Tactical Military Leader Requisite Complexity: Toward a Referent Structure

Abstract

The U.S. Army has focused on developing leader competencies in order to promote adaptability for asymmetric warfare. Expanding leader adaptive capacity, however, requires integrating competencies with deeper knowledge structures and leader identity. We conduct a three-stage exploratory study using semistructured interviews and three separate samples of experienced combat leaders to assess the organization of tactical leader functional roles. We identify the breadth of roles, tasks, skills, and attributes representative of expert tactical military leaders. We hope to take a first step in circumscribing the requisite cognitive and behavioral complexity required of tactical leaders and thereby provide a referent structure for future research on what constitutes requisite complexity for tactical military leaders.Military combat leaders have always faced dynamic and unpredictable situations requiring complex and adaptive decision making and actions. The asymmetric MILITARY PSYCHOLOGY, 22:412-449, 2010

The psychological and neurological bases of leader self-complexity and effects on adaptive decision-making.

“…Consistent with Woolfolk et al (1995, 2004), participants were then provided with a number of pages (one page for each role that they defined), with each page containing 33 leader attributes listed in a column. These leader attributes were drawn from the referent structure developed by Hannah et al (2010), which these researchers derived from a series of in-depth interviews with experienced tactical military leaders. From their grounded research, Hannah et al (2010) discovered that these are primary attributes that enable leader effectiveness in a tactical level combat context, but they also proposed, based on self-complexity theory, that these attributes should be structured across various identity roles (i.e., self-complexity) to enable leaders to tailor their employment.…”

“…For example, research with U.S. Army cadets and junior officers (Hannah, Jennings, & Ben-Yoav Nobel, 2010) suggests that officers may begin their careers with a fairly ill-defined self-concept as a military leader, and through training, education, and the facing of various role demands over time, they are likely to create more refined subroles such as tactical warfighter, tactical civil affairs manager, diplomat and negotiator, intelligence manager, and troop and unit leader. Further, each subrole is populated with a necessary set of self-aspects that expand over time to meet the role requirements of each subrole.…”

Social cognitive neuroscience and leadership

“…Hannah, Eggers, and Jennings (2008) and Hannah, Eggers, and Ben-Yoav Nobel (2010) argued that leaders can be described as more or less complex based on the number of unique roles and the attribute structure that they possess. That is, the self provides the structure through which leaders organize their various social roles and the specific knowledge, skills, and abilities (i.e., attributes) associated with those roles (Lord & Hall, 2005).…”

Relationships among applications of tacit knowledge and transformational/transactional leader styles

“…Specific military leader competencies have been identified, including selfawareness (Bass & Avolio 1990, 1995 and critical thinking skills (Riedel, Morath, & McGonigle, 2001). Hannah, Jennings and Nobel (2010) argue that because of the breadth of roles, tasks, skills, and attributes a military leader must possess, then leader development must recognize that adaptive expertise encompasses not only knowledge structures, but also metacognitive skills.…”