Table of Contents
Military leadership incorporates making crucial decisions in critical situations with resultant risks. Efficient army leaders ask the right questions and think analytically and strategically to reach well-informed conclusions to act on. Similarly, military leaders motivate and build their team soldiers. The responsibility of building team soldiers for the military leaders incorporates; developing individual talents, enhancing the welfare of the soldiers, and creating united teams and confidence to undertake deployments and missions. Furthermore, army leaders should have the formidable urge to complete unique goals to offer direction and purpose to units assigned in highly challenging situations (Guide, 2020). In the army and other military sectors, ambition is a crucial attribute of leaders to achieve missions and drive projects forward.
Features of Effective Army Leaders
Ambition is a crucial attribute of effective army leadership. The urge to attain something noteworthy and visible will drive leaders to strive to unlock their full potential. Army leaders require a high level of ambition to push themselves and their teams during missions and deployments. Ambitious leaders align their team soldiers with the goals and objectives of their assignments during deployments (Roka, 2018). However, the ambition of military leaders should be constrained by the requirements of the law to avoid the possibility of undesirable behaviors.
Military leaders should be realistic. Realism refers to the midpoint between pessimism and optimism. The degree to which a military skews towards pessimism or optimism significantly impacts the leader and team soldiers. For instance, optimism can result in over-ambitious goals that outperform the squad’s ability to complete them. On the other hand, pessimism can result in missing opportunities as leaders avoid bold and ambitious initiatives due to apparent risks and flaws (Yamauchi, 2021). Realism in army leadership results in openness to whatever reality is at hand. Realist army leaders collect unfiltered information that can be measured, weighed, tested, and evaluated to establish the correct steps.
Besides, army leaders should have psychological openness. Openness refers to military leaders’ willingness to consider other people’s opinions and ideas. Psychologically open army leaders seek diverse ideologies to learn more and analyze a broader range of details before reaching conclusions. Also, the psychological openness of army leaders permeates the social system to enhance interactions and communication (Yamauchi, 2021).
Types of Effective Army Leadership
The transactional leadership style enables army leaders to seek satisfying results by holding subordinates to account and offering clear directions. Transactional leadership eliminates guesswork, which facilitates the structure of the chain of command implemented by the army. It was established by Changing Minds.org that transactional leadership works by building clear structures whereby the requirements of the missions and rewards of completing the missions are well established (Flowers, 2018). The function of the United Army is to protect security and deter war in the United States. Transactional leadership upholds the functions of the army by building dynamic relationships with their subordinates. Transactional army leaders acknowledge the reward and requirements of their support and performance.
The other effective army leadership style is transformational leadership. Transformational leadership drives charisma in army leaders. Resultantly, army leaders inspire and motivate their team soldiers with intellect. This is an essential quality for military soldiers in their daily activities that involve making decisive and quick decisions for their survival. The significance of transformational leadership is the ability to adapt means to reshape and share structures and institutions to attain wide human moral inspirations and purposes. Transformational leadership in the army is effective since the leaders use education and inspiration to motivate their subordinates (Flowers, 2018). Transformational army leaders empower their subordinates to create value within the soldiers and make decisions. In addition, transformational leaders instill pride and build a sense of clarity to gain the trust and respect of the team soldiers being led.
Additionally, servant leadership is the other style of efficient army leadership. Servant army leaders acquire the features of a servant in their leadership. These attributes of a servant leader include; acceptance, compassion, empathy, and the urge to serve the community (Yamauchi, 2021). Military officers target to attain a leadership role in their military career. Whilst servant leaders work their way to the top of the army leadership; they lead in rhetoric and their actions.
Conclusion
Influential army leaders stimulate confidence in their team soldiers. Army leaders carry considerable responsibilities in the military. Therefore, a lack of efficient leadership in the army will paralyze the army’s activities and instill doubt among the subordinates due to a lack of confidence. Also, army leaders should have attributes such as psychological openness, ambition, and realism. Besides, efficient army leadership styles include; transactional, transformational, and servant leadership. The paper above has evaluated the features of influential army leaders and types of effective army leadership.
- Flowers, M. (2018). Improving strategic leadership. Military Leadership, 233-244. Routledge.
- Guide, C. (2020). United States Military Academy. West Point, New York.
- Roka, P. (2018). Bhagavad Gita on effective leadership. Leadership in the Military, 34-45. Jaico Publishing House.
- Yamauchi, R. (2021). Army leaders in multi-domain operations: A theoretical approach to a multi-domain operation mentality. US Army School for Advanced Military Studies.