Leadership Style - Term Paper Example

Army’s “Be Know Do” leadership style. Affiliation: In this essay, the focus is around the Army’s Be, Know, Do model and philosophy in understanding leadership concept as a whole by putting a number of factors into perspective. What is leadership? What does Army’s Be know Do mean? What are the qualities of an efficient leader? The picture that pops in the reader’s mind of an effective leader is one that can offer right solutions of any challenges within the sector. Such a leadership must show strong and confident authority in the provision of clear guidance, and vision in handling matters with ease and calm. There is an enormous belief that in order to qualify as a real leader, the three attributes: Be, Know, and Do must come into the picture. Keywords: Leadership, command, “Be know Do” So what is leadership? Leadership is a process. An excerpt from the US Army defines leadership as a process of influencing other people by provision of motivation, purpose and direction in order to achieve organizational goals and improve its mission (Field manual, 2005). The US Army leadership is a hierarchical structure whereby instructions come from the top, and are communicated through a variety of channels within the barracks until a local administrator delivers them directly to the low ranking soldiers. In this context, an Army leader is one by virtual of assigned responsibility or role inspires people to achieve institutions goals and endeavors. Army leader motivates both within and outside the cycle of command to pursue actions and steer decisions for the greater good of the mission. Some people hold that, as long as someone can give others some task to accomplish by yelling and barking at them is sufficient to qualify one with qualities of good leadership. Not at all, being a good leader is a lot more than just giving orders. In the judgment of being an excellent leader, your influence on others may take different dimensions. Your words and actions, the values you talk of, are you a role model, and your actions- off or on duty generally will define the type of leader you are. In the provision of purpose and vision, an excellent army leader enables his soldiers to see the fundamental justification for the mission thus providing them with a motive to act to accomplish the desired outcome. Leaders should always portray and manifest the purpose of undertaking to their faction through either orders or requests. Through such methods, the subordinates will notice with time that their leader communicates in a reliable style of authority thus building their trust and confidence. In terms of direction, an army leader must prioritize tasks, assign responsibilities, and ensure that the soldiers identify with army standards for accomplishing the task. In order to achieve excellent leadership, a clear direction ought initiation by the leader. Despite all these endeavors by Army leaders, it is imperative to note that there exist different people with unique behaviors, values, and beliefs. How to lead one individual to do a task is not the same way to lead another person. Army leaders are however able to accommodate different personalities by use of standards in order to accomplish set goals. In many instances, the military theory follows the “Be Know Do” model and philosophy as a guideline of how to define leadership. The Be Know Do philosophy makes up the essential characteristics of an effective army leader and summarizes the attributes and core leadership competencies of an army officer (Clark, n.d.). As already explained from above, leadership involves influencing others in meeting individual or organizational goals. Therefore, embracing the leadership role in the military demands the leader to adopt army, military skills, and practicing leadership actions. The Be Know Do model encompasses this attributes as illustrated below. BE is the first section of the philosophy that forms the basis of the ability to lead and is all about the behavior of a leader. In a book by Allen about this leadership model, he describes BE as a leader’s character that forms the foundation of an individual’s ability to lead (Allen, 2011). This trait gives courage to accomplish what is right regardless of consequences or circumstances that may prevail. The BE attribute preserves core values, some of which we are born with, raised with or develop as a result of experience that has made who we are today. The military Be Know Do model entails seven vital values including “Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage (Allen, 2011)”. Loyalty of a soldier is the bearing of true faith to the team and allegiance to the US constitution, the faction, the army, and other officers in any mission. It is simply unwavering support for teamwork by being devoted to the cause (organization, or a group). Being loyal is what sets an effectual leader apart from the rest (Allen, 2011). Number two is duty. It is a moral obligation to fulfill duties assigned regardless of whether you like them or not. Third value is respect, which is the ability to treat people with admiration. Respect is not a mandatory value, but rather something one earns in due course either through growth (how raised) or learning to appreciate others. It is in the cord of soldiers to show respect and appreciation amidst their duties. Forth is the value of selfless service that is the significant rate of any military department. It is an act of putting the welfare of the nation, the army, and subordinates’ before personal concerns ahead by completing the task that as obligatory first. Fifth value is Honor, which is an act of living up to all the Army values. Honor forms the main outline that encompass the “BE” character of leadership. The sixth value is integrity- doing what is morally and legally right. It is doing right thing without necessarily being under supervision or witnessed and therefore an integral person does not wait overseer in order to deliver a job but does it nevertheless. Finally, the last BE attribute is personal courage which is the army’s ability to face fear, threat or misfortune during operation. It can also construe as the ability to evaluate one’s weaknesses and strengths in relation to one’s leadership approach. The “Be” traits intend to demonstrate the truthfulness to an institution or group, by enforcing the mental, physical, and emotional facet of a leader (Clark, n.d.) KNOW. This the second part of the philosophy that talks of the leader’s intellectual capacity or simply skills competence. What you know is an important as a good character for growth of an army leader. Without this trait, the leader’s command will lack substance when asking subordinates to perform to standard that he or she has no master of at all. There are four types of Army leadership skills for development of an effective leader. They include conceptual or critical, technical, interpersonal and tactical skills. A conceptual skill accords a leader to make sound judgments through the appraisal of situations or conditions sensibly and draw reasonable conclusions. It involves critical, creative, ethical, and reflective thinking. US citizens often seek Army leadership for solutions to problems such as theft, terror, and forensic research. People will always expect results and therefore solution prevalence is possible when equipped with conceptual skill. The second “Know” competence is technical skills. It refers to the expertise and understanding of a leader in relation to specialized professional field. A military leader must possess logical facts, beliefs, assumptions, and knowledge of military tactics necessary for securing a definite objective through military means. The major equipments of service within the Army barracks are weapons of different structure and functionality and therefore a military leader ought to have skills on how to fully use them. He or she will continue to sharpen and improve the technical skills because this is where he deals directly with other workers. The third capacity value is interpersonal skill. It refers to the tact of a leader in interacting with others and accepting the personality, reaction, and motives of oneself and others. It is an essential part of military because one way or the other, soldiers have to meet since this is not one man show but a teamwork mission. In this context, therefore, a leader ought to internalize this trait for betterment of team spirit. The last part of the “Know” philosophy is the tactical skill which is the ability of a leader to employ the experience for particular present problems. Tactical skills are not just crucial in the Army only but also in any civilian sector as well. Such skill finds service in the organizations when searching for proficient leader or looking to build up their current leaders in their cycles. A good military leader will use his leadership experience to coach, school, and prepare his employees to measure up expectations of the organization. Attainment or mastery of these four “Know” skills means that a leader will be able to contribute on the whole success and the enhancement of the institution. DO. As evident from above, leadership takes place in action. What one does is important as Be and Know aspects of military leadership model. Even though, character and skills are vital in leadership growth, they are not adequate by themselves. Leaders cannot be effective without applying their traits and knowledge. Consequently, the actions of the leader do influence others and even on where such actions take place. Leaders bring together their character, knowledge to provide purpose, direction, and motivation to an institution through active approaches such as influencing, operating, and improving their subordinates. (Clark, n.d.) In influencing others, the leader blossoms in making triumph decisions regardless of the level of difficulty and effectively communicates these decisions to juniors, co-workers and even bosses. The concept of influence becomes concrete when coupled with operating activities (Clark, n.d.). These actions are those that a leader undertakes to achieve immediate accomplishment of goals, such as holding an update (briefing) or conducting an operation. Secondly, leaders who seek to build performance, morale and unit strive to improve the soldiers’ amenities, equipments, schooling, and resources under their command. Nothing speaks more evidently to subordinate about their leader’s dedication to brilliance and improvement than a continuous assessment of the unit’s performance and welfare. His investment of time and endeavor in subordinates’ well-being and enhanced performance will ultimately compensate in building faith. It is because of a shared sense of comradeship and devotion to the cause by the team (Clark, n.d.). The military leadership spans through three levels of division: express or direct, organizational, and strategic levels. Consequently, five elements define the level of leadership that is exhibit at a particular instance. These factors comprise; the span of control, headquarter level, size of the group, the kind of operations the unit conducts and the degree of influence of the leader at the helm. Direct leadership is first and standard type. It refers to first-line or head to head leadership whereby subordinates and leaders see each other in many occasions. This one-on-one kind leadership faces a phased-out because many researchers have shown that comprehensive work occur under minimal supervision (Clark, n.d.). The second style is organization leadership whereby the leader commands several people indirectly through other subsequent subordinate leaders. Here, there is little face-to-face contact with the rank and file soldier and command at brigade through corps level. In general their spotlight is on scheduling and mission in next two to ten years. The final style is strategic leadership. It involves several departments such as military, Army, and civilian leaders from the major command level from the ministry of defense. They establish force, structure, allocate resources, and communicate strategic decisions and forms the whole defense and security systems (Clark, n.d.). Conclusively, it is worthy to note that excellence in leadership does not signify flawlessness but rather gives people room to learn from mistakes, as well as take pleasure in their successes. References Allen, B. (2011). Be-Know-Do, the Army’s Leadership Model. BG Allen. Retrieved 2 October 2014, from http://bgallen.com/2011/03/07/be-know-do-–-the-army’s-leadership-model/ Clark, G. Introduction to Army leadership. Mc.edu. Retrieved 2 October 2014, from http://www.mc.edu/rotc/index.php/download_file/view/3 Field Manual 6-22, F. (2005). The Official Home Page of the United States Army | the United States Army. Www4.army.mil. 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