specialized function apart from or beyond more basic leadership.   TQM/TQL makes no categorical differentiation between management skills and combat leadership faculties.

The U.S. Army, for its part, does not denote singularities in the development of combat leaders, but instead endeavours to expand the leadership pool from which combat leaders will be gleaned. Army leadership doctrine, draws no distinction between peacetime non-combat leadership skills and those acquired in combat. Military Leadership, FM 22-100, an Army doctrinal publication designed to furnish guidance to company-grade officers and below stipulates that:16 (1) various levels of leadership exist; (2) benefit accrues from the study of historical combat leadership; and (3) the first principle of leadership is “know yourself and seek self-improvement.” Apart from intense stress, the publication fails to identify any innate features of combat situations.

Do the Services wish to convey the message that specific attributes of combat leadership are unworthy of serious analysis? They are presently doing so, albeit perhaps inadvertently. As a  corrective, Service doctrine might ensure that leadership issues are addressed in all treatises on combat. For instance, the Navy could designate combat leadership as a special section in each of the second-generation capstone Naval Doctrine Publications (NDPs).

Combat leadership is manifestly more demanding than non-combat leadership. True, the same traits are expedient in both. But the successful non-combat leader will not automatically make a good combat leader, or vice versa. The name George B. McClellan comes to mind on this score. Leading in combat can differ hugely from leading in peacetime.17 Any non-combat environment changes radically once the combat threshold has been crossed. Doctrine should reflect this.

Leadership as a dimension of combat power should be accorded due recognition, and  assessments of  leadership qualities during combat simulations, wargames, and exercises doctrinally anchored. As modern technology permits such appraisals, all that now remains is to institutionalize the systematic examination of combat decisions as a routine part of exercise debriefs. A widespread inability of leaders to withstand the stresses of combat command would indicate that the current fitness report and promotion system is flawed or inoperable. Indeed, prior to World War II, the U.S. Army determined that its fitness report and promotion system was an inadequate instrument for identifying the combat leaders required in the coming war. An uneasy sense of  deja vu might hereupon disquiet the reader. Short of cogent thinking about warfare, past errors will return to haunt.

Vision for Leadership

 Between the world wars, the U.S. Navy changed its basic operational concept from decisive engagement centered around capital ship gunnery to offensive carrier operations against enemy fleets and shore installations.18 Technological development was the impelling force behind such change, but the crystallization of new operational concepts was the intellectual product of several groups of like-thinking officers who foresaw the salient role of naval aviation in modern conflict and subsequently espoused a new vision of  future battlespace.19 The actual transformation from a battleship Navy to one capable of conducting offensive carrier operations began in the 1930s.20  Effective doctrine for protracted naval air campaigns evolved contemporaneously.21 In the wake of the crippling of the main battle fleet toward the end of 1941, the U.S. Navy was able to envision the impending Pacific war and to tailor force requirements accordingly.

Visionary notions must of necessity be fleshed out and operationalized. The most effectual method for visionary leaders to communicate fresh ideas is through programmatic doctrine and related publications. Doctrine must then be fashioned to meet new criteria and conditions, whereupon a critical symbiotic relationship suggests itself. Vision of the future battlespace gives directions on how to lead. Vision can, moreover, generate abreast-of-the-times doctrine to underpin programmes that could shape conflict in an advantageous manner, ultimately providing the United States with an edge in combat. Visionaries, for their part, must display special leadership qualities, those necessary to articulate and realize their vision. The nurturing of such qualities in senior officers should enjoy high priority in military education. A point of reference is essential to the articulation of a vision; that is, in order for one to think outside of the proverbial box, the latter must be present in the first place. This box is current doctrine.

U.S. Army publications proffering a vision of  future battlespace are a case in point.22 At least one is specifically intended to generate discussion and debate about the texture of the future battlespace prior to efforts on the part of the senior leadership to translate service positions into fiscal programs. In acknowledging the need for external review and critique, the senior Army leadership has accepted—it appears in fact to have welcomed—the uncertainties associated with visionary thinking. Such uncertainties tender opportunities: fortune favours the perceptive.

To current and aspiring military leaders, doctrine provides guidance on how to do the job. Doctrinal publications help military leaders to lead, while entrusting much to individual judgment. When to implement and when to deviate are leadership prerogatives: nothing less can be expected of leaders. Past examples should impress upon leaders the extent to which their faculties and personal authority can have positive results.

The challenge for doctrine commands and centres is to capture in context the tenor of leadership. Combat leadership should not be posited as merely one aspect of leadership, almost as an afterthought, but delineated as a dimension of combat power. Among other things, doctrine should extract certain crucial lessons of combat, depicting these in a manner meaningful not only to the military but to a broader audience as well. This is, admittedly, no mean task and careful attention must be paid to style, method and substance. Doctrinal development must profit from the input of warriors, the bureaucracy and academia.

As during the inter-war period, the U.S. Navy increasingly relies upon simulations, war games and exercises as instruments for combat analysis. The Navy is able to avail itself of such precedents. Simulated combat stress permits leaders to gain some of the experience upon which they must draw, summoning them to be cognizant of certain patterns in conflict situations. Leadership intuition should ensue from such experience, and extensive exposure to combat conditions should awaken coup d’oeil, the hallmark of keen military minds. On the other hand, the compelling stress of combat will aggravate weaknesses of character in a way that non-combat exertion does not.23 By necessity, many lessons have to be learned in simulations, war games and exercises. Doctrinal publications provide reflections upon such lessons, allowing target audiences to experience vicariously the crucible of authentic combat.

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NOTES

1See Stephen Peter Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 2-3.

2James J. Tritten, “Naval Perspectives on Military Doctrine,” Naval War College Review, Vol. 48, No. 2 (Spring 1995), p. 22.

3Thomas E. Cronin, “Thinking and Learning about Leadership,” Robert L. Taylor and William E. Rosenbach, eds., Military Leadership, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), p. 61.

4Quoted in Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr., In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies (New York, NY: Warner Books, 1982), p. 280.

5Tritten, “Naval Perspectives,” p. 23.

6John Keegan, The Mask of Command (New York: Viking, 1987), p. 1.

7Cronin, “Thinking and Learning about Leadership,” p. 61.

8See David M. Keithly, “The Forgotten Element of Leadership,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Vol. 121, No. 12 (December 1995), p. 62.

9See the excellent discussion in: Lamar Tooke and Ralph Allen, “Strategic Intuition and the Art of War,” Military Review, Vol. 75, No. 2 (March-April 1995), pp. 14-15.

10See, for example: John F. Schmitt, “How We Decide,” Marine Corps Gazette, Vol. 79, No. 10 (October 1995), pp. 16-20; also, Tooke and Allen, “Strategic Intuition and the Art of War,” pp. 16-18.

11See Herbert Rosinski, “Scharnhorst to Schlieffen, The Rise and Decline of German Military Thought,” Naval War College Review, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Summer 1976), pp. 83-89.

12Douglas McGregor, Leadership and Motivation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966), pp. 73-74.

13Quoted in Kevin S. Donohue and Leonard Wong, “Understanding and Applying Transformational Leadership,” Military Review, Vol. 74, No.8 (August 1994), p. 31.

14John E. Hassen, Carol F. Denton, Fred Reis and John R. Ronchetto, “Navy Leadership Lessons From Operation Desert Storm: Effective Combat Leader Behaviours,” draft Technical Report 92-005, Orlando, Florida: Naval Training Systems Centre, January 1992, along with a revised executive summary. James Tritten and a number of others concerned about the inappropriateness of TQM/TQL in combat settings have recently addressed salient issues.

15Ronald A. Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 1994), pp. 304-305.

16Headquarters, Department of the Army, Military Leadership, Field Manual 22-100, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, July 1990.

17The distinction between combat and non-combat leadership is central to a recent government technical report. See James J. Tritten, “Navy Combat Leadership for Tomorrow: Where Will We Get Such Men and Women?” NDC 1-00-001, Norfolk, VA: Naval Doctrine Command, July 1995.

18See: James J. Tritten, “Introduction of Aircraft Carriers into the Royal Navy: Lessons for the Development of Naval Doctrine,” The Naval Review, Vol. 82, No. 3 (July 1994): 260-267; and Norman Friedman, Thomas C. Hone, and Mark D. Mandeles, “The Introduction of Carrier Aviation into the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy: Military-Technical Revolutions, Organizations, and the Problem of Decision,” draft report prepared for the Director, Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense, May 12, 1994.

19See Charles M. Melhorn, Two-Block Fox: The Rise of the Aircraft Carrier, 1911-1929 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1974).

20Rosen, Winning the Next War, p. 58.

21Clark Reynolds, The Fast Carriers: The Forging of an Air Navy (Huntington, NY: Robert Krieger, 1978), pp. 18-19.

22U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command [TRADOC], Force XXI Operations: A Concept for the Evolution of Full-Dimensional Operations for the Strategic Army of the Early Twenty-First Century, TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5, Fort Monroe, VA: TRADOC, 1 August 1994. This pamphlet was followed by a more authoritative one with an introduction signed by the Chief of Staff and the Secretary of the Army. See: Department of the Army, Congressional Activities Division, Army Focus 94: Force XXI, Washington, DC, September 1994.

23The author is indebted to Walter Ulmer, U.S. Army (Ret.) for this point.