Army Leadership Styles
Leadership refers to the procedure of prompting individuals by giving them purpose, inspiration, and direction to complete a mission and develop the organization. A leader in the army is a person who, under assigned responsibility, motivates and influences individuals to achieve an organization’s objectives. Army leaders inspire people in the interior and exterior of the pecking order to follow actions, attentive thinking, and influence decisions for society’s utmost good. The Army Leadership Requirement Model roadmap determines an individual’s attributes and competencies as required by becoming an Army leader in the United States. Through LRM’s review, there are five army leadership styles discussed (Mastering the Art of Dynamic Leadership, 2017).
Transactional leadership. It is also referred to as the “telling” manner of headship. This style emphasizes structure, outcomes, rewards, and punishments. Leaders offer juniors with objectives, establish scheme checks, give performance statements, and inspire them with prizes centered on an acknowledged system. Transactional leaders labor for the military since it centers on governance, organization, and presentation. It is also appropriate for conditions where the fast response to commands is mandatory and instruction situations where there are flows of information from seniors to subordinates. It hardly works with independent thinkers who habitually implement individual initiative as it restricts their activity. An excellent example of a transactional leader is General Norman H. Schwarzkopf, the retired commander of Central Command in America.
Transformational headship is leadership by illustration. Transformational leadership style is effective in varying environments, with free flow of ideas, and juniors are advised to provide solutions. Transformational leadership is limited in a starting development policymaking time where there is a lack of structure to sustain the team. Therefore, transformational managers are usually competent people in their profession area and want to develop their surroundings and comprehend the responsibility of a soldier. They motivate their juniors through good relationships, encouragement, and compassion and work diligently in situations favorable to cause change by working with subordinates harmoniously. A famous transformational leader is General Omar Bradley, a former chairman of staff’s dual principal (“Impacts of Leadership Styles and Organizational Commitment towards Job Performance in the Malaysian Army,” 2018).
Competent noncommissioned officers are servant leaders. They create their soldiers by satisfying the needs of their teams. Servant leaders need a high level of trust among subordinates and leaders, therefore creating good relationships. This leadership style is limited in time; consequently, it needs adequate time to build and strengthen production work trust. The first retired Sergeant Cameron Wesson says that servant headship starts with the soldiers’ belief and soldier prioritize others first, upon becoming noncommissioned officers. A good example of servant leaders includes retired General Matthew B. Ridgeway, the nineteenth Principal of staff of the military and Dr. Stephen Covey, writer of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
In conclusion, army headship teaching carries on the definition of the noncommissioned officers and cultivate prospective leaders. Prosperous NCO’s need to acquire leadership skills that meet their needs satisfactorily and surpass the set targets. Besides, leadership is more complicated than mere delegation of duties. The influence of a leader to others can assume many dimensions; the behavior and utterances of the leader, values obliged to, illustration by example, and way of solving problems are pivotal in influencing other people. For a proper understanding of the headship requirements model, noncommissioned officers should reflect their resolution and support army governance training. Comprehending these models and implementing them perfectly depends on the situation and the assurance of professionalism in the army.
References
Impacts of Leadership Styles and Organizational Commitment towards Job Performance in the Malaysian Army. (2018). Advances in Natural and Applied Sciences. https://doi.org/10.22587/anas.2018.12.7.2
Mastering the art of dynamic leadership. (2017). Army University Press. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/NCO-Journal/Archives/2018/August/Dynamic-Leadership/