Military Review English Edition July-August 2015 | Page 41

DEVELOPING LEADERS

(Photo by Marie Berberea, Fort Sill Cannoneer)

Electronic Warfare Specialist Course students enhance their skills inside a secure classroom 21 January 2011 at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. During
the course, the students learn how to integrate, coordinate, execute, and assess electronic warfare capabilities with ground operations
across the full spectrum of joint military operations. Courses are also offered for commissioned officers and warrant officers.

and encourage mentoring, training, reflection, and study.
Learning from other leaders is one of the most effective
and efficient methods of development. Finally, unit leaders should strive to create a legacy, being deliberate about
the selection and succession of leaders, evaluating effectiveness, and being willing to modify job assignments to
challenge subordinate leaders.
Regardless of the type of unit or organization,
successful leaders recognize that they must continually develop their subordinate leaders by maximizing
opportunities in all three domains of the Army leader
development model: operational, institutional, and
self-development.16 Today’s leaders guide their units
and organizations through today’s challenges, but
their subordinates are the ones who will guide tomorrow’s units and organizations through the challenges
of tomorrow. As leaders in all domains develop their
subordinate leaders, those subordinate leaders reciprocate with an investment of their own efforts. Leaders
at all levels will model this desire to learn and strive to
inculcate it in subordinates.
In the operational domain, conditions should
include leaders who communicate, listen, and care.
Leaders should create a mission command climate and
MILITARY REVIEW  July-August 2015

a learning environment where subordinate input is
valued. In this type of environment, a sense of shared
responsibility and trust yield candor and open dialogue
at all levels. This environment fosters a freedom to
exercise initiative where honest mistakes are forgiven and from which lessons are learned and applied.
Leaders provide their subordinate leaders with active
role modeling as coaches, counselors, and mentors,
providing honest developmental feedback during relevant, challenging, and complex education and training.
Leaders give appropriate levels of thought to their goals
for developing leaders when planning organizational
assignments and extra duties. This will aid in developing leaders to succeed in their current and future duty
assignments as well as at their next level of education.
Finally, operational leaders must allow their subordinates adequate time to pursue educational and
self-developmental opportunities. In the institutional
domain, leaders create conditions for quality leader
development by providing clear plans to promote
achievement of desired learning outcomes, assessing
individual readiness to learn before classroom experiences commence, and providing opportunities for
“sense-making” and reflection. The classroom must
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