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Monthly Members' Newsletter

Welcome to the Defence Research Network Newsletter!

Hello again everyone! I am excited to be sharing this month's theme of Military Leadership with you and want to thank Georgie Eckersley, Jeff Tibbett and Tamiris Santos for their 'leadership' of this theme! Thank you to all of the wonderful contributors to the theme, we are really grateful to hear about their research and experience in this field.

I always find it fascinating the common misconceptions about military leadership, dominated by the expectation of the 'drill sergeant' approach of leadership by direct orders. Away from basic training and emergency situations, such as firefighting, my experience has been of a far more collaborative form of leadership. Certainly, as a military engineer I observed far more effective leadership from those who sought specialist expertise from their team to make their decision, fostering an open dialogue and safe space for raising concerns and thinking through risks. I would encourage reflection on the tension between the expectations of military leadership and the realities and how these apply in the very different settings the military operates in, as you consider our monthly theme. 

Finally, I am delighted to introduce Rupak Pathak as the newest member of our committee. Check out the 'News from our Committee' section below to hear more from Rupak.

Take care,

Hannah West 
Chair of the Defence Research Network

A friend of the DRN, Mick Earle, has kindly offered some reflections on Leadership in the British Army. Mick is a Behavioural Change Consultant working predominantly in the corporate sector who has 12 years service in 21 SAS, one of the UK’s Special Forces Army Reserve regiments. Combining his military and civilian experiences Mick also co-designed and co-delivered the ‘Post Operational Stress Management’ programme for Counter-IED (bomb disposal) and EOD Search teams returning from Op Herrick in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2015. 

Leadership in the British Army is discussed and defined in ‘Developing Leaders’ - A British Army Guide (https://www.fie.undef.edu.ar/ceptm/pdf/educacion/05.pdf) produced in 2014 by Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. This is a well researched and well written evidenced upgrade to RMAS’s ‘Leadership Precis’ from the 1990’s, looking back into history to lesson’s learned and supporting current thinking with academic models and theory.
 
Based on my personal experience most people with no experience of ‘Military Leadership’ still appear to firmly believe that it’s all about some people barking orders and other people blindly following them. While this would be an appropriate leadership style to adopt when managing a crisis (reacting to ‘effective enemy fire’ or managing an unruly mob in support of an overseas aid mission etc) the British Army is a complex organisation consisting of many diverse roles and functions operating in a wide spectrum of theatres and situations, so it’s realistic to accept that a doctrine built on one leadership style is going to fall very short of the mark.
 
Effective corporate People Managers (‘Leaders’) will understand (and hopefully put into practice) the Situational Leadership model developed in 1996 by author Paul Hersey and leadership expert Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager. The model explores different leadership approaches for different scenarios driven by two main metrics; the capability of the person being managed and their motivation to get the job done.

Effective Military Leadership takes into account ‘Situational Leadership’, recognising when a Direct/Autocratic approach is most appropriate and equally when a more Coaching/Supportive or Delegative approach would drive better results. As an illustration; the SAS Selection course is designed to identify those individuals who won’t give up when faced with great adversity, ie, those with high levels of self discipline not reliant on someone else telling them what to do. Most SAS recruits who fail ‘Selection’ are not failed by the Training Wing ‘Directing Staff’ (DS), they give up and Voluntarily Withdraw (VW). The opportunity to pass Selection is in effect Delegated to the recruit so you won’t find DS shouting and screaming at a recruit to do better. Instead a more Coaching approach is adopted in the knowledge that the recruit must in the end complete the requirements on their own.
 
As valuable as Situational Leadership clearly is, on the whole corporate ‘People Managers’ don’t require their employees to ‘close with and kill the enemy’. This lethal imperative, although not totally restricted to the Armed Forces, creates almost unique leadership dynamics which right from the initial stages of recruit training are addressed through respect for the recognised rank structure and effective ‘role-modelling’ by leaders to their subordinates.

From an Army perspective, on the modern battlefield it’s generally accepted that soldiers don’t fight ‘for King and Country’, in the thick of a fire-fight, ambush or assault the combatants will be fighting for their own survival, to kill or be killed. In the ultimate VUCA environment, when their heads and senses are screaming at them to be ‘anywhere but here right now’ survival will generally depend on personal skills (‘tradecraft’) and the mutual support provided by their colleagues around them.
 
In amongst the rapidly changing chaos, instilling confidence to your team to see the job through to the end is the essence of Military Leadership which amongst other things relies heavily on;
 
Knowledge – The motto of the RAF Parachute Training School is ‘Knowledge dispels fear’ which I’ve personally found very useful in both corporate and military scenarios. Fear is often driven by a lack of understanding about the scenario you’re going into and I’ve countless examples of how confidence can increase exponentially when people have a better understanding about what they’re facing.

The Chinese General Sun Tzu (544 BC – 496 BC), philosopher and author of The Art of War put great emphasis on knowledge of both your own capabilities and those of your enemies. Military Leadership at a strategic level is as much about interpretation (ie, what do you think is happening as opposed to what you’re being told is happening). One of the published Core Values of the SAS includes “the essential trait of Humility” which I interpret to mean ‘when you work hard to be at the top of your game, understand that everyone else will be trying just as hard to beat you’.
 
Structure – In chaos we look for order,* stability, reference points and/or foundations on which to build/recover. As a Leadership tool, the British Army’s rank structure is designed to give stability and reference points. In the past when the Army was considerably younger (when the Infantry was indeed populated by infants) and arguably often seen as a career of last resort for those academically challenged the Army had a more ‘pastoral’ function and the structure was probably more akin to a family than it possibly is today.
 
Nowadays, the battlefield is becoming ever more complex and technical requiring new trades and academic skill but in its basic form the rank structure still enables individuals to know where they fit into the larger formation/plan and from whom to best seek advice and direction. The power of the rank structure doesn’t come from just ‘adhering to the hierarchy’, it benefits from a long history of success rooted in trust and respect (see below).
 
* Similar but not the same as Fredrich Nietzsche's "From chaos, comes order".
 
Respect – On the battlefield the brunt of the effort is being taken (and administered) by the more junior ranks (Privates and Junior NCOs). The level of trust between everyone is immense but as humans we don’t just trust anyone, it’s a trait which needs to be earned and developed. Right from their initial Basic Training a recruit learns that their Leaders are not just there by default. In the British Army Military Leaders are promoted based on demonstrable skill and experience, including assessment on the ability to manage people (which is often sadly side-lined in the corporate sector). Recruits quickly see that their NCOs have skills and experience which will be required on the battlefield. They can teach you to win the fire-fight (aka, to survive).

Junior Officers are well advised to listen to and respect the advice from the Platoon/Troop Sergeants (Senior NCOs) who will have better tradecraft skills and experience. Seriously worried for their lives as a result of poor decision making and lack of respect for experience some experienced US Army NCO’s in Vietnam developed a particularly effective way of managing their inexperienced Junior Officers (www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fragging-on-the-rise-in-u-s-units). 
 
Role-modelling – Most recruits won’t tell you that despite the pain and punishments metered out (“I can be your Mentor, or your Tormentor”) ultimately they’ll greatly respect and always remember the NCOs who trained them. This is quite likely because the NCO demonstrated everything the recruit wanted to be – the thing they aspired to. Role-modelling is a delicate Delegative leadership tool as it puts the emphasis on the recruit to change their behaviour to be like someone else.

Personally as an Army Officer I quickly understood that unless I was managing chaos, if I ever reverted to ‘pulling rank’ I’d lost the moral high ground. Conversely, if my superior Officers weren’t role-models for the kind of Officer I aspired to be it would be less likely I would respect them and consequently I was just ‘following orders’ as opposed to being motivated by them.
 
In conclusion;
 
In the British Army, Military Leadership has;

• Foundations in ‘lessons learnt’ over hundreds of years modified where necessary to reflect modern war-fighting.
• Developed an effective rank structure which delivers demonstrable benefits on many levels.
• Is held together with Respect and effective Role-modelling of behaviours required to keep people alive on the battlefield.
• Essential components of Knowledge, Structure, Respect and Role-Modelling.

• I am not strictly studying military leadership but I am looking at military cultures which are informed by leadership. And am always fascinated by the different examples of leadership I observe in all different aspects of life in formal and informal settings.
• Exploring the RAF’s attitude to risk to better understand what leadership needs to be doing in this area. The RAF has not faced a peer competitor for decades but understands the need to change.
• I would recommend the Haythornthwaite Review of Armed Forces Incentivisation which talks about moving inclusion away from D&I and into mainstream reporting: Agency and Agility: Incentivising people in a new era - a review of UK Armed Forces incentivisation - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
• I've just finished looking at leadership in the British Army during the SWW. Specifically, on ways it effected fighting power at unit and fm level.
• Battle planning.

• Living the core values.
• Sometimes misguided. Sometimes brilliant. Can I have 4 more words? Please more politically independent. And 4 more? Dependent on the individual.
• I'm going with 'Misunderstood, assumed drill sergeant.' Although I think  'White, male, hopefully changing.' also applies.
• Trust and example always.

• That’s a difficult question and probably one for a PhD. Social media has probably changed things. Does that make it more performative??

• Diversity in leaders. Engagement with histories of military leadership beyond the mainstream stories to foreground different leadership styles and their application in different contexts. Perhaps new histories will begin to acknowledge forgotten leaders and their contributions.
• Well I don’t obviously as someone who is asked to challenge. But more genuine empowerment, less bureaucracy. Lots of this in DCP23 but they are just words for now. There is some will behind that though. Changes of political leaders will affect this too. Let’s hope so.

Evaluating the Intellectual Project of Critical Military Studies: its First Decade in Review 

Contributions are being sought for abstracts to be submitted for a Special Issue proposal to Critical Military Studies, the purpose of which is to offer a critical evaluation of the intellectual project of the journal as it reaches its ten year anniversary during 2025. 

For more information please see below.....