Developing an Onboarding Program to Improve Senior Leader Transition in the Army
Abstract
The U.S. Army has long had an institutionalized form of personnel rotation among its leaders. As such, a large amount of senior leadership time is spent learning unfamiliar organizational culture, adjusting to new roles, and developing new critical networks of relationships needed to command effectively. Presently, much of this happens in a relatively non-systematic fashion, sometimes resulting in inefficiencies and preventable mistakes. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the difficulties that accompany senior leadership transitions and propose onboarding as a solution to help military leaders and organizations deal with these challenges. Drawing from best practices developed in the civilian sector, this paper describes a hypothetical Army onboarding program in order to illustrate the concepts and principles associated with it. It includes recommendations for tailoring a senior leader onboarding program to the particular requirements of an individual command. Although a number of the issues presented in this paper likely apply to many military settings, they are discussed and illustrated here in the context of U.S. Army leaders who are responsible for overseeing support staff in an office-type (e.g., headquarters) environment.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA507481
Entities
People
- James W. Lussier
- Lori Foster-thompson
- Scott A. Beal
Organizations
- North Carolina State University