Stifled innovation?: developing tomorrow's leaders today

OCLC Number: 49939937 Excerpt: ... junior officers today to be the innovative leaders of tomorrow? Is anything being done differently to produce a different type of leader? Unfortunately, behind the seemingly ubiquitous consensus on both the importance of the human dimension in the future and the need for transforming it, a serious disconnect remains between current leader development practices and the type of leaders required by the future force. Put bluntly, the Army is relying on a leader development system that encourages reactive instead of proactive thought, compliance instead of creativity, and adherence instead of audacity. Junior officers, especially company commanders, are seldom given opportunities to be innovative; to make decisions; or to fail, learn, and try again. Senior leaders have, as retired General Wesley Clark suggests, "... gone too far in over-planning, over-3 prescribing, and over-controlling. " This move to over-centralized control results in an environment where, as retired General Frederick Kroesen notes, " Initiative is stymied, and decision-making is replaced by waiting to be 4 According to Kroesen, " There is no more effective way told. " to destroy the leadership potential of young officers and noncommissioned officers than to deny them opportunities to make decisions appropriate for their assignments. " To use a culinary example, cooks are quite adept at carrying out a recipe. While there is a small degree of artistic license that goes into preparing a meal, the recipe drives the action - not the cook. Chefs, on the other hand, look at the ingredients available to them and create a meal. The success of the meal comes from the creativity of the chef - not the recipe. In a large hierarchical army, many " cooks " are needed - leaders who can be counted on to follow doctrine competently in their part of the hierarchy. But the environment of the Objective Force calls for " chefs " - leaders capable of operating outside of establishe...