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US Army Field Manual on Leadership (1990) [pdf]

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Re: US Army Field Manual on Leadership (1990) [pdf]

#71

Post by pdonis »

brightlancer wrote: post #65
pdonis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While it is one use case, it is not all use cases. Really? What other use cases are there for a military? > It is based on multitudes of studies in psychology, neuroscience, sociology, evolutionary anthropology, and the like. In other words, no, you have no personal experience to back up your claims. You should not presume to speak of what you do not know. As for the "cult" accusation, historially, militaries that…

> > It is based on multitudes of studies in psychology, neuroscience, sociology, evolutionary anthropology, and the like. > In other words, no, you have no personal experience to back up your claims. It's ironic that in a threat discussing leadership as a discipline, someone would make an appeal to "lived experience". Unless someone here was with you, they don't know (nor do I) what your personal experience was. Simi…

> It's ironic that in a threat discussing leadership as a discipline, someone would make an appeal to "lived experience".

It's not ironic at all. Leadership itself is something that can't be studied purely from the outside.

> we have these wonderful social sciences

I don't share your rosy view of these so-called sciences. But that's not something we're going to resolve here.

Re: US Army Field Manual on Leadership (1990) [pdf]

#72

Post by pdonis »

scrum-treats wrote: post #56
pdonis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While it is one use case, it is not all use cases. Really? What other use cases are there for a military? > It is based on multitudes of studies in psychology, neuroscience, sociology, evolutionary anthropology, and the like. In other words, no, you have no personal experience to back up your claims. You should not presume to speak of what you do not know. As for the "cult" accusation, historially, militaries that…

[flagged]

We evidently don't have enough common ground to have a useful discussion. You are making huge, sweeping statements based on nothing. I see no point in further engagement with you.

Re: US Army Field Manual on Leadership (1990) [pdf]

#73

Post by pdonis »

scrum-treats wrote: post #57
pdonis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You've tricked the brain into believing a specific version of reality that is not objective reality Whereas civilians, of course, have a completely accurate view of objective reality with no illusions? It is to laugh.

>> You've tricked the brain into believing a specific version of reality that is not objective reality > Whereas civilians, of course, have a completely accurate view of objective reality with no illusions? It is to laugh. No. It's just different; in some ways radically different than the niche reality of "military." .... That's the point. Are you still in the military because you are sending clear signals that you a…

> It's just different

If you mean that civilian life is different from military life, yes, of course, that's to be expected. That doesn't mean civilian "reality" is somehow more valid or more accurate than military "reality". Indeed, since most civilians aren't expected to routinely risk their lives as part of their job, one would expect civilians' view of reality to be missing some things. (And looking at civilians whose jobs do routinely involve risking one's life, such as police or firefighting, might give quite a different take on even civilian "reality".)

> Are you still in the military

No. I already said elsewhere in this discussion that my military experience is several decades old.

> you are sending clear signals that you are not in control of your own mind

Spare me your patronizing. You are welcome to your uninformed opinions, but don't expect me to respect them. I see no point in further discussion with you.

Re: US Army Field Manual on Leadership (1990) [pdf]

#74

Post by sockaddr »

mter wrote: post #3

Nothing the military puts out on leadership should be taken very seriously because of the UCMJ and because unhappy people can't quit with serious repercussions. Anyone can make a team be productive when you can overwork people, if things don't get done you threaten to take their money and threaten a demotion, no one can quit to get away from you, and there is a steady stream of bodies to use. Civilian leaders have to…

Yup. You can even put lead in their family’s water on base and there isn’t shit they can do about it. Leadership is easy in a system when broadly accepted ethical and moral norms don’t factor into your decision making.

Re: US Army Field Manual on Leadership (1990) [pdf]

#75

Post by calmlynarczyk »

warner25 wrote: post #44

It's interesting to see civilians looking to the military for leadership and management ideas. I'm a career Army officer, and when I was a young officer I looked to civilian books and other resources for management advice. Over the years, however, I've come appreciate more what the Army has written on the topic. Here's the current (2019) version of the Army's doctrine on leadership, if anyone wants to see how it has…

I think that's just being wise by broadening your horizons. You've already gotten the Army's take on this matter from your training.

After a decade of both civilian and Army experience, the one thing I can say the US military teaches better than any other organization is how to lead people. It has its share of leaders that fail upwards just like anywhere else, but on average the people in upper levels got there primarily on meritocracy. Your Soldiers are a big part of that, as they can actively prop you up if you do them right or bring you down should you fail them.

My napkin theory is that any profession which has a known risk of serious injury or death requires more competent leadership abilities in order to align an organization in the direction you want or need it to go (everything I've said here probably applies for first-responders as well). The fear and stress that comes with these kinds of jobs requires a certain finesse and connection from leaders with subordinates in order to convince them to put themselves in harms way for the sake of the "mission."

Re: US Army Field Manual on Leadership (1990) [pdf]

#76

Post by austin-cheney »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #48
warner25 wrote: post #44

It's interesting to see civilians looking to the military for leadership and management ideas. I'm a career Army officer, and when I was a young officer I looked to civilian books and other resources for management advice. Over the years, however, I've come appreciate more what the Army has written on the topic. Here's the current (2019) version of the Army's doctrine on leadership, if anyone wants to see how it has…

Military leadership has a great deal to recommend it. For one thing, their principal mission is to deal with the unexpected, and come out on top. That's nothing to sneeze at. In the civilian world, first responders and mobsters are probably analogous, as most corporate leadership is about consistency and predictability. First responders, however, only have goals to stop the unexpected, or repair damage. Mobsters figu…

As both an army officer (reserves) and a former corporate software developer the problems are different because the expectations are different. One might assume expectations would follow the problem state(s), the reality, but I promise this isn't the case.

When I say that expectations are different our culture prepares us to start with a foundation of assumptions and our expectations grow and blossom from these assumptions. We assume things like the power grid is reliable, that we will have internet, and the only malicious people are common thieves attempting to rob unwitting grandmothers of their personal piggy banks. We then expect certain conventions to be automatically in place when writing software for our employers, things like: CI/CD, frameworks, code editors, and so forth. When an employer fails to meet these assumed expectations, typically limited to tools and infrastructure, we as developers consider the employer a failure. Strangely, things like policies and the human element rarely (close to never) enter these preliminary expectations for most developers which frequently results in dire second and third order consequences.

On the military side we do not have the luxury of these expectations either because we may enter an austere environment lacking the conveniences of modern life or because the military culture is socially backwards with regards to modern software.

Seeing these differences in expectations and appropriately self-reflecting becomes a necessary factor in durability. In my 15 years of writing software as a corporate developer this, more than all other factors combined, accounts for why some organizations can build durable software products and others cannot. It always boils down to two things: 1) setting appropriate expectations for people (soft-skills and inclusion) and 2) setting appropriate expectations for building quality products. Rarely, as in almost never, have I seen an organization really master both of those but I have seen organizations try at one and fail at both. In order to achieve success on one or both items there must be something to measure against and a willingness to impose hard limits.

Re: US Army Field Manual on Leadership (1990) [pdf]

#77

Post by warner25 »

calmlynarczyk wrote: post #75
warner25 wrote: post #44

It's interesting to see civilians looking to the military for leadership and management ideas. I'm a career Army officer, and when I was a young officer I looked to civilian books and other resources for management advice. Over the years, however, I've come appreciate more what the Army has written on the topic. Here's the current (2019) version of the Army's doctrine on leadership, if anyone wants to see how it has…

I think that's just being wise by broadening your horizons. You've already gotten the Army's take on this matter from your training. After a decade of both civilian and Army experience, the one thing I can say the US military teaches better than any other organization is how to lead people. It has its share of leaders that fail upwards just like anywhere else, but on average the people in upper levels got there prima…

Yes, I think you're right. By the time I was a senior lieutenant, junior captain, in my mid-twenties I had probably internalized a lot of what the Army teaches. At that point I was looking to fill in what I felt were specific gaps; detailed things about managing time and information in a knowledge / office work environment (whereas most Army training focuses on the tactical, combat environment), effectively delegating and coaching and giving feedback to subordinates, running a staff meeting, etc. I found specific and helpful tips for that stuff in the business management / consulting literature.

Re: US Army Field Manual on Leadership (1990) [pdf]

#78

Post by nickpinkston »

I really liked "Small Unit Leadership" as having some good lessons for business leaders as well.

One thing that stuck with me is how the military can't just fire the people that don't work out, so there's significant time spent on how to get underperforming people / units back into shape.

https://www.amazon.com/Small-Unit-Leadership-Commonsense-App...

Re: US Army Field Manual on Leadership (1990) [pdf]

#79

Post by lazide »

monocasa wrote: post #4
mter wrote: post #3

Nothing the military puts out on leadership should be taken very seriously because of the UCMJ and because unhappy people can't quit with serious repercussions. Anyone can make a team be productive when you can overwork people, if things don't get done you threaten to take their money and threaten a demotion, no one can quit to get away from you, and there is a steady stream of bodies to use. Civilian leaders have to…

There's also the opposite pressure. As a CO, you can demote people, but they're still under your command. To be effective you can't just rely on shedding dead weight like in the civilian sector. You're stuck with the subordinates you get more or less, so to hit your goals you practically have to actually invest in your subordinates, mainly by coaching and mentoring them. And you can quiet quit in the military just as…

The military gets to demand 24/7 days or article 15.

That means they can order someone to do what they want, regardless. Great/important/necessary if it's life and death and everyone needs it done.

But there is a reason why suicides are so high and post-discharge mental health is always a nightmare. It's a system built on consuming the people in it.

That's called slavery or abuse in civilian life, and it doesn't scale. It does have it's place though.

Re: US Army Field Manual on Leadership (1990) [pdf]

#80

Post by solarmist »

mter wrote: post #27
monocasa wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the opposite pressure. As a CO, you can demote people, but they're still under your command. To be effective you can't just rely on shedding dead weight like in the civilian sector. You're stuck with the subordinates you get more or less, so to hit your goals you practically have to actually invest in your subordinates, mainly by coaching and mentoring them. And you can quiet quit in the military just as…

You have to treat your NCO/officers like humans, but there's no need to care about your joes. Tell joe to get things done and they can't stop until it's done or they get extra duty. If they refuse/complain? Article 15. And no one is going to risk requesting court martial instead of just getting the article 15 so commands have pretty wide latitude to do whatever they want. > To be effective you can't just rely on shed…

There is some degree of that, but the military is all volunteer and retention matters. There are still consequences to being a jerk. They're just slower to appear.

It sounds like you might be familiar with how it was in the 70s-90s as the military was trying to figure out the transition between conscription and voluntarily service.

Where the brass all came up under the old style, but all the new blood was 100% voluntary. It wasn't fun growing pains. I served in the early 2000s and there was still some remnants if this, but mostly it wasn't like that.

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