Military Leadership

The sixth edition of this classic text continues its popular interdisciplinary approach to the topic of leadership by examining fundamental elements of military leadership: the 'process' of leadership, the dynamic personal interactions between leader and followers, and the individual and organizational values that foster effective military leadership. Military Leadership provides a thoroughly reconsidered and greatly expanded mix of classic and contemporary articles as well as original essays, with authors representing all of the services. Incisive introductory essays to each section highlight themes and connections. Eric B. Rosenbach joins the editorial team for this edition, helping infuse the text with fresh perspectives. The essays of the sixth edition confront the kudos and criticisms that surround military leadership today, offer international viewpoints, and relate military leadership to contemporary leadership theory and approaches.

In the simplest of terms, leadership is about influencing people to achieve an objective that is important to the leader, the group, and the organization. It is the human element – leading, motivating, and inspiring, particularly during times of crisis, chaos, and complexity when directives, policy statements, and communiques have little effect on cold, exhausted, and stressed followers. Strong leadership encourages subordinates to go beyond the obligation to obey and commit to the mission in a way that maximizes their potential. The Military Leadership Handbook is a concise and complete manual that identifies, describes, and explains all those concepts, components, and ideas that deal with, or directly relate to, military leadership. The book is a comprehensive compendium that focuses on, among other subjects, cohesion, command, cultural intelligence, discipline, fear, and trust. this applied manual provides invaluable assistance to anyone who wishes to acquire a better understanding of both the theory and application of military leadership

Since the end of bipolarism, the concept of asymmetric warfare, and of asymmetric conflict in general, has been increasingly applied with regard to armed forces activities and tasks. This book presents the findings of comparative empirical research conducted in selected military units by a group of distinguished experts on military organization, who hail from the eight participating countries: Bulgaria, Cameroon, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Lithuania, the Philippines and Spain. It discusses remarks made by military leaders with extensive experience in the field regarding current doctrines on military leadership and their applicability in the field, as well as proposals and suggestions for new directions. “It is a complex relation, always based on respect and politeness, but often with mismatched interests.” (Army Colonel). “It makes you realize that there is a cultural gap. You must firstly understand who you are going to relate to, and the culture of these people, and then try to establish a certain kind of relationship. Often the platoon commander states his objective and must try to establish a relationship, contact with the village chief.” (Army Lieutenant, Platoon Commander). “[In Afghanistan] We had meals with the locals, sometimes the food didn’t taste good, but you had to eat it if you wanted to be welcomed back again” (Army Captain, Company Commander). These are just some of the many voices stemming from the ground in diverse international asymmetric conflict theatres (in Iraq, in Kosovo, in Afghanistan...), comments by military officers, commanders at different hierarchical levels, asked to reflect on their experiences as military leaders in crisis response operations. Military professionals, and military leaders in particular, perceive themselves as facing ambiguous situations that require an update in their professional training, and new skills to confront unexpected and unpredictable factors. Drawing on lived experiences, the book offers insights into what a new kind of leadership means when leaders have to cope with diverse and unclear missions. It also addresses leadership styles and behaviours, as well as individual adaptive behaviours on the part of military leaders, with special reference to middle and middle-high level ranks, such as captains, majors and colonels. Given its scope, the book will appeal not only to military professionals and military affairs scholars and experts, but also to readers interested in gaining a better understanding of the challenges that international expeditionary units are facing in crisis areas around the globe.

As a leader, you know that developing leaders is crucial to your team’s success. You also know that when life gets busy, meaningful leader development activities take a back seat to the swarm of everyday tasks. Who has time to discuss—let alone research and refine—quality content that will make a real difference? Andrew Steadman has lived this frustration and wrote The Military Leader to give leaders straightforward, highly relevant, inspirational leader development insight they can use to grow themselves and their teams. The Military Leader is your leader development program when you don’t have time for one.

This book provides an eclectic and meta-analytic study on the factors affecting military leadership and its components, taking into account both current and future security paradigms. The contemporary security environment is characterized by an increase in the number of wars, and more human-induced problems than ever before. The first duty of armies today is generally the establishment of security. Today’s battles are carried out in a vague and flexible warfare environment, which can be transformed rapidly. For this reason, military leaders need to be more versatile, with rapid decision-making capacities. In order to realize their duties, they have to focus more on the quality of their military leadership, which is critical to the establishment of secure and peaceful environments. Today, high-level army commanders have to behave more like diplomats, intellectuals and academics than ever before.

Issued also in French under title: Le precis de leadership militaire.

The fourth edition of this classic text continues its popular interdisciplinary approach to the topic of leadership, by examining the elements of military leadership from the perspective of contributors in the fields of history, business, religion, politics, and education. The fourth edition presents a broad spectrum of ideas and perspectives relating to military leadership in the current environment. It includes multinational views reflecting the global military stage. This new edition synthesizes classic pieces from the second and third editions with contemporary readings to provide the reader with important insights into the concepts of military leadership throughout the vagaries of regional conflict and maintenance of peace. The resulting synthesis stimulates the reader to understand the complex dynamics of effective leadership in the context of military history, values, and culture.