The Army Leader’s Most Read Articles of 2019 So the year is nearly over and we have a chance to look back. For the small team here at The Army Leader its been an international year of achievements and deployments. The editorial team have been to some diverse locations including Finland, Poland, Nigeria and Afghanistan.…
Christmas Leadership Book List 2019 By Tim Heck, Book Reviews Editor Each year, with Christmas around the corner and High Street full of holiday sales, The Army Leader reaches out to respected military leaders, scholars, and authors to ask them for a recommendation for our Christmas leadership book list. This year we sought a more…
A Breath of Fresh Air: Project Oxygen and the British Army By Will Meddings It’s a simple question; an often-asked question that seems to have a million answers: what makes a good leader? It is worth asking this simple question, not because there is a simple answer but because asking it might just force you…
We Happy Few: A Call for Inclusion By The Army Leader The 25th of October is St Crispin’s day, a festival that celebrates the martyrdom of Saints Crispin and Crispinian around 286 AD. It is also (and perhaps better) remembered as the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, part of the Hundred Years’ War between…
Mission Command II: The Who, What, Where, When and Why: An Anthology, by Donald E. Vandergriff Reviewed by The Maverick Sergeant Published in February 2019, this book is the second volume of Donald Vandergriff and Stephen Webber’s Mission Command series, following on from their first edition published in 2017. Mission Command II: The Who, What,…
Adopting Mission Command: Developing Leaders for a Superior Command Culture, by Donald E. Vandergriff Reviewed by Dave Bickers Mission Command has featured in United States Army doctrine since the advent of AirLand Battle in 1982. After more than three decades has the organisation fully adapted to a culture of decentralised command? No, says Donald E.…
Centre for Army Leadership Conference 2019 – Leading in the Digital Age Article sponsored by The Sandhurst Trust On the 23rd of October the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst is set to host the British Army’s largest-yet leadership development conference. Titled Leading in the Digital Age, the Centre for Army Leadership’s third annual conference will look…
The Strength of the Clan is in The Clansman: Reflections on Company Command By Al Phillips The rotation of Sub-Unit Commanders across the British Army is well and truly under way with many new Officers Commanding (OC) now in appointment, and the next batch churning over the coming weeks. I was asked by a friend…
A Veteran’s Perspective on Training and Development By Richard Clark Jocks, NCOs and officers are now far more transparent about their successes and failures than they were in my day (All those years ago!). It is a good thing, too. When I left the Army several years ago it was rare to talk about the…
Why Should I Trust the New Lt? What Platoon Commanders Need to Do to Be Trusted by Their Chain of Command By Will Meddings There are plenty of stereotypes about new platoon and troop commanders. Whatever rank you are, you’ve come across them. Platoon commanders with poor administration. Troop commanders who get lost. Platoon commanders…