Military Review English Edition September-October 2014 | Page 61

TRANSFORMATIONAL STORIES

Articulating a
Professional Military Ethic
Before we look at how to go about retooling the
weekend safety brief, it is vital to show that a change
will not be adverse to good order and discipline in the
short term. To accomplish this reassurance, it is first
necessary to determine that there is a genuine imperative to instill in our soldiers a PME and that the
Army values are an acceptable tool for the job. Second,
it is relevant to demonstrate that shifting to an Army
values focus will build stronger soldiers who are more
able to handle the stresses of combat and day-to-day
life. Finally, we will show that shifting soldiers from
compliance to Army values-commitment is a realistic
framework for modifying the originally targeted unsafe
behavior. In the end, leaders must still effect improved
off-duty judgment within their formations.
Consider for a moment an expansion on the definition of leadership from ADRP 6-22, Army Leadership.
Under the heading of “Improve the Organization,” the
publication expounds, “Improving is an act of stewardship, striving to create effective, efficient organizations.”3 Leaders have a responsibility as stewards of
the military service to impart upon their soldiers the
established values of our service. This challenge is not
merely a matter of moving soldiers from compliance to
commitment, but of ensuring that they understand the
values to which they are committed.4 Researchers have
demonstrated that leaders cannot fully accomplish an
improvement of the ethics of subordinates by simply
demonstrating ethical leadership. These principles must
additionally b e actively promoted through an ongoing
dialogue in public and private settings.5
Likewise, in developing “soldiers with military
competence and moral character,” leaders need to have
at their disposal a standard set of principles-in-virtue
from which to draw their lessons.6 The literature on the
PME provides a broad set of creedal and philosophical
starting points.7 Although legitimate recommendations
for expansion of the Army values exist, the list represented by the acronym LDRSHIP (loyalty, duty, respect,
selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage)
has significant value as a starting point for expressing a
PME to our soldiers.8 The seven values taught to every
soldier at basic training capture “important elements of
the Army ethic” and provide talking points for leaders
initially engaging soldiers’ moral stance.9
MILITARY REVIEW  September-October 2014

Engaging soldiers on ethics goes much further than
a simple indoctrination into the profession or behavior modification on and off duty. Changes to Warrior
Resiliency Training developed to aid soldiers in
post-traumatic growth indicate “Army values, warrior
ethos, and leadership are critical foundations of Army
resiliency training that can be skillfully integrated into
a model promoting internal combat stress control.”10
This kind of development indicates that the greater
the foundation a soldier has in moral understanding,
the more likely they are to be able to handle combat
stress. Likewise, an individual with a stronger moral
compass is less likely to engage in behaviors that result
in psychologically damaging guilt and regret. Overall,
this is an area that deserves more research but leaders
cannot dismiss the demonstrated benefits that the
Army values have had as an ingredient in our warrior
resiliency training.
Of course, no leader should accept a recommendation to change the weekend safety brief to a new form if
the originally targeted behavior is not being addressed
and corrected. Weekend safety briefs, after all, are
implemented to remind soldiers not to “embarrass the
regiment,” as the expression goes. These concerns are
not unreasonable, but a deeper examination of theories
of leadership influence might demonstrate that the goal
to develop soldiers who understand the PME and the
goal to keep them off Monday morning’s blotter report
are not mutually exclusive.
In Dr. Gene Klann’s essay, “The Application of
Power and Influence in Organizational Leadership,”
a central theme is the leader’s responsibility to shift
subordinates from a point of mere compliance to a
point of core commitment.11 These ideas are usually
displayed in diagrams with compliance on the left
and commitment on the right so we might say for our
discussion that we are “shifting soldiers to the right on
the values spectrum.”12 The implication of successfully
shifting soldiers to the right is that the foundation of
their behavior will move away from requiring “hard
power” motivation. Instead, soldiers committed to their
own standing in a profession will be motivated by an
“affiliation” with the Army and the organization.
Under a framework in which soldiers become more
interested in their own role as members of the profession, the logical consequence is that the originally targeted immature and negative behavior will become less
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