Leading Staffs: New and Persistent Challenges

“Operational planning groups (OPGs) are designed to tackle a problem; how ever, OPGs themselves are problems.” –Student, School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS)1 This SAMS student’s observation, while specific to staff planning working groups formed to address military problems, are endemic of military staffs writ large.2 His observation indicates that the process of melding together people and processes of staff planning into a cohesive entity capable of producing a useful product is a per sistent challenge. Neglected component The function of a staff, and particularly the performance and leadership of mil itary officers responsible for executing staff functions, is a neglected component in military leadership doctrine and practice. This neglect is problem atic for military organizations. The ori gins of this inattention are: (1) the lack of doctrine and leadership emphasis on staffs, (2) the new realities of exercising the art and science of control and (3) the eternal challenges of lead ing people and organizations. All these issues limit staffs and military organizations from achieving their full potential. To improve staffs, the Army must invest resources in educating and training individual officers and staffs and create doctrine specifically direct ed at the skills required to function on staffs. The Army must change how it considers staff leadership in its doctrine and promulgate practical tools staff officers can apply in their daily duties to improve on staff performance. Army leadership doctrine centers on the concept of mission command and places the onus of unit success on the commander. The commander is the central figure who drives the opera tions process, organizes teams and in fluences audiences inside and outside the chain of command.3 The staff must then coordinate, synchronize and share information.4 Doctrine then shifts to the mechanics of staff processes and the products that result from staff action. Retired U. S. Navy CPT Ronald E. Rat cliff, a professor of national-security decision-making at the Naval War College, notes this command focus is not new or necessarily misplaced. He re marks, “The literature about military history and leadership is focused on a few great leaders who rose to meet the martial challenges of their time and place. Often forgotten are the subordinates who enabled these leaders to see their challenges more clearly and who helped them turn their decisions into action.”5 Ratcliff also notes that despite the frequency and duration of staff experiences in the span of an officer’s career, proficiency in staff work is often un dervalued. Ratcliff writes, “Frequently, especially for those temporarily as signed to staffs, officers serve in im portant decision-making positions with limited experience or scant operation al proficiency in areas for which they are directly responsible. Yet their commanders and staff peers will demand the same high level of performance that has characterized their careers up to that point.”6 The role of the commander has been and will continue to be essential in the performance of a military organization, but doctrine’s paucity of material on those traits required for effective staff leadership ignores this critical compo nent to organizational success. GEN Matthew Ridgeway, in an article writ ten in 1966 on leadership, addressed the particular demands and importance of staff leadership when he wrote, “The qualities of a leader are not limited to commanders. The re quirements for leadership are just as essential in the staff officer, and in some respects more exacting, since he does not have that ultimate authority which can be used when necessary and must rely even more than his com mander on his own strength of character, his tact and persuasion in carrying out his duties.”7 GEN Ridgeway and Ratcliff underscore the three principal institutional deficiencies with respect to leadership of staffs: namely, short attention in doc trine, an underappreciation of its unique leadership demands and inadequate preparation of those officers expected to execute this critical function. Pathological organizations As GEN Ridgeway indicated, the prob lems of leadership in this organization al context are not new. More recent scholarship, particularly by John Kot ter, Eliot Cohen and John Gooch, provide more insights to the particular challenges of leadership on staffs and, in the case of Cohen and Gooch, inside military organizations. Kotter, in his book Power and Influence, identifies the “pathological aspects of modern organizations.” These include bureaucratic infighting, paro chialism and destructive power poli tics.8 Kotter traces the origins of these pathologies to greater diversity and in terdependence in the workplace and a growing “power gap” where leaders no longer have the inherent power or au thority over subordinates to accom plish tasks. This concept of a “power gap” is par ticularly applicable to military staffs. It is an irony that, despite the military’s adherence to rigid rank structures and exercise of authority, the relatively high-ranking members of military staffs have little real power. Though Army doctrine specifies leaders of specific command-post nodes that, by virtue of their position lead identified staff en tities, they in fact only exert limited control over cross-sections of individual staff sections with nominal staff section leaders.9 This cross-compart mentalization and imposed hierarchy creates conditions for integrated and functional tasked-based cells but also leaves the situation rife for Kotter’s “pathologies” to emerge.10 Cohen and Gooch, in their classic work on military failure, Military Misfortunes, add to the equation by stressing that whenever men form organizations and then have to operate complex systems, also of their own making, failures are normal outgrowths of this interaction.11 Cohen and Gooch illustrate how a “disaster environment” exists when personality and organizational inhibitors combine in unanticipated ways.12 Failing to account for these dy namics will deprive the commander of sound advice and timely information from his staff – and ultimately, mission failure. Lack of doctrine Army doctrine and practice spends lit tle time in addressing these challeng es. Leadership and staff doctrine focus es primarily on the role of the com mander and staff-officer responsibili ties in the processes of staff work. Army doctrine charges the commander to lead the staff, while the staff is responsible for supporting the com mander.13 The concept of mission command directs the commander to drive the operations process, develop teams and influence internal and external au diences14 while “encouraging” collaboration throughout his organization.15 Though these functions are important, it grossly underestimates the leader ship required within staff sections to see this support come to fruition and to simply keep staff and unit processes running. Army Doctrinal Reference Publication (ADRP) 6-22, Army Leadership, stress es the importance of informal leader ship and aligning collective efforts that are critical to unit success, but spends little time in providing some solutions to what it calls the “challenges” to unit cohesion.16 Given only the comparative lack of leadership doctrine on the ex ecution of staff tasks, the problem could be solved in a relatively straight forward manner. Army practices, how ever, compound the problem by not paying enough attention to how staffs are trained and organized, and to how officers are selected to serve on staffs. Doctrine’s focus on developing teams, while acknowledging some of the in herent fractures within staffs, under estimates the high degree of friction staffs encounter on any given day. The modern realities of individual staff augmentees, joint-manning documents and the eternal “hey-you” have con spired to create not staffs, but loose amalgamations of people who must be continuously formed into working units.17 Lack of preparation Compounding the ad hoc approach to assignments is the chronic under preparation of officers in assuming their duties. A U. S. Army Research Institute study completed in 1991 found that more than half of company-grade officers assigned to battalion staffs were not career-course or Combined Arms Service and Staff School trained.18 In another study of battalion and brigade staffs in 1997, the lack of training was further compounded by the high frequency of turnover among staff members.19 Though some may challenge this as sessment as dated and say that we are afar different Army today than in 1991 or 1997, the author’s personal assessment across three combat deploy ments witnessed nothing in present staff-assignment processes that would counter this ratio in today’s Army. The problems of doctrine and staff assignment could be partially blunted by paying more attention to staff training. Staff work is detailed, complicated and, particularly as it reaches higher echelons, frequently deals with very complex issues. In our current complex operating environment and in the application of the elements of combat power across abroad spectrum of tasks, staffs can be easily overwhelmed even when very well prepared. As retired GEN Fredrick Brown noted in his analysis of staffs, staff officers must not only come to grips with tasks required within their own specialty, they must master the synchronization and agility required to perform tasks across many specialties to simply accomplish a unit’s mission.20 GEN Brown went on to caution that “these teams must be trained as rigorously as any individual soldier or leader, for their collective judgment and following actions will permit success by competent, brave platoons.”21 Evidence from the Army’s combat training centers and other exercises demonstrate the levels of training and cohesion have been quite low.22 Too frequently, staff training is not a delib erate process focused on honing prob lem-solving skills, but is relegated to day-to-day operations tasks or re served for major unit evaluations or exercises. GEN of the Army Douglas MacArthur observed, “Skilled officers, like all other professional men, are products of continuous study, training and experience. There is no shortcut to the peculiar type of knowledge and ability they must possess. Trained offi cers constitute the most vitally essen tial element in modern war and the only one that under no circumstances can be improvised or extemporized.”23 Doctrine and training focused specifically on staff work and leadership are essential to organizational success. Unique leadership demands In addition to the institutional barriers to effective staffs, military organiza tions must also be ready for the “human” challenges of staffs. Military or ganizations are made up of people and therefore must be ready for the fric tions inherent in human interaction. The three most challenging tasks for staffs and units involve dealing with selfish behaviors, toxic leadership and the impact of complex problems. Selfish behavior can take several forms. Most prominent among these are avoiding responsibility and exploiting one’s position for personal gain. In the diffused structure of staffs, officers can disassociate themselves from support of the commander and accomplish ment of the unit’s mission and focus more on the preservation of their individual equities. In a study of staff performance, the Ar my’s Information Management Sup port Center noted common staff errors as not reviewing tasks, inadequate co ordination, not understanding the im pact of requirements, conflicting pri orities, selective compliance and giving the impression of unwarranted assumption of authority.24 A recent paper on service cultures suggests “occupa tionalism” as a possible source of this behavior. Individuals trained in a par ticular military-occupational specialty frequently discount inputs not consis tent with their orientation and seek only to protect their position within the organization.25 Similarly, in an interview given by GEN Martin Dempsey, he noted careerism and competition as key inhibitors to effective communication and integrated action.26 Ratcliff also notes that staff officers can also be negligent in their duties by being too loyal to the commander and not providing the critical thinking re quired of an officer. He writes, “Among the most demanding ethical questions officers face is the choice between honesty and loyalty – when it is right to be obedient and when it is wrong. Loyalty in military service is almost al ways the essential attribute of a trust ed subordinate. Yet it is often the sub ordinate willing to risk being consid ered disloyal – who asks the frank question that might give the com mander pause to reconsider a decision. The limits of one’s loyalty is a decision that every officer must make, especial ly one who aspires to being more than a ‘yes man.’”27 Both the study of staff challenges and Ratcliff’s assessment of loyalty touch upon the second challenge of human interaction and the related concept of toxic leadership. ADRP 6-22 defines toxic leadership as “a combination of self-centered atti tudes, motivations and behaviors that have adverse effects on subordinates, the organization and mission performance.”28 Recently there has been a proliferation in the identifica tion and discussion of toxic leadership among Army leaders. Although its causes are not immediately evident, its impact on the organization is clear. Toxic leaders create hostile environ ments and disrupt the formation of teams by their focus on individual performance and self-aggrandizement. It is a trait apparent in all leaders, not limited to commanders. Toxic leaders are usually invisible to their superiors, as they frequently deceive, intimidate and coerce to achieve goals and accomplish missions in the short term.29 In a large staff with limited formal oversight, toxic leaders can thrive in meeting short-term expectations but cause long-term damage to the cohe sion of the staff and effectiveness of the unit as a whole. The presence of self-centered and toxic leaders only complicates an already complex prob lem. Impact of complexity Staff leadership involves the exercise of leadership on the organizational level, where competencies are applied on increasingly complex situations.30 This is an evolution from the basic or direct leadership level, where leaders are ini tially introduced to and expected to exercise at the entry levels of the Army. Though still required to exercise direct leadership, the organizational leader deals with more complexity, greater uncertainty and a greater number of unintended consequences.31 The result of this ambiguity is that results are not always discernible, and values, policies Toxic leadership is “a combination of self-centered atti tudes, motivations and behaviors that have adverse ef fects on subordinates, the organi zation and mission performance.” — and directives are frequently distorted as they move vertically and laterally through an organization.32 Retired LTG Walter Ulmer notes that not all leaders can make this transition. He writes that the Army’s hierarchy has “a good share of well-intentioned non-leaders who cannot – by virtue of their personality, limited capacity for trust, lack of self-confidence or improper definition of success – perform at the executive level.”33 Service on staff may be an officer’s first introduction to or ganizational-level demands and a first indicator that their personal traits and competencies are not suited for this level. Recommendations Reform of the Army’s staff-effective ness problem must begin with an ac knowledgement that a problem actually exists. It then requires modifica tions to Army doctrine that incorpo rate individual and staff-specific guide lines, better training and a shift in the cultural attitudes toward staff. Doctri nal changes will likely be the easiest goals to attain. Army doctrine first needs to accept that personal foibles, human limita tions and team dynamics will more readily thwart the development of the planning process and staff products than enemy action. Kotter’s “patholo gies of modern organizations” are real impediments to effective military staff work. Kotter identifies, particular to the Army experience, the widening gulf between the aspirational tenants of mission command and its user-level application on a military planning staff. Military staffs, with multiple, assigned skill specialties, cross-functional teams and diffused responsibility epitomize the concept of a “power gap.” Army doctrine should treat the leadership on staffs as its own competency and adopt Kotter’s identification of what a lead er’s “real job” is within this context. Kotter states that the real job of a lead er is “to identify all relevant lateral re lationships, assess who will resist and how strongly, develop good relation ships and vary other methods if rela tionships do not work. Fundamentally, the leader must determine where co operation is necessary and where is compliance necessary.” 34 Army doctrine should deal directly with this “resistance” that will be inherent to any staff setting. Ratcliff offers another guide to this pragmatic approach to staff-leadership attributes when he suggests that “officers also need a firm grasp of three es sential aspects of military service: a well-developed personal and profes sional ethical framework, a solid hold on formal and dynamic decision-making processes and a sophisticated understanding of risk management.”35 Explicitly stating these attributes within doctrine, specific to the staff experience, will form a tighter linkage be tween the staff process and leadership requirements. In an even more practical vein, leaders should carefully consider how staffs are organized. A leader, when organiz ing a staff, must take individual skills and personal motivations into account when forming separate planning or ac tion teams. Understanding roles and relationships of the actors involved al lows the leader to supervise and man age work while considering the proce dures and hardware necessary to facil itate communication between poten tially disparate groups. Even consider ations of group-planning team size and physical location will weigh on the overall effectiveness and productivity of the staff grouping. Implementation of these principles will likely require a shift in Army culture that currently downplays the utility of staff integration and stability. To attain the cooperation and teamwork stressed by Army doctrine, the right people have to be assigned to staffs and kept together long enough to build trust and capability. The success of the staff depends on trained individual contributors and their effective combi nation as a collective entity. Staff inte gration allows the unit to focus its en ergies on accomplishing tasks and achieving objectives.36 Integration re quires sustained cohesiveness, training and practice. Treating the staff as a dumping ground for officers proven in capable at other echelons or a tempo rary waystation to other positions are short-term perspectives that ultimate ly diminish unit capabilities and hinder the exercise of mission command. Conclusion Development of teams is not new, nor is it ignored in Army doctrine. ADRP 6-22 clearly states, “Forming effective, cohesive teams is often the first challenge of a leader working outside a tra ditional command structure. … Cohe sive teams accomplish missions more efficiently than a loose group of individuals.”37 Taking on anew perspective on staff selection, training and longev ity will help Army leaders translate doctrine to actual practice. The study of leadership on Army staffs has been a neglected topic in professional discourse, and this has been to the organization’s detriment. Lack of specific doctrine, inattention to staff collective training and poor assign ment practices serve to undermine the development of this key component that a command and Army units have to solve complex problems. As the Army transitions to anew era where it is not consumed by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it must consider the evolv ing realities of leadership on Army staffs and how to prepare its officers for the challenges that will certainly follow. Change will require anew appreciation about ways to lead people without formal authority and change the current Army culture that down plays the role of a staff. COL Andrew Morgado is a seminar leader at SAMS, Fort Leavenworth, KS. His past duty assignments include G-3, Brigade Modernization Command, Fort Bliss, TX; commander, 4th Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, Fort Bliss; professor of military science, Siena College, Alba ny, NY; S-3, 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, Fort Hood; and S-3, 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, Fort Hood. His military schooling includes Armor Officer’s Basic Course, Aviation Captain’s Career Course, Command and General Staff Officer’s Course, Advanced Military Studies Course and Advanced Strategic Leadership Studies Course. COL Morgado holds a bache lor’s of arts degree in government from Lehigh University and three master’s of arts degrees: in diplomacy from Nor wich University, in theater operations from Command and General Staff College (CGSC) and in strategic studies from CGSC. His awards include the Bronze Star with two bronze oak-leaf

Acronym Quick-Scan clusters (OLCs) and the Meritorious Service Medal with three bronze OLCs. Notes 1 Class discussion, Advanced Military Studies Program, SAMS, Fort Leavenworth, KS, July 15, 2014. 2 Joint Publication 5-0, Joint Task Force Headquarters, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office (GPO), 2012. 3 ADRP 6-0, Mission Command, Washing ton, DC: GPO, 2012. 4 Field Manual (FM) 6-0, Commander and Staff Organization and Operations, Washington, DC: GPO, 2014. 5 U. S. Navy CPT Ronald E. Ratcliff, “Be coming an Officer of Consequence,” Joint Forces Quarterly 44, No. 1, 2007. 6 Ibid. 7 GEN Matthew B. Ridgway, “Leadership,” Military Review, October 1966. 8 John P. Kotter, Power and Influence, New York: Free Press, 1985. 9 FM 6-0. 10 Ibid. 11 Eliot Cohen and John Gooch, Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War, New York: Free Press, 1990. 12 Ibid.

ADRP 6-0.

Ibid. 15 Army Doctrine Publication 5-0, The Operations Process, Washington, DC: GPO, 2012. 16 ADRP 6-22, Army Leadership, Washing ton, DC: GPO, 2012. 17 Ratcliff. 18 Thomas J. Thompson, George D. Thompson, Robert J. Pleban and Patrick J. Valentine, Battle Staff Training and Syn chronization in Light Infantry Battalions and Task Forces, Fort Benning, GA: U. S. Army Research Institute, 1991. 19 Mark L. Curry, “Integrating Automated Normative Analysis into Brigade Battle Staffs,” SAMS monograph, 1993. 20 GEN Frederic J. Brown, Battle Command Staff Training, Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analysis, 1992. 21 Ibid. 22 Gary G. Sauer, “Battle Staff Integration: the Key to Battle Tracking in Battalion Command Posts,” SAMS monograph, 1996. 23 GEN of the Army Douglas MacArthur, quoted in H. F. Harding, “High Polish for High Brass,” Vital Speeches of the Day, Ann Arbor, MI: Rotary Club, Aug. 12, 1953. 24 Information Management Support Center, Command, Leadership and Effective Staff Support: A Handbook Including Practical Ways for the Staff to Increase Support to Battalion and Company Commanders, Washington, DC: GPO, 1996. 25 George R. Mastroiani, “Occupations, Cultures and Leadership in the Army and Air Force,” Parameters, Winter 2005/2006, Vol. 34, No. 4. 26 Devin Hargrove and Sim B. Sitkin, “Next-Generation Leadership Development in a Changing and Complex Environment: An Interview with General Martin

E. Dempsey,” Academy of Management, Learning and Education, 2011, Vol. 10, No. 3. 27 Ratcliff.

ADRP 6-22.

Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid. 33 Walter F. Ulmer, “The Army’s New Senior Leadership Doctrine,” Parameters, 1997. 34 Kotter. 35 Ratcliff. 36 Sauer.

ADRP 6-22.

ADRP – Army doctrinal reference publication CGSC – Command and General Staff College FM – field manual GPO – Government Printing Office OLC – oak-leaf cluster OPG – operational planning group SAMS – School of Advanced Military Studies