Competence is My Watchword: An Analysis of the Relationship between Competence and Character in the Army
Abstract
This study explores the relationship between competence and character in Army organizational culture by identifying key underlying assumptions, espoused values, and artifacts. Collectively, these levels of culture present three major observations about competence and character in Army culture. On the surface, these observations appear to demonstrate a bias of competence over character. Specifically, the Army actively evaluates competence and passively evaluates character. This approach, although practical, contributes greatly to the perceived competence bias. However, a more in-depth analysis shows that competence and character are vastly different concepts and direct comparison of the two is problematic. Significant academic debate about character and its evaluation further clouds the comparison. Regardless, the continual and active evaluation of character is critical for the Army to develop agile and adaptive leaders. Broadly, commissioning programs do a better job of actively evaluating character than IET. Further study of the character evaluation construct in these programs is recommended.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 10, 2016
- Accession Number
- AD1020317
Entities
People
- Matthew D. Mercado
Organizations
- United States Army Command and General Staff College