Military Review English Edition July-August 2016 | Page 120
BROADENING
PRIMARY
FOCUS:
• Takes ownership of own
professional development
• Places actions within the context of
higher level situation
• Understands and embraces the
Army as a Profession
• Thinks and plans for the long term
• Develops others and sees
subordinates as their “legacy”
• Understands and accounts for the
effect of his/her actions and words
on others
TACTICAL
SUPPORTING
EFFORT:
PRIMARY
FOCUS:
SUPPORTING
EFFORT:
TECHNICAL
THE TROOP
“FIGHT”
THE SQUADRON
“FIGHT”
LEADER OUTCOMES:
• Well grounded in doctrinal
principles/concepts
• Effectively employs equipment,
weapon systems, and units in
combat
• Quickly adapts to changing
situations (terrain, weather, enemy, • Uses creativity and innovation to
assets, constraints, etc.)
maximize the effectiveness and
efficiency of training
• Effective communicator (written,
verbal, visual)
• Understands capabilities and
limitations of weapons, vehicles,
units, and other assets
• Understands both the “what” and
the “why” behind
regulations/policies
• Understands and effectively utilizes• Effectively maintains self and
technical systems (maintenance,
equipment under all conditions
personnel, supply, etc.)
(Graphic courtesy of Lt. Col. Chad R. Foster, U.S. Army)
Figure 1. Squadron Leader Development Guidance
is the case, the most important question remains: How
can these leaders accomplish this responsibility?
The Decisive Operation: Leader
Development
Leaders at all levels face the reality of force and budget
reductions, increasing operational requirements, and an
ever-changing global situation. Although challenging, this
environment provides the ideal conditions to develop the
leaders of tomorrow.7
—Gen. Robert B. Abrams
The guidance from the highest levels of the Army is
clear: commanders must effectively manage personnel
turnover, training proficiency, and equipment maintenance in order to remain ready for contingencies.
Because there is no way to predict exactly what our
forces will be required to do, sustaining the ability to
conduct a wide range of military operations at any
118
time is critical.8 No single solution exists to uniformly
guide our battalion and company commanders in this
effort, but that fact does not remove the responsibility
from their shoulders. The top-down driven readiness
cycles of the last decade hampered the professional
development of our junior- and mid-level leaders.
Under ARFORGEN, young officers and NCOs found
themselves as merely the executors of directed training
plans. Now these same leaders have ascended to more
senior positions of responsibility but are now without
the luxury of being told exactly how to prepare their
units for deployment.
The challenges of balancing short-term mission
requirements with long-term training readiness remain
though the formative experiences of the last decade
did not fully prepare our company- and battalion-level
leaders to do so. Luckily, the absence of a standardized
process for balancing RAF missions with sustainable
readiness demands that the Army develop leaders who
July-August 2016 MILITARY REVIEW