Self-Awareness Is Combat Power

by LTC Juan P. Remy, US Army (EdD, PhD)

Current Army Professional Military Education (PME) contains a critical gap in leadership development that leaves military leaders inadequately prepared for complex human dynamics. The curriculum fails to address three essential psychological dimensions: emotional intelligence (EI), narcissistic tendencies, and cultural orientation. This systemic neglect creates cascading negative consequences throughout military organizations, contributing to toxic leadership environments and organizational failures.

But how can Army PME facilitate leaders’ identification and understanding of their emotional intelligence, narcissistic tendencies, and cultural orientation to enable more effective leadership?

The author employed a qualitative case study approach using Applied Thematic Analysis (ATA) to examine the 2024–2025 Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) curriculum. The researcher analyzed 27,807 words of curriculum content using MAXQDA software and keyword-in-context analysis to identify themes related to the three core concepts.

The primary findings reveal that in the curriculum, Emotional Intelligence was mentioned only three times (3% of themes), Team Building 38 times (39% of themes – the highest frequency), Critical Thinking 20 times (21% of themes), Culture 11 times (11% of themes), Ethics 10 times (10% of themes), Traits 12 times (12% of themes), and Narcissism not at all (0%). These identified themes represented only 0.004% of the entire curriculum, indicating minimal emphasis on self-awareness development.

From this analysis, several critical gaps emerge:

1. Focus on Task vs. Self-Awareness – The curriculum emphasizes what leaders must do and who they must be but provides minimal instruction on helping cadets identify their innate personality traits.
2. Missing Integration – While team building and critical thinking are covered, there is no connection to how EI, cultural orientation, and narcissistic tendencies impact these leadership functions.
3. Cultural Awareness Deficiency – Culture is presented as an external factor to consider rather than as an internal trait that shapes decision-making and leadership style.
4. Absence of Narcissism Education – Despite narcissistic tendencies being present in all individuals and potentially problematic in leadership roles, the curriculum contains no instruction on identifying or managing these traits.

To fill these gaps and facilitate better self-development, the Integrated Leadership Self-Awareness Model (ILSAM) is a comprehensive three-component model that addresses the identified deficiencies.

Component 1: Cultural Orientation Assessment

• Tool: Individualistic and Collectivistic Orientation Scale Questionnaire
• Format: 16-item assessment with 9-point Likert scale
• Purpose: Help leaders understand whether they lean toward individualistic or collectivistic orientations and how this impacts their leadership approach.

Component 2: Emotional Intelligence Measurement

• Tool: Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire–Short Form (TEIQue-SF)
• Format: 30-item questionnaire with 7-point Likert scale
• Purpose: Assess four EI competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social relationship management.

Component 3: Narcissistic Tendencies Evaluation

• Tool: Narcissistic Personality Inventory 13 (NPI-13)
• Format: 13-item assessment measuring narcissistic tendencies
• Purpose: Help leaders recognize and manage narcissistic tendencies while distinguishing them from clinical narcissistic personality disorder.

Impact of ILSAM

Organizational Benefits:
The model could reduce toxic leadership by enabling early identification of problematic traits, which facilitates timely intervention and development. It can improve unit cohesion—leaders with higher self-awareness create healthier team environments—and enhance mission success through better decision-making and more effective management of diverse teams.

Individual Leader Development:
ILSAM will help officers with self-knowledge by revealing innate traits and behavioral drivers, foster adaptive leadership through situational adjustments, and provide a framework for continuous self-improvement throughout a military career.

Integration into Army ROTC

Cadet Command could integrate ILSAM into the current Army ROTC curriculum as supplemental instruction, provide instructor training to develop faculty capabilities for delivering self-awareness-based leadership education, and assess integration by incorporating the three assessment tools into existing leadership evaluation processes. Curriculum revisions should connect team building, critical thinking, and ethics instruction to the three core self-awareness components. Longitudinal studies could follow to measure ILSAM’s effectiveness over time.

Conclusion

Significant gaps in Army PME contribute to leadership failures and toxic organizational environments. The proposed ILSAM offers a practical, measurable solution to help future military leaders develop critical self-awareness of their emotional intelligence, cultural orientation, and narcissistic tendencies. Implementing this model has the potential to transform Army leadership development and create more effective, self-aware military leaders capable of succeeding in complex, diverse operational environments.

The bottom line: military leadership effectiveness requires not just knowing what to do and who to be as a leader, but fundamentally understanding who you are as a person and how your innate traits impact your leadership effectiveness.

Dr. (LTC) Juan Remy is an accomplished educational and military leader, as well as a Military Science Instructor, with extensive expertise in curriculum development and cross-cultural education. Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and raised in Brooklyn, NY, he holds dual doctoral degrees—a PhD in Advanced Educational Studies (2025) and an EdD in Educational Leadership from Liberty University (2023)—along with multiple master’s degrees in cybersecurity management, military arts and science, and leadership studies. Currently stationed in Germany with his family, Dr. Remy is fluent in French, English, Haitian Creole, and German, bringing a unique multicultural perspective to his work in combating dualistic thinking through innovative, problem-based learning methodologies. His published research focuses on cultural diversity in education, leadership development, and military pedagogy, while his practical experience spans from developing educational partnerships between military units and academic institutions to mentoring future military leaders.

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