The Effect of Risk Aversion and Emotion on Leadership Decision-Making - Research Paper Example

Running Head: Leadership Decision Making The Effect of Risk Aversion and Emotion on Leadership Decision Making Broad Topic: Military Leadership Narrow Topic: Military Leadership: The Effect of Risk Aversion and Emotion on Leadership Decision Making Thesis: Wrong decisions by military leaders are not only caused by risk aversion or fear of mistakes, but also by emotional factors. I. Introduction II. Strategic Decision Making A. Risk Evaluation, Assumption, and Aversion B. Strategic Leadership and Avoidance of Risk III. Emotion and Decision Making IV. Discussions and Conclusions A. Developing Strategic Military Leaders B. The Implications of Emotion for Leadership Decision Making Abstract Military leaders nowadays work in an intricate military and political context, and their decisions entail significant risk. Their effectiveness is impeded by what a number of scholars see as an avoidance of risk encouraged in the initial period of their profession. Moreover, military leaders usually fail to completely or appropriately recognize the global or diplomatic consequences of their decisions. Military leaders could have influential memories of pleasures, anxieties, failures, or triumphs that they experienced. In most instances, these emotions were beneficial to them. They have their own interests at risk in the decisions they make and the actions they take. If these judgments influence only them, their emotions will aid them in arriving at the appropriate solution. However, when their own interests go against their duties, their decision can be lopsided. Introduction The negative ramifications of taking risks or committing errors alongside lack of awareness about military and political circumstances usually results in wrong decisions. Incorrect decisions can imply strategic failure. Wrong decisions by military leaders are not only caused by risk aversion or fear of mistakes, but also by emotional factors. Decisions are in fact a judgment process performed by individuals (Pfaff, 2003). These judgments are developed and created in the human brain through mechanisms that are only recently being wholly recognized (Pffaff, 2003). Hence, it has been discovered that in some situations individual decision making is untrustworthy. In reality, in numerous cases, the actual motivator of human decisions is the emotion, and usually to our disadvantage. This paper will discuss how risk aversion and emotion negatively affect military leaders’ judgment or decision making process. Strategic Decision Making The mission of ambitious strategic military leader at present will be to gain the skill of integrating productively, maybe even combine, the function of strategic diplomatic decision maker with the function of strategic military decision maker (Flowers, 2004). According to Friedman, “connectivity is productivity… connection enables, disconnection enables” (Granger, 2002, 38); strategic leaders should build settings of regional security by facilitating the formation of democratic mechanisms of the relationship between the military and civilians (Granger, 2002). Hence, as the bound between the military leader and the policymaker becomes more and more intricate, strategic leaders should concentrate on building matching capabilities and an awareness of both their independent and collective duties in the process of making decisions (Taylor & Rosenbach, 2000) for national security. Risk Evaluation, Assumption, and Aversion Groups of US military leaders are burgeoning without being empowered and with inadequate knowledge of how to evaluate and afterwards be equipped to assume risks for the realization of a military goal (Flowers, 2004). Hence, there is a weakening of the important principle which strengthens every military unit, that is, the audacity to take risks. Risk is defined by FM 100-14 as “the probability and severity of a potential loss that may result from hazards due to the presence of an enemy, an adversary, or some other hazardous condition” (Granger, 2002, 38). Risk assessment, assumption, and aversion, particularly threat to the lives of combatants, is an important activity leaders perform in a regular basis. Yet, leaders should risk the lives of their fighters every now and then, far and wide, while preparing for or acting in response to everything from humanitarian intervention to world conflict. In spite of these apparent risks, evaluating risk seems to be influenced by familiarity and observation. According to FM 100-14, “perception of risk varies from person to person. What is risky or dangerous to one person may not be to another. Perception influences leaders’ decisions” (Granger, 2002, 39). As furthered by Granger (2002), different risk judgments spurred vast deliberations about force-defense procedures throughout the NATO intervention in Bosnia. Due to varying views of risks to combatants, force- defense procedures varied among involved militaries. British and French leaders loosened up their force-defense bearing to soft caps and berets without protective covering, although U.S. military leaders positioned their troops in ‘full battle-rattle’ (Granger, 2002, 39). The head of strategic plans and policy at that time ascribed the decision of the U.S. to a number of factors (Taylor & Rosenbach, 2000): (1) the unsuccessful attack in Mogadishu, Somalia, (2) the remarkably low fatalities in the Gulf, and (3) the Vietnam War. He was fascinated that “the same pressures were not operative on our European Allies. France, and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom, suffered loss after loss in peace keeping operations in the Balkans and elsewhere. Those risks, while regrettable, were considered part of the duty” (Granger, 2002, 39). A British exchange official, LTC Alistair Deas, clarified the issue (Granger, 2002, 39-40): I had never heard of risk-aversion until I came to the United States. The British military and society see risk as part of a soldier ‘doing his duty.’ It may well include dying in battle, and this is accepted as the mere nature of the business. British soldiers are trained and operate as infantrymen first, and conduct autonomous mission estimates and risk management from corporal to captain to major. We never change our mission due to risk, and we accept risk in realistic and dangerous training and operations. If we take casualties, we regret them certainly but don’t dwell on them with lengthy investigations or witch hunts. The varying assessments, though valid or reasonable, resulted in ideas and allegations on the two parties in Bosnia. A number of NATO leaders thought that the United States was hesitant and anxious, although other U.S. military leaders thought that NATO respected the lives of their soldiers less or that U.S. combatants were more worthwhile targets (Taylor & Rosenbach, 2000). In any case, the varying assessments were never decided or incorporated. Strategic Leadership and Avoidance of Risk Economic globalization is pressured and challenged by the new form of terror campaigns, and military leaders are experiencing extreme difficulties battling it. In an article of Inside the Pentagon, the U.S. government states that the military is traditional and guarded in combating the new opponent (Granger, 2002, 38). For instance, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld expressed disappointment of the traditional thinking he discovered among several military leaders (Granger, 2002). Their vigilance might stem from fear of committing the errors and from depending on actual experiences and dogma. In argument for vigilance, Robert Kaplan states that risk aversion may quite be important for the policymaker as well as for the prospective military leader (Flowers, 2004). Possibly, greater than in any earlier period, the future policymaker will have to regulate his/her sentiments, since there will be a great deal to resent about. Whose assessments, allegations, and decisions are inaccurate and accurate in these situations only scrape the exterior of the endeavor strategic leaders will confront (Flowers, 2004). Th e imperative mission is to equalize or mitigate these issues. Emotion and Decision Making Norman Dixon, in his work entitled On the Psychology, discusses several military operations where in the leader and his troop stubbornly adhered to a defective plan, in spite of increasing proof that they were approaching failure (Finkelstein, Whitehead, & Campbell, 2009). One of the most interesting illustrations of Dixon is Operation Market Garden, the effort of the Allies to employ paratroopers to invade suspension bridges in the Netherlands and dispatch armies to surround the armed forces of Germany and conclude the World War II (Finkelstein et al., 2009) in Europe. However, as Max Hastings, a prominent historian reviewed it: “Market Garden was a rotten plan, poorly executed” (Finkelstein et al., 2009, 2). Dixon attributes this failure to emotion. He states that the evident intellectual weaknesses of a number of military leaders are because not of the inadequacy of knowledge but to their emotions (Eden, 1999). Montgomery, who as usually vigilant and quite cautious not to crunch more than his troops could take, could have been a counteracting expression of raison dêtre. However, he was annoyed by the resistance of Eisenhower against his suggestion of a sole force and hence became quite tied to Market Garden, mocking people who questioned it (Lord, Klimoski, & Kanfer, 2002). If ever it was a victory, he could have fought to recover his eminence among the Allied leaders, and perhaps be viewed as the leader who stopped the hostilities (Finkelstein et al., 2009) by Christmas. Therefore, as shown in the example above, the decision making process can produce its own emotions. As individuals become thrilled about a decision, they accompany it with extra favorable emotions. As individuals acquire proof that they have made an accurate decision, more powerful emotional labels are produced. Discussions and Conclusions Developing Strategic Military Leaders The current batch of military leaders may have to use more than merely rigidness and respect to acquire political advocacy for a certain decision. Former U.S. Secretary of State Powell revealed that the decisions he admitted and the decisions he personally made were not constantly plain and simple (Finkelstein et al., 2009). A month following his appointment as Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1989, he discerned the necessity of large-scale reforms in the military tactics of the U.S. army. Using his own experience, knowledge, and educated instinct as a military leader, according to Finkelstein and colleagues (2009), he foresaw the affairs of the future: the reunification of Germany, a rigidly protective Soviet army, and possible difficulties of the involvement of the United States in the Persian Gulf and Korea. Intensely informed of the problem he would encounter in putting forward his forecast and acknowledging the conflicting requirements on statesmen fixated in decisions about Panama, Powell hanged on (Finkelstein et al., 2009). The Berlin Wall collapsed later on and Powell seized the chance to introduce his plan. Subsequently, his plan admitted, Powell went back to his bureau and requested for new diagrams for his conference at the White House (Finkelstein et al., 2009). Integrating the responsibilities of policymakers and soldiers is the means toward victorious decisions. The Implications of Emotion for Leadership Decision Making Because emotions affect decisions, mostly in beneficial ways, individuals do not desire to attempt to remove their impact. In reality, due to the fact that emotions largely operate on individual’s unconscious and body, it is not possible to remove their impact even if a person tries. Furthermore, people require emotions for the process of decision making (Pfaff, 2003). Yet emotions can at times result in failures or catastrophes, hence people necessitate some means of predicting when their emotions could be an impediment. If people are tipped off and if they can determine possibly deceptive emotions in advance, they can reinforce the process of decision making in manners that will aid in wrestling the effect of the emotion (Pfaff, 2003) they are anxious about. It is due to this that committee members are frequently requested to leave the room or desist from making their choice if they have a private motive at risk (Lord et al., 2002). Similarly, policymakers are supposed to put their financial resources in the care of a self-governing fund administrator, in order that their decisions are not affected by their personal failures or benefits (Lord et al., 2002). In reality, the focus people give to devising inducements and complementing the interests of the administrator with the organization’s interests is acknowledgement of the level to which people believe personal motives influence decisions. The fact is that affective factors are interconnected with the decision making process of military leaders in the sense that make them a requirement and vital component of decision making. People are not aware of how they affect them and they merely become conscious of them through their intuition (Pfaff, 2003). People can regulate the influence of these emotions to a certain level, for instance, by trying to become more systematic and logical or by being more knowledgeable of the root of the specific emotion. Yet people cannot remove their effect. Without affective elements people could well be incapable of making a decision by any means. The positive fact is that, most of the time individual’s emotions aid him/her in arriving at the needed solution easily and productively. However, in the inappropriate condition, as taken place in the Operation Market Garden, they can direct people to failure. Military leaders who think that they and other people decide entirely based on ‘logical’ thinking misleading themselves (Finkelstein et al., 2009). This kind of dishonesty can be lethal, as these military leaders may become fully convinced that they are correct even though they are actually incorrect. And that would definitely not be successful military leadership in any way. References Center for Army Leadership (2004). The US Army Leadership Field Manual. New York: McGraw-Hill. Eden, S.J. (1999). “Leadership on Future Fields: Remembering the Human Factor in War,” Military Review, 79(3), 35+ Finkelstein, S., Whitehead, J. & Campbell, A. (2009). “How Emotional Tagging can Push Leaders to Make Bad Decisions,” Ivey Business Journal Online, University of Western Ontario. Flowers, M. (2004). “Improving Strategic Leadership,” Military Review, 84(2), 40+ Granger, M. (2002). “Developing Strategic Leaders,” Military Review, 82(4), 38+ Lord, R., Klimoski, R.J. & Kanfer, R. (2002). Emotions in the Workplace: Understanding the Structure and Role of Emotions in Organizational Behavior. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Pfaff, C. (2003). “Officership: Character, Leadership, and Ethical Decisionmaking,” Military Review, 83(2), 66+ Taylor, R.L. & Rosenbach, W.E. (2000). Military Leadership: In Pursuit of Excellence. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Read More