Toward a Socio-Cultural Model of Leadership
I've been doing some research on a related topic. I believe the staff issue is part of a larger culture issue. I believe our root problem is that we collectively think of the Army as a mechanical or biological system, when it is not.
We use mental models to conceptualize complex systems. This allows us to mentally simulate actions in our minds in order to predict likely outcomes. Our collective mental model of the Army is that of a mechanism or an organism. We trend toward organism, but there are elements of mechanistic models within the Army system. I won't go into the history of why this is. Suffice it to say it is a combination of Jominian influence and 20th century management thinking.
This mental model is implicit - you won't find it written down anywhere, but the evidence is all around us. We use terms like "Esprit de Corps" (Spirit of the Body). Elements in our formations are "organic." Command and control happens at the "Head" Quarters. The Captain (from the latin caput or head) leads the company (from the latin corpus or body)
This is not just a matter of semantics - it explains a great deal about why we operate the way we do, including the large (and growing) size of our staffs. The headquarters is the "brain" of the operation. The brain is the only place in the body where decisions are made, therefore, it must have a constant flow of information. Mission command, or empowering subordinates to take initiative within the commander's intent without having to ask permission, is against our intuitive conceptualization of a biological model. The last thing we need is our right leg going off on its own, or our liver deciding that it needs to rapidly exploit an opportunity.
Biological systems work best when the parts respond with predictable regularity to every signal from the brain. Indeed, otherwise we say that the body is sick. Consider that a recently published study of students at the Army War College showed that Army leaders believed the Army culture should emphasize “flexibility, discretion, participation, human resource development, innovation, creativity, risk-taking, and a long-term emphasis on professional growth and the acquisition of new professional knowledge and skills.” However, it also found these same leaders believed that current Army culture emphasizes “an overarching desire for stability, control, formal rules and policies, coordination and efficiency, goal and results oriented, and hard-driving competitiveness. “
Current Army culture emphasizes these things because these things are desirable in a biological system.
In a biological system, the emphasis on information flow from and to the brain is the overriding factor in organizational structure. The ultimate goal is real-time omnipotence. This explains our never ending quest for the Corps Commander to have real-time predator video of your platoon operation.
What is the solution?
In a nutshell, we must recognize the Army for what it is: not an organism, but a socio-cultural system. There are three primary differences between a socio-cultural system and other systems.
1. Socio-cultural systems are composed of people who each have choices. Therefore, in order to move a socio-cultural system toward a collective purpose a leader cannot control, rather he/she must inspire in a way that subordinates choose to follow, or said another way, aligns the purposes of the agents within the system with the purpose of the system as whole.
2. Socio-cultural systems are bonded by information, versus physical and chemical bonding in biological systems. Therefore, leaders must communicate with subordinates. This does not mean sending emails or pushing out powerpoint slides. The relationship is similar to a horse and rider, who must communicate through a series of mutually understood signals. Communication means constantly seeking and ensuring common understanding.
3. Socio-cultural systems have a common culture. Culture figures a great deal into what people do and why they do it. Two people that share a common culture are likely the perceive the same information in the same way, and therefore act in a way that benefits the system, even if they aren't in direct communication. Current Army thinking focuses on controlling behavior and choices through an ever-expanding labyrinth of complex orders, SOPs, rules, regulations, doctrine, and so on. Leaders would get much more bang for the buck focusing on building common culture, which ensures that subordinates make good decisions when they (inevitably) find themselves out of contact without a order, SOP, rule, regulation, or doctrinal manual to tell them what to do.
Not only will moving toward a socio-cultural model alleviate many of our problems, it will also enhance effectiveness. Small unit leaders and even individual Soldiers who can make on-the-spot decisions based on common culture and understanding of commander's intent (without having to ask the brain permission) are not only more effective, but they exponentially increase the decision cycle speed of the unit through reduced friction.
Apologies for the length...had to fit 4000 words worth of stuff in the post...