Military Review English Edition July-August 2015 | Page 45

ENTERPRISE LEADERS

proven to be wrong. Several senior military leaders
have acknowledged the U.S. military’s poor record of
predicting future conflicts, as our Army has repeatedly
found itself engaged in military operations in ways that
it had not envisioned.1
Comparatively recent examples of such challenging periods include the transition out of the Vietnam
War in the 1970s, the resurgent Cold War rivalry
with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, combat and peace
operations in Iraq and the Balkans in the 1990s, and
the Global War on Terror in the first decade of the
twenty-first century. In each of these decades, the U.S.
military was called upon by our nation to commit
American service members across a range of military
operations to secure U.S. interests.
During these periods, successive service chiefs of
staff across the Department of Defense have lamented the lack of senior leaders who understand how to
sustain the force of the day while preparing to meet the
demands of the future. Experience has shown that senior military officers must be as adept at advising their
political masters on national policy, developing longrange military strategy to support policy, and managing
the defense enterprise as they are at leading service
members in actual military operations.
Such senior leader competencies, apart from military skills, are even more important now in the face
of inevitable fiscal reductions and ambiguous mission
requirements. As a professional force, this means the
military needs to assess whether it is properly developing its officers to be successful at its most senior levels.
Accordingly, as the military service most commonly
assigned to lead joint and combined operations, the U.S.
Army must more effectively develop officers to successfully lead and manage the Army of the future—both operating and generating forces. The Army has made advances
in how it fights, from using technology to developing innovative operational concepts and fighting formations, but
the critical enabler remains effective leader development.
The Army has achieved hard-won successes over
the past decade by providing Army officers with tremendous tactical and operational experience in joint
and coalition operations. However, as executive coach
Marshall Goldsmith’s book title asserts, What Got You
Here Won’t Get You There, meaning that Army leaders
cannot rely on old habits for future success, especially
as they gain higher-level responsibilities.2
MILITARY REVIEW  July-August 2015

Moving forward to Army 2025—the future of land
power within the joint force—it is essential that we select, develop, and retain leaders within the officer corps
with a great potential for high levels of responsibility. A
well-known statement attributed to champion hockey
player Wayne Gretzky serves as a metaphor for future-oriented leader development. According to Roy
MacGregor, Gretzky “liked to say he didn’t skate to
where the puck was, but to where it was going to be.”3
Like a hockey player who anticipates the movement
of a puck and adapts quickly, the Army leader development effort must anticipate the need for vital senior
leadership in the Army of 2025. While the present
regimen of senior officer education may put future
leaders in the “good” leader category, to make them
great, the Army profession as a whole must embrace
many new competencies.
A former chief of staff of the Army, retired Gen.
Gordon R. Sullivan, wrote a leadership book together
with Michael V. Harper in which they describe “three
kinds of skills … necessary for success [in strategic leadership]: good management, working effectively with
people, and creating the future.”4 While Sullivan and
Harper’s text addresses business leaders, their principles come from their military experience and remain
relevant to Army leaders who are creating the future of
the force. Army leaders, understandably, want to retain
the warfighting edge in the face of budget reductions
and downsizing, but the Army must not forget the importance of leading the generating force to accomplish
the Army’s Title 10 functions to man, organize, train,
and equip the force.5
Many officers are familiar with the adage “amateurs
talk tactics; professionals talk logistics.” A more appropriate statement would be, “warriors talk operations;
soldiers talk enterprise.” Over its history, it has become
clear that the Army must be effective in both Title
10 and warfighting functions. Former Army Lt. Gen.
Richard G. Trefry describes how officers tend to
think of themselves as warriors: “Generally speaking,
a warrior is ‘one engaged or experienced in battle,’
while a soldier is ‘a man of military skill or experience.’”6 He emphasizes that “soldiers not only fight,
but they understand the multitude of internal missions of the Army, … the business of provisioning,
sustaining, maintaining, training, organizing, and
resourcing the Army.”7 The business of the Army
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