Improving Junior Officer Confidence in Senior Officer Leadership

Abstract

Junior officer comments, corroborated by field grade officers and former battalion commanders (FBC) state there exists in the Army today, a crisis in confidence in senior officer leadership. The Army staff and private firms under the direction of the Army Research Institute (ARI) have gathered empirical data to grasp the magnitude of the problem and initiate corrective action. To compound the seriousness of the confidence issue, junior officers are leaving the Army's ranks in unprecedented numbers. This loss of junior leadership, if left unabated, will have a profoundly negative effect on manning the force now and into the future. It appears that there are many contributing factors to this exodus - a solid economy, no emerging near-peer military competitor, sustained high OPTEMPO, multiple deployments, and a mission shift from warfighting to disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping, peace enhancement and peace enforcement operations - now termed Stability and Support Operations (SASO). This paper will attempt to identify why junior officers lack confidence in their senior officers, what is the cause, and to provide recommendations on how to win back their confidence.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 10, 2001
Accession Number
ADA391126

Entities

People

  • Steven N. Miller

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Attrition
  • Baby Boomers
  • Commerce
  • Demographic Cohorts
  • Deployment
  • Doctrine
  • General Officers
  • Governments
  • Health Care
  • Humanitarian Assistance
  • National Security
  • Professional Development
  • Quality Of Life
  • Students
  • Training
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
  • Military Leadership and Professional Education.
  • Strategic Security Studies