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The US Army has a clear leadership philosophy, used throughout their organisation to train, develop and guide their leaders. Their leadership philosohy is documented in The U.S. Army’s Leadership Field Manual, affectionately known as “FM 22-100″. The U.S. Army defines leadership as:
“influencing people-by providing purpose, direction, and motivation-while operating to accomplish the mission and improving the organization.”
The U.S. Army’s leadership philosophy is described in there BE, KNOW, DO framework:
BE
1-22. Character describes a person’s inner strength, the BE of BE, KNOW, DO. Your character helps you know what is right; more than that, it links that knowledge to action. Character gives you the courage to do what is right regardless of the circumstances or the consequences.
1-23. You demonstrate character through your behavior. One of your key responsibilities as a leader is to teach Army values to your subordinates. The old saying that actions speak louder than words has never been more true than here. Leaders who talk about honor, loyalty, and selfless service but do not live these values-both on and off duty-send the wrong message, that this “values stuff” is all just talk.
1-24. Understanding Army values and leader attributes is only the first step. You also must embrace Army values and develop leader attributes, living them until they become habit. You must teach Army values to your subordinates through action and example and help them develop leader attributes in themselves.
KNOW
1-25. A leader must have a certain level of knowledge to be competent. That knowledge is spread across four skill domains. You must develop interpersonal skills, knowledge of your people and how to work with them. You must have conceptual skills, the ability to understand and apply the doctrine and other ideas required to do your job. You must learn technical skills, how to use your equipment. Finally, warrior leaders must master tactical skills, the ability to make the right decisions concerning employment of units in combat. Tactical skills include mastery of the art of tactics appropriate to the leader’s level of responsibility and unit type. They’re amplified by the other skills-interpersonal, conceptual, and technical-and are the most important skills for warfighters.
1-26. Mastery of different skills in these domains is essential to the Army’s success in peace and war. But a true leader is not satisfied with knowing only how to do what will get the organization through today; you must also be concerned about what it will need tomorrow. You must strive to master your job and prepare to take over your boss’s job. In addition, as you move to jobs of increasing responsibility, you’ll face new equipment, new ideas, and new ways of thinking and doing things. You must learn to apply all these to accomplish your mission.
1-27. Army schools teach you basic job skills, but they are only part of the learning picture. You’ll learn even more on the job. Good leaders add to their knowledge and skills every day. True leaders seek out opportunities; they’re always looking for ways to increase their professional knowledge and skills. Dedicated squad leaders jump at the chance to fill in as acting platoon sergeant, not because they’ve mastered the platoon sergeant’s job but because they know the best place to learn about it is in the thick of the action. Those squad leaders challenge themselves and will learn through doing; what’s more, with coaching, they’ll learn as much from their mistakes as from their successes.
DO
1-28. You read about leader actions, the DO of Army leadership doctrine, at the beginning of this chapter. Leader actions include-
- Influencing: making decisions, communicating those decisions, and motivating people.
- Operating: the things you do to accomplish your organization’s immediate mission.
- Improving: the things you do to increase the organization’s capability to accomplish current or future missions.
Harvard Working Knowledge article “How the U.S. Army Develops Leaders” in discussing the Be, Know Do framework empashise the importance of the “BE” component:
“To become a “competent” leader you must develop the necessary knowledge and skills to accomplish your mission. However, technical competence is not enough. To be an effective leader you must also have “character”— the BE component of our leadership doctrine: who you are, your values, your worldview. Clearly, the BE component of leader development offers the most challenge, because who you ARE is very difficult to change. Developing the other two components are rather straightforward and much less threatening…… knowledge (KNOW) and skills (DO) are highly perishable. If you don’t use them today, they’re gone tomorrow. …. Hence, our contention that the real leverage in developing leaders has to do with the BE component: Give me a soldier who has that part right, and I can teach her to do anything. Give me a soldier who doesn’t, and all the knowledge and skills in the world will not make up for a lack of character…… “
The Army’s leadership philosophy has been successful and provides a common framework to guide the organisation and it’s leaders. Do you have a leadership philosophy that guides your life, team and organisation? Do those who follow you known what you stand for?
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