MAGAZINE
FALL 2021
LEADERSHIP TODAY
& MISSION COMMAND
By Lieutenant Colonel Reinhold Ramesberger , Doctrine and Standardization Branch Head , NATO Mountain Warfare COE
THE military is one of the most important areas for the application of leadership . It is a truism today that what organizations and individuals want to achieve cannot be accomplished by a single leader at the top or by any one member of an organization . Armies are a means of achieving collective goals ; neither a military operation nor an international sporting event can be completed by one person alone . Rather , it requires a targeted , cooperative collaboration of many individuals and collectives which must be coordinated by state-of-the-art leadership .
LEADERSHIP TODAY
An Introduction to Leadership Leadership today faces very many new conditions Including delimitation , globalization , networking , virtualization etc . ( Kellermann , 2012 ; Hauser , 2013 ; Scharmer , 2015 ). Thus , a growing number of unpredictable , open situations in an increasingly turbulent , complex , and chaotic environment appear .
In order to address this , old , new , and timeless insights have to be re-evaluated over and over again ( Campell , 2013 ). The military is one of the most important areas for the application of leadership . Armies are a means of achieving collective goals , which requires a targeted cooperative collaboration of many individuals and collectives which must be coordinated by leadership . The following presents some thoughts towards such a coordination .
Who is a Leader ? Leadership must not be confused with headship ( Weibler , 2016 ). Leadership presupposes the criterion of the voluntarily shown acceptance of the leader by the followers . At a basic level , it requires acceptance by those being led , and only this acceptance allows the full engagement of followers in work or in a project ( Neuberger , 2002 ; Weibler , 2016 ; Blessin / Wick , 2014 ). Leadership goes beyond a formal management , supervisor or control function . It aims to ensure the team`s internal and external cooperation , which is necessary for optimal task processing , and to counteract dysfunctional tendencies and conflicts .
Command and Control means that obedience can be required on the basis of a formal superior function . Leadership means that the followers act voluntarily with their full potential for the good of the team , the organization or the project . Not every superior is automatically a leader , and not every subordinate is automatically led by his superior . Followers have a cognitive information processing in which they define whether and to what extent someone is considered a leader . Different theories exist for this , such as " the process of being perceived by the others as a leader " ( Lord and Maher ,
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