Military Review English Edition July-August 2015 | Page 40

To support this, the Army must restructure
promotion timelines so that leaders have the opportunity for a broader set of experiences that—taken
together—improve an individual’s leadership skill
set. Further use of 360-degree assessments that include input from superiors, peers, and subordinates
may someday support talent management and help
individual leaders identify in themselves strengths to
sustain and weaknesses to overcome.
Developmental programs such as the MSAF
program and the Commander 360 program are steps
in the right direction because they increase leaders’
self-awareness. These initiatives are developmental programs and do not provide the Army with assessments
of performance or potential. Evaluation reports alone
are not sufficient for assessing performance or potential. The Army must consider additional ways to evaluate leader potential and the potential of industry-standard assessment centers for selection and promotion in
order to truly engage in talent management.

Unit-Level Leader Development
A commander’s first priority is a trained and ready
unit. At the lowest level, leader development makes an
essential contribution to any unit’s ability to train effectively and accomplish its mission. Efficient implementation is achieved by integrating leader development into
day-to-day activities. This develops soldiers and civilians
into leaders who are competent, confident, and capable of
decisive action. The operational (unit) assignment is the
most effective setting for leader development. In leader
development surveys, captains and majors ranked leading
a unit, personal example, and mentoring as the three most
effective ways their leadership qualities are developed.14
To effectively develop subordinates, commanders
must provide face-to-face counseling and feedback.
Timely feedback is essential to capitalizing on the
myriad of leader development opportunities that are
present in units every day. This ever-present leader
development environment allows for quick application
and makes it possible to prioritize the practice of developing leaders even in an age of dwindling resources.
An essential part of a leader development program is
the deliberate face-to-face counseling of subordinates.
In these sessions, leaders ask subordinates to develop a
personal development plan for the next five years. This
plan should address training, education, and experience
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in all three domains that subordinates identify as necessary to meet their personal and professional five-year
goals. This individual development plan is reviewed at
subsequent counseling sessions, and it serves as each
subordinate’s developmental road map.
Although everyday activities provide a wealth of
opportunities for leader development, it is important to
stress that leader development does not just happen on
its own. To be effective, leaders must develop an effective plan to develop subordinate leaders in their units.
Identification of desired outcomes is an essential part
of this plan. Essentially, leaders must identify what they
are trying to develop subordinates to be, know, and do.
Unit-specific outcomes should consist of the
rank-specific leader competencies (knowledge, skills,
and abilities) and attributes required of agile and
adaptive leaders capable of accomplishing the mission
while confronting complex environments and adaptive
enemies. Unit leaders develop desired outcomes by analyzing critical task lists—by their career management
field or military occupational specialty at the appropriate skill level, unit task lists, and unit training doctrine
and leader development resources. The results of this
analysis allow the unit leader to bridge the gap between
higher-level general learning outcomes and the desired
unit-level leader development program.
Aids in this analysis include the Commander’s
Handbook for Unit Leader Development and other
resources found on the Leader Development Resources
page of the Center for Army Leadership website.15 The
handbook translates leader development guidance into
application and integrates unit-level leader development into already occurring day-to-day activities.
Unit-level MSAF events can provide leaders with
aggregate-level information that can be used in identifying areas for additional emphasis as they tailor their
leader development programs.
Unit leaders must set conditions—by personally
modeling behaviors that encourage leader development,
creating an environment that encourages on-the-job
learning, and knowing the subordinate leaders within
their command. Unit-leader feedback to subordinates
does not need to be withheld until formal counseling
sessions. Immediate, short bursts of feedback on current leadership actions enhance leader development in
operational assignments. Unit leaders should leverage
subordinate leaders who are role models in their units
July-August 2015  MILITARY REVIEW