US
ARMY “Total Leadership: Post OIF
(The
Human Side of Leadership, Often Overlooked)
11
JUNE 2015
“Admittedly, the service was never
perfect; no human institution having power over men can ever be.” ~ Leonidas
Musashi (ref: A T.R. Farenbach Remix)
The key word
that should come to the mind of leaders with serious consideration is “human”. Generally,
the Army and other branches of military service tend well to physical human
needs required for an army to function. Though some medical needs for older
seasoned Soldiers could stand to improve, over all, Soldiers are well taken
care of. However, to what extent do
leaders view human needs? Human needs extend to a further degree than what is outlined
in any leadership manual within any branch of service. The American society
even plays a role. Whether intentional or not, leaders as a whole are failing
the human side of leading Soldiers if not viewed conceptually. If you’re a
leader within our ranks in the Army, you should not be here for a “career” or
to “advance yourself”. Don’t get me wrong, improving yourself and advancement
up through the ranks is needed and required, but the attitude of individual
leaders with regard to how they prioritize what is important is the very
beginning of possessing genuine character as a leader. Or not.
Military
branches are failing with some aspects of the human side of leadership because
we’re not thinking about human needs in a “holistic” way. Yet, it’s not solely
the fault of military leaders. Society has rendered more than one generation of
young Americans, the characters of whom are not fit to allow these young
citizens to serve unless first broken down. Some have been dubbed the “entitled
generation”; citizens whom think that everything should be given to them
without their first having to work for it. A selfish generation. Self-focused
character will cause decay within the ranks of our military branches and even
our halls of state and federal government. Presently, some of these young
citizens serve within our ranks and many are also in leadership positions and still
yet they are not good leaders or leaders at all due to their character which,
in turn, “is what it is” because of their upbringing and the Army’s willingness
to give in to political pressure regarding how ours ranks produce warfighters.
We’re producing soft Soldiers because of political correctness.
“There is much to military training
that seems childish, stultifying, and even brutal. But one essential part of
breaking men into military life is the removal of misfits – and in the service
a man is a misfit who cannot obey orders, any orders, and who cannot stand
immense and searing mental and physical pressure”. ~ T. R Fehrenbach
Now, the
term “misfit” is a relatively loose one and includes individuals whom have an
“entitled” view or perspective because they will think of “self” first before
those to their left and right. How will they follow orders efficiently when their
mindset is on themselves?
Additionally,
the “entitled” personality must be broken down and removed before they can be
true Soldiers. There are two initial ingredients required for forging Soldiers:
“Searing mental and physical pressure”. When developing Soldiers these two
forms of pressure are human needs. Albeit they are harsh needs, it is still
required nonetheless to make them strong physically and mentally. What they face when arms are taken up in war
will be far more challenging physically and mentally. That being said, we as an
Army have mostly removed these two forms of pressure during basic training,
again, due to political correctness and pressure dubbing these physical and
mental pressures as “maltreatment” and “inhuman”. On the contrary, when
Soldiers are “corrected” for not working together or keeping track of the
actions of one another, they start checking each other more often because they
do not want to be victim of harsh physical, yet not inhuman, corrective
training. This is the first building block of change within the character of an
IET Soldier that starts to put aside “self” and adjusts their individual perspective
into one of looking out for their brothers. In so doing, each Soldier looks out
for one another and the welfare of the group as a “whole”. These two forms of
pressure will not kill them. It’s also the first stages of cohesion that will
allow them to continue to unconsciously check one another a year or so from now
when they may be operating in a conflict.
Many of my peers whom served as Drill
Instructors have all said that their hands were tied when developing IET
Soldiers with regard to physical and mental pressure in the form of corrective
training for Soldiers not working together. They simply must follow orders and
now we as an Army are at risk of creating weak Soldiers. This is a problem that
can only be fixed by higher Army Command Leaders having the intestinal
fortitude to turn a cold shoulder to political correctness and ideology and
allow Soldiers to be forged with physical and mental pressure.
“-the liberal society, in it’s heart,
wants not only domination of the military, but acquiescence of the military to
the liberal view of life. – But acquiescence society may not have, if it wants
an army worth a damn. By the very nature of it’s mission, the military must
maintain an illiberal view of life and the world. Society’s purpose is to live;
the military’s is to stand ready, if need be, to die. Soldiers are rarely fit
to rule – but they must be fit to fight.” ~ T. R. Farenbach
War will
present itself and with it the need to kill. Only hardened men can kill. Good Soldiers will also die. It’s not a “casual” event. It’s very violent,
filthy and dirty. Perhaps even barbaric. Raw humanity will start to show
through, both in the form of the violence that is required to kill to protect
one another and the outer edges of the human soul that can be seen when
Soldiers stand together in this violence and completely give of themselves to
the welfare of one another.
Additionally,
elected officials have also meddled with the branches of service with regard to
how rank and file Warfighters are formed. As if somehow the time tested methods
for forging men into fighters has been wrong all of this time.
They deprive
leaders from their ability to form effective fighters by not allowing leaders
to break down and build up solid warfighters. It’s a necessary harsh human need
that is required to build men at the most initial levels of becoming a Soldier.
The
environment of war will demand that Soldiers be trained this way. Any other
“soft” forms of training Soldiers is simple weakness and creates an attitude
that it’s ok to send unfit, unprepared Soldiers to their deaths. Hardening a
human being to kill is more essential than all of the latest technology.
Most of us
simply view human needs as food, water, and necessities with a little highlight
on spiritual needs. Still yet the latter of these needs is scrutinized by the
upper echelons of Command due to pressure from respective elected individuals,
liberal or otherwise, who want the military to conform to their ideological view.
This is very true in today’s government and within military ranks to a point
where there is a visible imbalance. Certain faiths are accommodated by both the
federal government and the military with regard to grooming standards and time allowed
for open public prayer within places of federal work places, for example.
However, Christian faiths must conform and only allowed prayer within the
confines of the Chaplain’s office or when a Chaplain is present at certain
functions. And even then a few Chaplains are hassled by those in higher ranks
or elected officials placing pressure on the higher military ranks for allowing
prayer. Spiritual needs are also part of a Soldiers character. Soldiers, even
the lowest rank, will see this imbalance within the ranks of our Army today and
regardless if they have a faith or not, they will start to view this practice
of imbalance as bias. This will cause doubt within their minds. Then a lack of trust in their leaders will develop.
Soldiers
must trust their leaders. Again you cannot be “political” when training and
leading Soldiers. Leaders must only be “human” and fair on an equal scale
across the ranks. Presently, we have failed as leaders with regard to this
human need as it can be seen plainly with the visible imbalance regarding
faith.
Soldier’s Issues/Problems and Human Needs: Human needs go much further than basic needs
and leaders need to be acutely aware of this. Leading Soldiers in its most raw
form will require of leaders to first be fully attentive of all human needs,
some of which are harsh as I spoke of in the paragraphs above, but necessary
given the requirements to lead human beings in warfare.
Soldier’s problems and life issues: Resolution of both are human needs.
Often, it’s overlooked by leaders because they’re unaware of the extent of
their duties, simply neglect addressing the problem, thinking the Soldier is
responsible, and lastly, concern that addressing the problem will bring
negative attention to the unit and out of poor leadership the leader will
distance themselves in an attempt to let the Soldier fail in hopes of not being
involved and having the higher Command focus solely on the Soldier. This is
selfish and fool hearted. Senior leaders of sound character will see right
through that leader as well as their selfish intent and failure to take care of
Soldiers. And still yet, we have seen this more than a few times at all levels
of our Army. We still fail our Soldiers.
Select Chains
of Command and NCO Support Channels have in the past tried to side step the
problem and silence Soldiers and their spouses in an effort to prevent “Big
Army” from seeing the problem. Nine scandals out of ten are found out by Big
Army and the American public anyway. As a caveat to that, Soldiers and Leaders
at every level of the Army, as well as the American citizens, would view the
Army better and respect its members if the problem was first admitted and then
dealt with accordingly. However, everyone is so wrapped up in “not looking bad”
that problems are hidden and then found out anyway and the military looks even
more dishonest when it comes to light. This failure is on leaders as well as
political entities placing pressure on higher commands to stifle bad publicity
that arises from human problems in the military for fear that their political
organization will be made to look bad or whatever reason. Again, Leaders and
the American citizens will respect anyone far more if they stand up to the
plate and admit , “Yes, this is a problem of ours and this is how we’re going
to fix it” than someone/some organization that attempts to hide the issue. But
political officials simple want to hang blame around the necks of our Senior
Leaders rather than face reality: i.e. Sexual Assault. You cannot throw a
uniform on someone with bad character and expect them to have integrity just
because they enlisted into the Army. This goes back to society being a part of
the problem. Kids growing up with one parent, no parental guidance, no
developmental role models within the family during their upbringing, and the
list can go on. You can even leave religion out of it even though many
Christian faiths foster good morals and character. The point being, children
raised with ethics and being taught right from wrong and held to a moral
standard by parents and punished by parents when they do wrong will build the
required character needed for genuine integrity. Yet our elected officials make
up laws and tell parents, “You cannot spank your kids”. Abuse is wrong, but
parents disciplining their children without hurting them is not abuse. Yet
everyone wants to play the blame game and the same elected officials that said
parents cannot discipline their children ask our Senior Commanders at the
Pentagon: “Why have sexualassault/harassment incidents increased?” Its society and
everyone wanting to be politically correct. America’s children are being let
down and the hands of parents are tied by foolish laws. And people think that
these same young citizens with poor character will be changed magically once
they’re in the military and blame senior Army leaders for it when nothing changes because some how they’re
responsible for bad/criminal character. A criminal on the streets is still a
criminal if you put them in uniform. They will possess very little or no
integrity.
Leader
Trust and Soldier’s Problems: Soldiers come out of IET/OSUT Training with
an inherent trust for their leaders at their new gaining unit even though they
have never met those leaders.
Problems
neglected by any level of the NCO Support Channel or Chain of Command is a
leadership failure in the human aspect of leading. Unresolved problems will
foster an environment of distrust and Soldiers cannot fully focus on their
duties because of worry and doubt about their problems not being addressed or
halfheartedly addressed. This effects the mission, can cause a void in security
and, at the extreme end of the environment that combat arms units routinely
operate in, can result in injury or death.
At home duty
stations and deployed locations, a Soldiers problems are their respective
leader’s problems. If a Soldier PCS’d to a new unit with unresolved problems,
it becomes the problems of the leaders in that gaining unit.
The biggest Achilles heel for Army Leaders: Not addressing Soldier’s problems
for concern or fear of negative publicity from the higher echelons of the Army.
“Oh my OER/NCOER”. “We cannot let the
Division Command Group or Big Army know that this happened”. In so doing, this
poor leadership response starts and cultivates subtle “Quid Pro Quo” efforts to
keep Soldiers quiet until either the Soldier moves on to a new duty station or
the leader moves on. Poor leaders use the ignorance of a Soldier regarding Army
Regulations to manipulate them into getting what that leader wants. The higher the level that this negative leader
practice goes, the larger the problem gets. This is not taking ownership of
your Soldiers. But again, political influence has crept in and placed pressure
on Senior leaders at the highest levels.
Lastly, the
checks and balances of the Army: Inspector General, JAG, CID may also fail to
address Soldiers problems properly for the same concern/fear of negative
publicity, depending on the issue or problem. Where can Soldiers go if the
system is broken?
In closing,
all leaders are human and have faults or short comings. I’m not perfect. After
over 19 years as an Infantryman in active duty, there are still areas in my
life that I need to improve upon. However, simply because there are no visible
bench marks within my areas of needed improvement does not mean that I’ve given
up or quit.
Political
organizations need to back off, leaders need to get their intestinal fortitude
back, take care of your Soldiers regardless of whomever sees or how high in the
chain they perform their duties and take care of your Soldiers. Build on America’s Army and other military
services. We are failing and recognition of that is the only way that we can begin
to fix it.
SFC David
Hickman
HQ, First
Army
Rock Island
Arsenal
Rock Island,
IL
