Organizational culture and leadership are absolutely an essential amalgamation of self-identification, quality of life, values, structure, discipline, and reputation. As a new employee, you are expected to integrate into an organization’s culture and adhere to the leadership while adopting its identification. Taking a broad look at military units then, you’ll see this in the icons, titles, mottos, traditions, and chain of command board at the CQ desk. Another great example is the unit PT shirt. Observe any organizational Division run before an observed national four-day holiday and you will be witness to an overwhelming diverseness of colors and symbols the tenant units have adopted to identify their unique units; with guidons and morale shirts that serve as examples of unit identity nesting within the culture of the greater parent unit.
Another example is the unit’s patch or emblem on the battle uniform. The same perception applies as the PT shirt but is something that can create identity and reputation to a foreign population or enemy. Many times, I listened to an elder council meeting where they referred to our unit or the previous unit solely by their patch, associated nicknames, or the reputation they had. The patch, the PT shirt, the unit’s mission, leaders (new and old) and reputation all contribute to the unit’s culture and leadership; the identity of how things are done. The key is finding balance to create unity in both.
As a leader, it is your responsibility to understand all the components of the culture in your unit and carry out the traditions and values the unit has adopted in a positive manner. Esprit-de-corps and unit morale build and maintain a unit’s culture as if it is a living entity that serves right along everyone in the unit. The unit’s culture transcends longer than any one Service Member’s tenure will ever be. It must be handled carefully so that is never tarnished or broken.
Consider some units you have been in that have suffered an embarrassing or negative incident. The lasting effects could have been localized within or leaked outside the unit and affected others. Either way, I am sure there was an identification of the incident by senior leaders within the unit that put effort (sometimes painful) to self-correct. Leaders like this understand the importance of the culture; they assume ownership of it and have adopted it into a personal and prideful way. It’s what assists the reality of the unit. Yet, this is where the importance of balance comes in. Allow leaders to push across the line too far and the command becomes toxic or riddled as a hostile work environment. When this happens, the effectiveness of the unit goes into a state of shock and paralysis with subordinates’ risk averse from making a mistake.
Some people are so proud of their unit that they will go to the extent of tattooing symbols related to the unit on their body, decorate their homes or offices with accoutrements or seek- out assignments to stay or return to the same unit based on a culture they agree with or once enjoyed. Ask a recruiting or retention NCO and they will tell you how important unit culture is just based on the quantitative and qualitative data they use to track retention numbers. The poorer the culture, the less likely Soldiers will be willing to stick around. Higher echelon leaders utilize online tools to self-evaluate how their leadership qualities affect the culture within their areas of responsibility or command. It’s a balancing act; to be effective and to keep people happy. The leader adapts their personal style to keep both in a healthy balance.
Another example of culture I’ll use is the common PCS (Permanent Change of Station). In a Service Member’s career, one can come to expect that the culture shift he/she will experience is inherent to a PCS, typically every three to five years to a new broadening or developing assignment. Every time the Service Member and his/her family PCS, they leave one unit’s culture to adopt and adapt to a new culture upon arriving to the new unit/assignment. Not just a new location but a new self-identity. The core job responsibilities of the Service Member are expected to stay the same, but the attitude, the methods, the tempo and pace, the self-identity and idiosyncrasies can be extremely different than the previous unit.
As a leader, you come to understand and are expected to embrace the new culture. It is who less-experienced Service Members look to; to emulate and fit in. The culture comes to stand upon the shoulders of its leadership and from a different perspective, it can be the opposite as well. We have all seen what happens when one cannot, or refuses to, align with a unit’s culture. It is often met with resistance, friction and ultimately leading to adjustment measures; reassignment, being ostracized, marginalized, or even expelled. Leaders need to be prepared for this because it happens often. Therefore, the responsibility of creating a good, positive perception of a unit’s culture resides on the leadership. The leader quickly corrects subordinate’s negative behaviors to maintain a positive culture and reputation, so it doesn’t create a breakdown in unity. The Command Climate Survey is a great tool to measure a unit’s culture and the leader should view this tool (as long as it’s has been completed honestly) as an indicator of the unit’s morale, strength, and culture.
THERE’S BLACK. THERE’S WHITE. AND THEN THERE’S GRAY; WHICH FEELS WARM, ATTRACTIVE, AND ILLUSIVE.
Culture and leadership may appear to be two different colors, but when combined together they make up the whole.
W.C.H. Prentice, in Understanding Leadership (2004), page 4, states; “The problem of every leader is to create these wants and to find ways to channel existing wants into effective cooperation.” I tend to disagree only in semantics; I don’t think it’s a “problem” but simply a “challenge.” Conversely, In the 11 Principals of Armed Forces Leadership, it states; “Know your people and look out for their welfare” and “Develop a sense of responsibility among your subordinates.” I expanded on the importance of the “Why” in “Design Thinking: What It is and Why It Matters.” In short, if you capture the “Why” of the task/mission during planning and give a purpose to help accomplish it, the team you lead will more than likely follow you due to a shared understanding and the accomplishment of a common goal. Even in the absence of orders, if the overall intent is understood, the team will continue pushing for a favorable based outcome. But it’s when the team does not know why they are doing something, they turn into what Prentice describes as “automata” and/or “rebellious slaves.” (Page 3, Ibid).
I always used to state the old “Task & Purpose” but added my own flair to it with the additions of “Significance & Suspense.” This allowed me to briefly open my subordinate’s aperture to the greater picture; as to how our planned and well executed efforts will shape an outcome or establish follow-on operations. The “Suspense” addition nested well with the “Significance” because it allowed the team to build urgency in their minds; it garnered collective buy-in. That was the culture I, and the Commander, fostered in a dismounted reconnaissance unit; where we were doctrinally 72 hours ahead of the Brigade Commander’s planning timeline collecting and detailing enemy intelligence while often in a communication blackout.
My philosophy of leadership is that it is the byproduct of both evaluated experience and initiative. No one is born from the womb a natural leader. Kings and Queens may have inherited the role of leader, but as the Game Of Thrones has taught us about the effectiveness of leadership through the family tree, the best leaders are not necessarily born into position. A true indicator of leadership is a collection of experience-gained mental models or lasting experiences one has lived through to emulate or avoid altogether. A good leader has racked up plenty of experience, assessed the outcomes of those experiences and can soundly navigate hastily or deliberately to be counted on to make the right decision that gains the respect of his/her subordinates. “There are no bad crews, only bad leaders.” (G.I. Jane, 1997)
Influence, maturity, self-control, proficiency, confidence, competency, demeanor, professionalism, common sense, and patience are all attributes both sought after and honed during a Service Member’s personal tenure.
Sometimes leaders are just in the right place at the right time. Look at Presidents Washington, Lincoln and Kennedy, SGT Audie Murphy, Martin Luther King, and Elon Musk to name a few. They all are leaders in their own respected arenas and have transformed the world as we know it. Growing up they probably never knew how greatly they would affect our universe. But they all had a moment in time where they were able to shine, use sound judgement, feed off the good values they adopted in life and stand up for action when the time was right. Here, leadership espouses American culture we hold in reverence today. These individuals helped mold what America strives to represent to the global community.
Look at the words on every Medal of Honor’s citation; Gallantry in action. Intrepidity. Above and beyond the call of duty. Risk of life. Selflessness. Exemplary action. Unwavering devotion. Conspicuous gallantry. Extraordinary heroism. These are all just words to describe an unusual moment in time that presented itself where an individual reacted, usually, out of self-preservation of themselves, their comrades or service to country. Since then, we use these individuals and their heroic actions as examples leadership.
As long as we value great leaders to model after and have lessons learned to examine, we will continue to produce capable leaders in our military which directly impacts a positive culture to share. Leaders eventually move on from service and often influence the civilian workforce culture and hold key, influential government leader positions.
WE ARE INTERFERING IN PLACES NO ONE GOES, WITH PEOPLE NO ONE CARES ABOUT, WITH A MESSAGE THAT RESONATES WITH NOBODY. THIS FUNDAMENTALLY LACKS BALANCE.
The buzz phrase “To win the hearts and minds” has been ingrained into our heads for the past two decades. This phrase continues to serve as an implied task to most of the recent overseas contingency operations. Yet, most of us are not balanced coherently between our own hearts and minds.
When looked through a realistic lens though, what the policy makers have asked Service Members to accomplish in war is nothing less than extraordinary. For men and women, ages 18-40’s, with no real training in foreign policy, are charged to travel away from home to multiple theaters, embed into cultures, geographies, and languages foreign to their own, with rudimentary knowledge of the country and handed an impossible mission of enticing the population to side with a foreign force present to liberate and free themselves from tyranny, dictatorship, or the stranglehold of an abusive regime. Our everyday actions outside the gate had strategic implications: good and bad. And for the majority of our Service Members, we executed our responsibilities perfectly; showcasing a positive picture of culture and leadership.
But some negative examples of tactical level errors leading to strategic consequences haunt all the good work done like the Abu Ghraib prison abuse and torture, the atrocities committed by SSG Bales, Marines urinating on dead insurgent bodies, the unintentional burning of Korans, SPC Bergdahl leaving his post and the following Taliban prisoner exchange, SPC Manning intelligence leaks and the 1LT Lorance Escalation Of Force incident. These individuals involved all had leaders or were leaders of Soldiers themselves. Every one of these incidents either turned the tide, slowed progress, or got other servicemembers killed because of the backlash to their actions. In every one of these cases, winning the hearts and minds strategy was severely degraded and complicated the mission, prolonged the timeline, and created more tension amongst allies, local nationals, and their governments and worst yet, our own citizens. The values of leadership were forever tarnished in the eyes and hearts of these Service Members peers alike. The culture of the units of these Service Members felt the blow immediately.
Back to the deployed Service Member; in his or her tactical role, they follow orders, try to create a good example for the population, and work towards the goal of mission success so they can just get home. The latter becomes their real “Why.” after about 100 days in theater. leaders at the tactical and operational level maintain steady state operations and work within defined parameters. Every action is causal. However, if the definition of what success looks like is never stated or if it is misunderstood, mission creep sets in and it creates an environment that prolongs the overall mission. Servants at the upper strategic levels of government, defense, foreign affairs, and security council send mixed signals from ground truth reality with statements like, “We are seeing signs of progress” or “A troop increase of 30,000 will ensure that the stability of the region will set the conditions for a troop draw down by……” But the longer the force is on ground, the easier it becomes for the global community to paint a negative picture and for more chances of tactical errors.
Leaders at the tactical level are where the rubber hits the road. They are the eyes and ears of the battlespace and shoulder the responsibility of “what right looks like.” Their input should always be solicited and implemented into the reality of the ground truth. If not, then scenarios like the later years of the Vietnam conflict develop; where the Executive Branch and Security Council formulate plans and strategies thousands of miles away from the entrenched infantrymen at ground level. In fact, often times these grand plans from Washington cause more damage to the “hearts and minds” effort. Example: Operation Arc Light.
Leaders at the tactical level have to show caution. They have to exercise balance and level- mindedness prior to, during and post deployments. Should a leader go rogue, or the fog of war inhibit moral decision making, the outcome can have dire consequences to the mission and exit strategy. Take the My Lai Massacre for instance. The mass murder of civilians and destruction to their villages was a breakdown in the laws of war. It led to more domestic outrage of the US involvement in Vietnam. The platoon leader, 2LT William Calley, was the only one convicted of the incident involving hundreds of confirmed civilian deaths in 48 hours.
CPT Medina was the on-ground commander of the largest publicized massacre of civilians by U.S. forces yet was acquitted in a military trial. Calley, a junior leader, was quoted as following an organizational culture of “just following orders.” The young LT participated in the shooting of the unarmed civilians despite knowing and being charged to uphold the standards set in the Nuremburg and Toyo War Crime trials. During the trial, Calley pleaded for his innocence. The fallout of the incident and the following coverup led to the breakdown of the character of the American Soldier and the overall war effort. In this particular case, leaders lost their way. Their actions, or lack thereof, led to a breakdown in mission and caused international outcry for actions unbecoming of the American Soldier. The cause of this was a breakdown in morality and discipline. Culture was M.I.A.
Not only are Americans representing freedom, liberty, and a democratic way of life to the countries they deploy to, but leaders take on the additional burden of being part of a special community where partnered allies and nation states are often times our customers. Our moral responsibility is to understand how every action taken or not has magnified cause and effect and is viewed even closer under the microscope. In some cases, especially with some SOF units and their missions, actions can never be known. There is no room for tactical level errors. Failure would mean failure of its core missions. That takes a level of maturity that is hand selected amongst one’s professional peers (up, down, and horizontal) to ensure a culture of ultimate precision persists. It is entrusted to leaders to make the right decisions and understand the impacts of how the wrong decisions hurt the reputation of American global influence.
Organizational culture is just as important as the Regimental Streamers. The leaders of said units are entrusted to maintain its legitimacy and integrity.
And just as the janitor sweeping floors at NASA during the space race had a mission that nested in the greater mission to send the first humans to the moon, similarly, the American Service Member has the unique mission of setting the conditions of leadership and culture in far off lands to make the world a better and safer place for all mankind.
The small step is to recognize this.
The giant leap is to adequately put organizational culture and leadership into balance and cohesion for missions to the great beyond.
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Robb is a retired active Army veteran of 21 years, primarily serving as a Cavalry Scout. Having accomplished multiple combat tours, diverse global assignments and leadership roles, Robb retired as a First Sergeant of Shadow Troop, 1-33 CAV (Rakassans). From there, Robb went on to attempt his luck in the civilian sector as a Reliability Engineer at an international paper processing company during the pandemic. Not quite satisfied and feeling the draw to serve once again, Robb made his way back behind the gate working with some of the nation’s tip of spear warfighters on Fort Liberty, NC.
It was during this time that he was drawn into an esoteric spiritual journey of self-discovery and began peeling back the onion of how vanquishing spiritual warfare can serve as a personal force multiplier. Dropping all ties to dogmatic religious principles, Robb solely embarked into studies of the mystical and metaphysical for the answers of life. Now forged with this newfound purpose, Robb blends his current path of spiritual ascension along with his past experience of the rigors of military service in order to uplift the future of his brothers and sisters in arms.
“The answers we all seek lie in potential.”
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