i

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CENTER for

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iii

v

Strategic Studies Institute

and

U.S. Army War College Press

BREAKING THE BATHSHEBA SYNDROME:

BUILDING A PERFORMANCE 

EVALUATION SYSTEM 

THAT PROMOTES MISSION COMMAND

Curtis D. Taylor

October 2015

The views expressed in this report are those of the author and 

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Sections 101 and 105. It is in the public domain and may not be 

copyrighted.
vi

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ISBN 1-58487-708-1
vii

FOREWORD

Survey after survey across the U.S. Army continue 

to reveal broad concern about the Army’s top-down 

performance evaluation system. Many claim that it 

drives behavior in organizations that not only inhibits the exercise of mission command, but also rewards 

image management over organizational leadership. 

Colonel Curtis Taylor takes a hard look at this 

system, its benefits and its cultural incentives. More 

importantly, he asks if the current system promotes 

or impedes the exercise of mission command. After 

examining the history of the Army’s performance 

evaluation system and alternative models outside the 

military, Colonel Taylor concludes that a more holistic 

system that combines top-down evaluations, peer and 

subordinate evaluation, and objective testing might be 

a better approach. 

The Strategic Studies Institute offers this monograph to enable its readers to assess whether the 

recommended system may balance incentives more 

carefully, ensuring that the very best organizational 

leaders are easier to identify, assign, and promote.

 

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

 Director

 Strategic Studies Institute and

 U.S. Army War College Press

ix

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CURTIS D. TAYLOR is an active duty U.S. Army Armor Officer with 21 years of experience in operational 

and training assignments including four tours to Iraq 

and Afghanistan as a strategic planner, battalion operations officer, brigade operations officer, and battalion commander. Most recently, he served as the 

Director of the Commander’s Initiatives Group for the 

Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 

responsible for drafting an integrated strategy for investment in human dimension programs such as leader development, education, and talent management 

across the Army. In 2015, Colonel Taylor is slated to 

assume command of the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat 

Team, 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado. 

Colonel Taylor holds a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. 

Military Academy, and two master’s degrees from the 

Command and General Staff College in military art 

and science and in strategic studies.

xi

SUMMARY

In 2014, the National Defense Authorization Act 

directed the Department of Defense to reconsider the 

way the Army evaluates and selects leaders. This call 

for reform came after repeated surveys from the Center for Army Leadership suggested widespread dissatisfaction with the current approach. The U.S. Army 

today is seeking to inculcate a philosophy of mission 

command across the force based on a culture of mutual trust, clear intent, and decentralized initiative. It 

is, therefore, reasonable to ask if our current performance evaluation system contributes or detracts from 

such a culture. 

This monograph seeks to answer this question by 

considering the essential leader attributes required for 

the exercise of mission command and then considering 

practical methods for evaluating this behavior. It then 

reviews the history of the existing Army performance 

evaluation system and analyzes how well this system 

conforms to the attributes of mission command. Finally, it examines other methods of performance evaluation outside of the Army to determine if those methods could provide a better model. This examination 

included a variety of best practice models in private 

business and the public sector and identified alternative approaches to performance evaluation. Three 

alternative models were chosen for scrutiny because 

they demonstrated an ability to specifically identify 

and select for the leader attributes essential to mission 

command.

The monograph concludes that the U.S. Army’s 

current officer evaluation system is ill-suited to evaluate mission command attributes. The author’s findings suggest that our current system is not wrong, 
but rather is incomplete. The research suggests that a 

combination of top-down evaluations, peer and subordinate reviews, and objective testing of critical skills 

might equip U.S. Army boards to identify better the 

best practitioners of the mission command philosophy. Two specific proposals are suggested for further 

research in the appendix. The first proposes to conduct 

background investigations for command select positions modelled after the single scope background investigation security clearance interviews. The second 

proposes the creation of assessment centers within the 

U.S. Army to evaluate potential to perform in future 

assignments.

xii
1

BREAKING THE BATHSHEBA SYNDROME:

BUILDING A PERFORMANCE 

EVALUATION SYSTEM 

THAT PROMOTES MISSION COMMAND

INTRODUCTION 

[The] greatest challenge facing your Army and my 

main worry [is]: How can the Army break up the institutional concrete, its bureaucratic rigidity in its assignments and promotion processes, in order to retain, 

challenge, and inspire its best, brightest, and most 

battle-tested young officers to lead the service in the 

future? 

 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, 

February 2011, 

 Address to U.S. Military Academy Cadets 

A recent series of press reports describing senior 

officer misconduct have tarnished the image of the 

Army profession in the eyes of the American public. 

These incidents caused Secretary of Defense Chuck 

Hagel to speculate in a press conference on February 5, 

2014, that the military may suffer from systemic problems in the way it selects and promotes leaders.1

 Recognizing these systemic problems, the 2014 National 

Defense Authorization Act directed the Department 

of Defense (DoD) to assess the feasibility of fundamentally changing its performance evaluation system 

by including peer and subordinate evaluations in the 

promotion, assignment, and selection of its leaders.2

These two externals calls for change combine with 

growing pressure within the Army to reconsider performance evaluation. Three recent surveys conducted 

by the Center for Army Leadership suggest growing 
2

distrust among junior leaders in the ability of the Army 

as an institution to promote and select the best leaders.3

 These studies indicate widespread belief among 

officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) that 

the skills and abilities required to succeed before a 

promotion board are not the ones most valuable to the 

organizations that they lead. These pressures come at 

a difficult time for the military when the identification 

of talent is of paramount importance.

Because of the Budget Control Act of 2011, the 

Army faces a 20 percent reduction in forces over the 

next 5 years.4 As a result, the Army must cut deep into 

its talent pool while retaining its very best. The situation suggests that the time is right for the Army to 

reconsider its approach to talent management.

The Army currently evaluates leadership potential 

primarily through an annual Officer Efficiency Report 

(OER) prepared by the officer’s immediate supervisor and a senior officer. The OER has evolved over 

time, and the 10th version is slated to go into effect 

this year.5 While each version of the OER has taken a 

slightly different approach to how information is organized, the fundamental premise behind Army performance evaluation has remained unchanged. This 

premise holds that superiors in the immediate chain 

of command are the best observers with both the position and experience necessary to evaluate the leadership abilities of an officer. 

Re-evaluating the Army’s approach to performance evaluation requires an understanding of the 

leader attributes and behaviors that the Army seeks 

within its future force. In June 2013, the Chief of Staff 

of the Army directed that the philosophy of mission 

command would serve as the cornerstone of the Army 

leader development strategy. Mission command has 
3

been used as a formal military concept at least since 

the Prussian Army reforms in the early-19th century 

following the Napoleonic wars. The Prussians used 

the term Auftragstaktik, literally “mission tactics,” to 

define a philosophy of command that emphasized 

intent-based orders and subordinate officer initiative.6

A White Paper on mission command from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin 

Dempsey further elaborated the desired cultural attributes of this philosophy. Summarizing Dempsey, disciplined initiative demands the artful combination of 

two often-competing character traits: creative ingenuity and a rigid adherence to specified intent. Balancing 

these two competing requirements demands a culture 

of trust and candor between senior and subordinate 

officers. Leaders must have confidence in the technical competence of their subordinates. Subordinates 

likewise, must feel empowered to take reasonable risk 

and pursue the overall best interests of their mission 

even at the cost of short-term performance.7

If the mission command philosophy defines the 

culture that the Army seeks to promote, then a wellstructured performance evaluation system should assess the Army leader’s ability to adhere to this philosophy. As the Secretary of Defense and others consider 

changes to performance evaluation in the Army, it is 

useful to determine how well the current system assesses the critical leader attributes and behaviors of 

mission command. Specifically, can the current Army 

performance evaluation system properly assess and 

select officers suited to exercise mission command? 

Answering this research question required six 

steps. First, it was necessary to understand the essential leader attributes and behaviors necessary for the 

exercise of mission command. These attributes were 
4

well-documented in relevant Army doctrinal publications. It was also useful to consider the history of the 

mission command concept itself and how this concept 

influenced the evolution of performance evaluation 

in the military profession. Second, having established 

the types of leader behavior most valuable to the exercise of mission command, it became necessary to 

consider methods for evaluating this behavior. Doing 

so requires a review of the research in the field of talent management to identify appropriate evaluation 

methods. These two steps established the outline of a 

performance evaluation system optimized to measure 

mission command attributes. 

The third step required a review of the history 

and design of the existing Army performance evaluation system. Understanding how the existing system 

evolved into its present form clarified the leader attributes it was originally intended to assess. In the fourth 

step, it was necessary to evaluate how well the existing 

system conformed to the attributes established earlier. 

This required a review of the extensive research done 

by the Army into the effectiveness of its existing performance evaluation model. A careful examination of 

the existing structure of this system and its cultural 

effects revealed that the current system, as it stands, 

detracts from the exercise of mission command. 

Fifth, having established that the existing system 

failed to assess critical elements of mission command, 

it was necessary to investigate other methods of performance evaluation outside of the Army to determine 

if those methods could provide a better model. The 

research examined a variety of best practice models in 

private business and the public sector and identified 

alternative approaches to performance evaluation. 

Three alternative models were chosen for scrutiny 
5

because they demonstrated an ability specifically to 

identify and select for the leader attributes essential to 

mission command. These leader behaviors were poorly evaluated under the Army’s existing single-source 

performance appraisal system. A cursory examination 

of alternate approaches did not conclusively prove 

that the Army would benefit by adopting any particular model. It did suggest, however, that other models 

or a combination of models might improve the Army’s 

proficiency in assessing the attributes it believes are 

most important. 

Finally, any change to the performance evaluation 

system in a large government bureaucracy like the 

military will face both legal and cultural obstacles. It 

was necessary to evaluate these obstacles and consider the potential pitfalls associated with reforming the 

existing system. Judging the feasibility of such reform 

required a review of the statutory framework under 

which the Army promotes its officers. In addition, it 

was useful to consider the lessons learned from other 

organizations that have attempted similar reforms 

to assess if any of those lessons are appropriate to 

the Army. 

The research ultimately showed that the current 

evaluation system, centered on the OER, cannot fully 

assess the fitness of officers for mission command. 

Furthermore, the alternative models examined in 

this research provide insight into methods already 

prevalent in the civilian world that may improve the 

Army’s ability to assess mission command oriented 

leadership. Talent management models that combine the top-down, senior leader evaluation with 

subordinate evaluations and objective testing appear 

to provide a more holistic view of performance and 

potential. A broader approach to performance evalua-
6

tion eliminates blind spots inherent in a single-source 

evaluation system and can assess a leader’s impact on 

internal organizational climate better than the current 

system. This evidence suggests that the Army must 

carefully investigate alternative evaluation processes 

if it is to consciously identify and select officers that 

meet the requirements of mission command. Finally, 

as an appendix to this monograph, two specific proposals are offered for further research that seek to operationalize this broader approach in a coherent and 

prudent manner. 

TOWARD A PHILOSOPHY OF MISSION 

COMMAND 

Mission command is defined as the “the exercise 

of authority and direction by the commander using 

mission orders to enable disciplined initiative within 

the commander’s intent to empower agile and adaptive leaders.”8

 Effective mission command, therefore, 

demands specific behaviors on the part of both the 

superior and subordinate. Because virtually every officer in the Army is simultaneously a superior and a 

subordinate, an effective evaluation must assess both 

sets of behaviors. 

Army doctrine identifies the first principle of mission command as “the building of cohesive teams 

through mutual trust.”9 Stephen M. Covey, in The Speed 

of Trust, identified mutual trust in an organization as a 

crucial factor that reduces costs, increases agility, and 

enables the organization to adapt to complexity or 

adversity. Dr. Covey argues that high-trusting organizations enjoy a “trust dividend” that allows them to 

perform better in the market place, react better to adversity, and retain a larger portion of their best talent. 
7

Likewise, organizations with low-trust cultures pay a 

“trust tax” that drains profits through costly regulation and high personnel turnover rates.10 It is this trust 

dividend that, according to Dempsey, lies at the heart 

of the Army’s pursuit of a mission command culture.11

Since trust is such an important component of the 

mission command philosophy, it is useful to explore 

its meaning in greater detail. While researchers have 

offered definitions for trust, the one most applicable to 

its usage in mission command is suggested by Roger 

Mayer, James Davis, and F. David Schoorman in a 1995 

research paper for the Academy of Management Review. 

They define trust as “the willingness of a party to be 

vulnerable to the outcomes of another party based on 

the expectation that the other will perform a particular 

action important to the trustor.”12 It is this vulnerability that distinguishes trust from mere cooperation. In 

effect, trust is defined by a willingness by the trustor 

to accept risk.

The research by Mayer and others goes on to identify three factors most important in influencing the 

perceived trustworthiness of a potential trustee. These 

factors are ability, benevolence, and integrity.13 Ability is the measure of a trustee’s physical and mental 

capacity to meet expectations. Benevolence is the measure of the trustee’s perceived willingness to do good 

to the trustor. Integrity is the measure of the trustee’s 

adherence to an agreed set of principles and priorities.14 Trustworthiness is therefore, a combination of 

technical competence and demonstrated commitment 

to others and to universally agreed principles. 

Simply being trustworthy, however, is not sufficient. An effective practitioner of mission command 

must likewise possess the capacity to trust others. 

Colonel Tom Guthrie, when Director of the Center for 
8

Army Leadership, pointed out the all-too-common 

phenomenon of leaders demanding trust from their 

superiors and then denying it to their subordinates. 

“If leaders only want mission command to exist above 

their level, then we will be limiting its intended and 

desired effect.”15 While it could be argued that a senior 

leader can evaluate effectively the trustworthiness of 

his subordinates along the lines proposed by Mayer, 

evaluating their ability to trust and empower others is 

much more problematic. 

Before turning to the literature on performance 

evaluation methods and practices, it is useful first to 

look closer at the historical antecedent for the modern 

concept of mission command. This review is helpful 

because it shows how previous attempts to inculcate 

mission command into organizational culture demanded both increased professionalism and a broader 

approach to performance appraisal.

A History of Mission Command. 

The modern concept of mission command first 

emerged in Prussia following the Prussian Army’s 

rapid defeats at the battles of Jena and Auerstadt in 

1806. Prussian leaders recognized that the only plausible response to Napoleon’s genius was to develop 

a warfighting organization that could out-think and 

out-maneuver its opponent by radically decentralizing battlefield decisionmaking. As the Prussian leadership sought to formalize this new decentralized 

approach, its detractors gave it the pejorative moniker “Auftragstaktik” to distinguish it from traditional 

methods of command known as “Normaltaktik.”16

Perhaps more than any other leader, Field Marshal 

Helmuth von Moltke was most responsible for insti-
9

tutionalizing the concept of Auftragstaktik in Prussian 

military doctrine.17 Moltke observed that the increased 

dispersion of forces driven by the improvement in the 

accuracy of firearms demanded a change to the way 

small unit leaders behaved on the battlefield. He believed that orders given to subordinates in combat 

should define a desired military outcome and the 

absolute minimum boundary conditions necessary 

to achieve that outcome. The details of achieving the 

end state should be left to the initiative of the subordinate commander.18 This allowed subordinate commanders to exploit fleeting battlefield opportunities 

without having to consult with the higher command. 

Implementing this concept required changes to both 

doctrine and culture within the Prussian military. 

Subordinate commanders could no longer simply 

execute rote drill procedures as they did in the days 

of Frederick the Great. They now needed to foster a 

culture of professionalism and trust within their organizations to encourage the junior officer initiative 

and independent judgment that was the foundation 

of Auftragstaktik.

The shift from rote execution of orders to a culture 

of subordinate initiative led to changes in the way the 

Prussian War College known as the Kriegsacademie 

trained and prepared its officers. The Kriegsacademie, 

established in 1810, the Prussian Army’s nadir, had 

emerged by 1860 to become the premier military educational institution in Europe if not the world.19 Officers were nominated for attendance after 5 years of 

service and had to undergo a grueling 10-day entrance 

examination prior to admission.20 For Von Moltke, the 

link between the academic rigor of the Kriegsacademie 

and the execution of Auftragstaktik was self-evident. 

The only way to ensure disciplined initiative was for 
10

field grade and flag commanders to arrive on the battlefield already experts in the tactical employment of 

their forces. Education alone was not enough. These 

officers had to be fully certified through a rigorous 

professional examination process not unlike a lawyer or doctor is today. This ensured that when fleeting tactical opportunity presented itself, they would 

be equipped with the judgment to exploit it. Without 

professional certification, Auftragstaktik was merely a 

recipe for creative disorder. 

As Prussian and subsequent German military traditions were subsumed by Nazi ideology in the 1930s, 

the role of Auftragstaktik in German doctrine and praxis waned.21 However, the traditional belief persisted 

that effective combat leadership demanded a culture 

of trust within and between military organizations. 

The Wehrmacht recognized that the organizational climate necessary for a culture of trust was difficult to 

assess from outside the organization. As a result, the 

Wehrmacht developed the first documented use of subordinate and peer evaluations.22 In the 1950s, several 

civilian corporations studied this practice and adopted it within their own corporate personnel systems.23

While the modern concept of mission command 

embodied in Army doctrine today differs in some significant ways from the 19th century concept of Auftragstaktik, its core tenant of disciplined initiative based 

on mutual trust, remains the same. This review of 

the Prussian experience demonstrates how the move 

toward Auftragstaktik promoted a need for greater 

professional competence at lower levels in the chain 

of command and a desire to look outside traditional 

methods of performance evaluation to find ways to 

assess a leader’s impact on organizational culture 

and process. 
11

The Army’s recent move toward mission command philosophy suggests that it, like the Prussian 

Army of the 19th century, is placing increasing value 

on internal organizational process rather than on organizational output. Where the Prussians were reacting to the need to fight outnumbered on an increasingly dispersed battlefield, American Army leaders 

today must deal with complex battlefield conditions. 

Further complicating this complexity is the gradual 

evolution in the nature of warfare in the information 

age. Several authors have shown that events on the 

21st century battlefield can now have strategic consequences that far outweigh their tactical effects.24 In 

this context, how a leader accomplishes his mission 

is increasingly important. A rifle company is no longer a black box that produces combat effects. How 

a military unit produces those effects can often have 

tremendous strategic impact. As a result, the internal 

dynamics of a military unit are increasingly relevant 

to the overall organization. Evaluating and selecting 

leaders based on their impact on the internal dynamics of their organization rather than their organizational output demands a different approach to talent 

management. Fortunately, the science of performance 

evaluation has expanded greatly since the Army published its first version of the OER in the early-1970s. A 

survey of the considerable body of research on performance evaluation will show what methods of talent 

management are suited to assess the leader’s contribution to the internal dynamics of his unit. Specifically, 

this survey will consider the benefits and liabilities 

of various performance evaluation methods to help 

identify those methods that might align better with a 

philosophy of mission command.
12

A LITERATURE SURVEY ON PERFORMANCE 

EVALUATION 

Research in the field of talent management has 

shown that an effective performance evaluation system must provide both the means and the metrics to 

measure the attributes deemed most valuable to the 

organization. This process is described in the literature 

as the alignment of business strategy to talent management strategy.25 The preceding section established 

that mission command, like its predecessor, Auftragstaktik, can only function effectively within a specific 

organizational climate. That climate must exhibit two 

primary attributes: First, mission command thrives in 

a culture where trust is both given and received; and 

second, there must exist a culture of professional competence based on demonstrated ability. 

Research by Gregory Kesler, among others, has 

examined the relationships between appraisal systems and organizational culture and concluded that 

top-down, single-source evaluation methods tend to 

promote a results-oriented culture in which output 

is valued over process.26 Senior leaders are best positioned to evaluate the relative value of a subordinate 

leader’s organizational output and its contribution to 

the larger enterprise, but they are often poorly positioned to assess the internal organizational dynamics 

of subordinate teams. This is particularly true in cases, 

often seen in profit-oriented businesses, where organizational output is relatively objective and measurable. 

Over time, the incentive structure shapes organizational behavior to value the cultivation of loyalty from 

senior managers over all other modes of performance. 

A Vice President of Capital One echoed this sentiment 

when he stated: 
13

In my former company, we paid lip service to decentralized, rapid decision-making but never rewarded 

the people who did it best. Top-down evaluations 

simply aren’t perceptive. The 360 degree system highlights the truly independent thinkers, and we’re a better company because we identify and reward them.27

Some studies have even suggested that less than 25 

percent of an individual manager’s effectiveness is 

observable by his boss.28

Tracy Mallet, Chief Executive Officer for the management consulting firm DecisionWise, opined that 

a large majority of companies that rely exclusively 

on single-source evaluation techniques find those 

methods lead to an inaccurate perception of performance.29 Single-source evaluation methods create an 

opportunity for an individual leader to adapt so well 

to the incentive structure that he essentially creates 

two separate worlds—one for his superiors and one 

for his organization. This conclusion is supported by 

exhaustive statistical analysis by Emily Lai, Edward 

Wolfe, and Daisy Vickers, who argued that singlesource assessment systems are uniquely vulnerable 

to the halo effect and confirmation bias.30 A well-documented cognitive bias, the halo effect, occurs when 

a high-performer in one well-observed domain is assumed to perform equally well in other unobserved 

domains. Employees who can successfully orchestrate 

positive interactions in highly-observable activities, 

such as briefings before superiors, benefit from this 

cognitive bias.

Recent scholarship on single-source performance 

evaluation systems, such as the infamous “rank and 

yank” system promoted by General Electric under 

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jack Welch has sug-
14

gested that forced distribution based solely on leader 

impressions promotes dysfunctional behavior in an organization. Most significantly, it encourages a culture 

in which mid-level leaders seek foremost to cultivate 

the loyalty of their superiors, often to the detriment of 

loyalty among their subordinates and within creative 

teams.31 This discovery explains why many large corporations, most notably Microsoft, have moved away 

from this method in recent years.32

A report completed by the Army’s Chief of Staff 

Leader Development Task Force in 2013 found, “a 

large part of the force is functioning, or perceived by a 

large part of the force to be functioning in a command 

environment that is not guided by the principles of 

mission command.”33 The report recommended educating raters and senior raters on how to use the OER 

to evaluate officers on mission command.34 While this 

sounds like a simple and straightforward task, the research here shows that top-down, single-source evaluation systems are inherently handicapped in their 

ability to evaluate effectively a subordinate’s ability to 

conduct mission command.

Another undesirable artifact of a single-source 

evaluation system is its tendency to promote functional anonymity in organizations. In 1993, Clinton 

Longenecker and Dean Ludwig published a study in 

the Journal of Business Ethics on prominent leadership 

failures.35 They suggested that unethical and toxic 

leader behaviors could be explained best as byproducts of success rather than a response to the stress of 

leadership. Borrowing from the biblical story of King 

David’s infidelity with the wife of one of his military 

officers,36 they described this effect as the “Bathsheba 

Syndrome.” Their research suggested that the functional anonymity experienced by leaders with large 
15

amounts of autonomy was a major risk factor in the 

emergence of dysfunctional behaviors. They observed 

that detection is the primary factor that deters unethical conduct. They concluded their report with advice 

to corporate boards on different techniques for maintaining leader accountability. Their advice included 

unannounced audits and the use of ombudsmen to 

query employees about organizational climate.37

Research across the talent management field continues to indicate that investments into a rigorous assessment process can yield substantial improvements 

in the quality of the workforce. For example, 90 percent of Fortune 1000 companies now include multiple 

source assessment tools in their performance evaluation system.38 In addition, a growing number of public 

and private organizations employ objective assessment centers to evaluate potential in a wide variety of 

skills.39 Successful corporations like General Electric, 

International Business Machines, and The Limited 

have reoriented their business priorities to focus significant resources on the development of executive 

selection and succession management strategies.40

Douglas Bray, author of an exhaustive multidecade 

study of human resource practices at American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) came to the conclusion 

that, “If you have only one dollar to spend on either 

improving the way you develop people or improving 

your selection and hiring process, pick the latter.”41

Research by Nowak in 1992 likewise concluded that 

organizations that make this investment, employing 

an appropriate methodology that accounts for multiple perspectives on performance, tend to realize 

significant gains in productivity.42

In the 1990s, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras conducted an exhaustive 6-year study of 18 visionary corpora-
16

tions that consistently had outperformed their peers 

across multiple business cycles. One of their conclusions was that great corporations focus “first on who, 

and then what.”43 They concluded that, in a complex 

and changing business world, good talent is more important than good strategy. The results of their study 

showed that corporations that invested heavily in talent by studying their leaders in great detail and getting “the right players in the right seats on the bus”44

were the ones that ultimately survived in a chaotic 

business environment.

This brief survey of the research in performance 

evaluation has shown that top-down, single-source 

evaluation methods have a distinct disadvantage in 

measuring the internal dynamics of an organization. 

In situations where internal climate and culture are a 

critical component of organizational success, the literature suggests that a more holistic and resource intensive approach is necessary. With this in mind, it is useful to consider the history of the Army’s performance 

evaluation system. This investigation will reveal what 

the existing system was originally designed to assess 

as it first evolved in the interwar period.

THE HISTORY OF THE ARMY PERFORMANCE 

EVALUATION SYSTEM

The Army leadership development model in use 

today emerged from the late-19th century Army reforms and proposals made by Major General Emory 

Upton. In the 1870s, he conducted an exhaustive 

survey of military organization and doctrine in the 

armies of France, Germany, England, Persia, China, 

and India. Upton identified the primary challenge facing the U.S. Army as the need to create and foster a 

profession of arms in a society that had long valued 
17

the citizen soldier as the centerpiece of its national security. Borrowing heavily from the models he found 

in Prussia, Upton proposed the creation of a standing 

general staff, a formal process for officer examination 

and promotion, and the creation of a number of professional schools to teach military science. One of the 

most important reforms that Upton proposed was the 

concept of lineal promotion.45

Since the Revolutionary War, officers had been 

generally recruited, assessed, promoted, and retired 

within a single regiment. That practice had the advantage of providing senior leaders in each regiment deep 

insight into the abilities of the officers in its population. It also fostered rampant parochialism and led to 

wide differences in the promotion opportunities in 

various regiments. Upton believed that lineal promotion hindered the performance of Union Armies in the 

Civil War and inhibited the creation of a professional 

army.46 Upton proposed changing the system by reassigning an officer to a different regiment, preferably 

in a different part of the country, at each grade in his 

career.47 For his plan to work, he knew that the Army 

would need to develop a centralized promotion system to replace the regimental system in effect. His 

proposed solution was a formal examination process 

for company grade officers. A board of officers would 

review an officer’s recent fitness reports from superiors and peer evaluations by other officers in his regiment. The board would then administer both an oral 

and written exam to the officer.48 In Upton’s model, 

then, the ideal way to evaluate officers as they moved 

from regiment to regiment was to combine three inputs. These inputs were the standard rater efficiency 

report, a peer evaluation, and an objective examination by an outside board. All three inputs would be 

considered in the promotion process.
18

Unfortunately, Major General Upton underestimated the power of the military bureaus. The bureaus 

had held, for almost a century, near exclusive control 

over the promotion and selection of officers within 

their respective areas of specialty. Many of his other 

reforms eventually were adopted by Secretary of War 

Elihu Root, following the Army’s disappointing performance in the Spanish-American War. However, 

his recommendations regarding a rigorous promotion 

board based on both leader and peer evaluation and 

formal examination were largely ignored.49

At the same time that Secretary of War Root was 

considering Upton’s recommendations, an important 

transformation was occurring in American society. 

This was the progressive era of American politics, and 

the nation was consumed with the optimism that scientific progress could cure social ills and promote the 

common welfare. The high confidence in the power of 

science led to the application of scientific study to the 

fields of both human behavior and business. As the industrial revolution propelled the American workforce 

from a collection of cottage industry trade-crafts to a 

mass-production society, the field of Human Resource 

Management began to emerge as a formal science.50

One of the most influential thinkers in the field 

at this time was Frederick Taylor. Taylor began his 

working life as a machinist and then a supervisor in 

the steel industry, where he observed that most workers did not work as hard as their potential permitted. 

In fact, he concluded that most of his peers would operate machinery at the slowest rate that went unpunished by management. In 1913, he published a paper 

entitled, “The Principles of Scientific Management,” in 

which he argued that production methods could be 

optimized and standardized with worker compensa-
19

tion directly tied to the achievement of production 

goals.51 Taylor’s scientific management theory transformed life in the American factory. Floor managers 

subdivided complex tasks into routine and standardized actions. Hyper-specialization allowed factories 

to replace skilled artisans with hourly workers who 

performed only one or two routine actions at a constant rate over the course of a workday. The result 

was the modern assembly line and the explosion in 

productivity that came with it.

While Taylor’s methods undoubtedly had a major impact on the ability of the nation’s factories to 

generate higher levels of productivity, it had several 

negative effects on the nature and structure of the 

American workforce. Because of the detailed scientific 

study that went into the optimization of each of these 

routine tasks, workers were not encouraged to innovate but merely implement established procedures. 

Additionally, specialization ensured that hardly anyone in the organization had a full understanding of 

the end-to-end process. Effectively integrating the 

various work functions performed on the factory floor 

required a new breed of middle managers previously 

unknown to the manufacturing industry. With very 

clear standards of performance, a manager could patrol the factory floor and assess the performance and 

relative value of his workers based on their ability to 

meet production quotas while adhering to established 

procedures. Since the procedures required little exercise in judgment at the operator level, workers essentially became interchangeable parts in the machinery 

of the factory and could be retooled from one task to 

another in order to optimize productivity.52

Donald Vandergriff has argued in Path to Victory that the success of “Taylorism” had a profound 
20

effect on the ongoing efforts to professionalize the military.53 In particular, the theory of scientific management heavily influenced Secretary of War Root as he 

attempted to implement many of Upton’s proposals. 

One of the most obvious influences was the centralization of personnel functions at the Army staff level.54 In 

the National Defense Act of 1920, Congress mandated 

sweeping reforms to the organization of the Army, 

creating a peacetime General Staff with a centralized 

office for personnel management and establishing a 

centralized promotion list for each grade. This greatly 

reduced the power of the bureaus to control the promotion of their officers. It also eliminated the perennial infighting among various bureaus competing for 

promotion quotas. The Act also sought to preserve the 

expansibility of the Army by maintaining an activeduty force of 17,726 commissioned officers—three 

times the pre-war number.55

To handle the vast responsibility of managing 

the performance evaluation records for such a large 

population of officers, the newly formed General Staff 

created the Personnel Office. Employing Taylor’s 

management theory, the Army Personnel office established a standardized method for assembling the 

promotion list based on time in service and medical 

fitness. Like cogs in a vast machine, all officers with 

equivalent time in service and shown to be fit for duty 

by a medical panel were deemed equally deserving 

of promotion. It is worth noting that the Army maintained a formalized system of routine performance 

evaluation during this period with fitness reports that, 

at one point, stretched to 24 pages.56 Despite the exceptional detail of these reports, they appeared to play 

only a minor role in the promotion of officers.
21

The centralized promotion board process that 

emerged from the Defense Act of 1920 was designed 

primarily to examine officer records to identify any 

disqualifying trait rather than identify the very best 

qualified officer. Those early boards generally consisted of three officers chosen from different bureaus, 

along with two medical officers. While the bureau officers did apply some judgment to the review process, 

their primary purpose on the board was to represent 

the parochial interests of their bureau.57

This history is important because it provides insight into how the Army melded a cultural aversion to 

self-promotion and a respect for long and honorable 

service with the principles of scientific management 

emerging in the business community. The result was 

the centralized promotion board process that is still 

in place today. The Army of the interwar period employed merit as a basis for retention rather than promotion, and culled only the least desirable from the 

profession. Seniority and honorable service were seen 

as the primary basis for promotion to higher rank. This 

attitude reflects Taylor’s classic principles because it 

assumed that the best a worker can achieve is to meet 

the standards of his assigned task. Those that did 

were rewarded with promotion in due course, while 

those that failed to meet the minimum standard were 

eliminated.

Herein lies the crux of so much frustration among 

junior officers today. The Army has sought to incorporate some element of Auftragstaktik into its warfighting 

doctrine at least since the publication of Field Manual 

(FM) 100-5 in 1941.58

The officer manning and promotion system, however, fights against this aspiration because it was constructed on a fundamentally different organizational 
22

concept. This concept is founded on Taylor’s vision of 

a commoditized labor pool. This model may have had 

some utility in conflicts where extremely high casualty rates demanded a near continuous churn of small 

unit leaders. More recent experience has shown that 

small unit leaders on the modern battlefield are highly 

specialized individuals who must exercise broad judgment in unstructured and unpredictable situations. 

This operational ethos, founded on the experience of 

the modern battlefield, diverges from an institutional 

one founded on the practices of a managerial philosophy that still regards Army leaders as interchangeable 

parts. The result of this clash of ethos is a cognitive 

dissonance within the officer corps that pits the Army’s leader development strategy against the historical legacy of its manning and personnel structure.

SYMPTOMS OF A FAILING SYSTEM

The evidence of our discussion thus far has established three compelling conclusions: First, a philosophy of mission command demands an increased 

emphasis on a unique set of organizational dynamics centered on the concept of mutual trust. Second, 

research across the field of performance management 

has shown that single-source evaluation methods are 

poorly suited to assess a leader’s ability to create the 

unique environment necessary for mission command. 

Third, the Army performance evaluation system, along 

with its personnel system, emerged as derivatives of 

a corporate management philosophy that sought to 

maximize efficiency by regarding small unit leaders as 

interchangeable parts of the military machine. These 

three conclusions strongly suggest that the Army performance evaluation system will struggle to assess 
23

leaders on their exercise of mission command. The next 

step, then, is to evaluate the Army’s own recent research 

into the effectiveness of its performance evaluation 

to look for symptoms of the difficulties predicted by 

these conclusions.

In June 2013, the Army Leader Development Task 

Force published its most exhaustive study yet of leadership attitudes across the Army. The study based 

its findings on detailed interviews with over 550 officers ranking from lieutenant to colonel and over 

12,000 responses to an Army-wide survey. One of the 

study’s most surprising findings was that only about 

half of Army leaders believe personnel evaluations 

and promotion decisions are accurate.59 Additionally, 

19 percent of survey respondents claimed that they 

never received performance counseling, even though 

performance counseling is a mandatory component 

of the Officer Evaluation System and the centerpiece 

of the Army’s performance appraisal system. A separate survey of 250 West Point graduates, both inside 

and outside the military, found that only 30 percent 

believed that the Army does a good job promoting the 

right officers.60 A full 78 percent believed that this failure has a direct and negative impact on our national 

security.61

Not only does the current evaluation system undermine confidence in the efficacy of Army promotion 

decisions, it also engenders dysfunctional behaviors 

in the officer corps as ambitious officers seek to game 

the system. A recent review of selectees for infantry 

battalion command showed an average of 36 months 

of field grade key and developmental (KD) time. This 

is a significant departure from the 24 months typically 

expected of officers at this grade. Since performance 

in KD assignments is weighted heavier than perfor-
24

mance in other broadening assignments, officers 

naturally expect that their reports will receive special 

attention from their senior raters while they occupy 

these choice assignments. The key to gaming the system is to maximize the time spent in KD assignments 

since they enjoy a special advantage over those within 

the senior rater’s pool who are not in these positions. 

Additionally, not all senior raters are created equal. A 

senior rater with a broad profile of Army officers and 

a wide reputation across the Army is considered better than one working in a small niche organization, or 

worse, a joint officer from another service.

The net effect has been to discourage talented officers from pursuing truly broadening assignments in 

the joint community or unique staff positions where 

the population of peer Army officers is necessarily 

limited. For example, the most common broadening 

assignment for infantry battalion command selectees 

in 2012 was the position of aide-de-camp to a General 

officer.62 Examined purely based on promotion board 

results, the most valuable service that an officer can 

provide outside of KD or command duty is to serve as 

an aide to a senior leader.

Empirical evidence also suggests that the writing 

skill of the rater on an OER often carries nearly equal 

weight to the merit of the officer being rated. A 2013 

study of over 4,000 Army officers revealed a surprising 

correlation between rater and rated officer promotion 

rates. The study showed that company commanders 

stood a 29 percent greater likelihood of promotion below the zone to major if they served under a battalion 

commander who was likewise promoted below the 

zone to major.63 While this evidence can suggest that 

effective mentorship by a high-performing leader provides an officer with a strong competitive advantage, 
25

a different interpretation of the data is also possible. 

Promotion below the zone to major is based heavily 

on the strength of officer evaluation reports written 

during company command. The previous data suggests that an officer who has the good fortune to serve 

under a high-performing mentor during this critical 

period may benefit from the increased proficiency 

of the mentor’s writing and the increased opportunity for the mentor to advocate for the officer to his 

senior rater. The significant difference in promotion 

rates found in the study confirms one of the primary 

criticisms of single-source evaluation techniques. The 

quality of the report is often as much an assessment of 

the report’s author as its subject.

In addition, surveys within and outside the Army 

repeatedly have suggested that the single-source approach to performance evaluation is a leading cause 

for talented junior officers to depart the military.64 A 

2,000 Army Research Institute Study on captain attrition interviewed 161 students of the Combined Arms 

Staff School and found that eight of the 20 factors most 

likely to cause officers to resign their commission were 

related directly to the structure of the performance 

evaluation system and its perceived effects.65 A similar study by the Army Training and Leader Development Panel conducted that same year concluded that 

junior officers observed, “diminishing direct contact 

between seniors and subordinates . . . evidenced by 

leaders that are focused up rather than down.”66 They 

also cited “the OER as a source of mistrust and anxiety.”67 In addition to these challenges, evidence continues to mount that senior leaders, no matter how capable, struggle to detect evidence of toxic leadership 

within their subordinate commands.

In 2010, the Navy conducted an exhaustive investigation into all 80 incidents in which a field grade level 
26

commander was relieved for cause in the preceding 

5-year period. Only 11 of these incidents were attributed directly to a toxic or dysfunctional command climate in the organization. In all but one of these cases, 

however, the relief came because of pressure from an 

external agent such as the Navy Inspector General or 

Congress. The commander’s direct supervisor identified and took action in only a single incident. The 

study concluded that in 10 of 11 cases, the toxic behaviors that led to the relief were invisible to the superior 

officer charged with evaluating the leader.68

This evidence is reinforced by two recent studies 

on toxic leadership at the U.S. Army War College in 

2003 and the Command and General Staff College in 

2009. Both studies concluded that the vast majority of 

toxic leader behavior was essentially invisible to those 

in positions of authority over the leader in question.69

In view of these findings, the authors of the study 

recommended to the Secretary of the Army that the 

supervisor centric leader evaluation process be augmented with input from peers and subordinates.70 This 

additional information, while not superior to a senior 

leader’s evaluation of his subordinate leaders, would 

serve as a hedge against the harmful consequences of 

the halo effect. The Army’s emphasis on performance 

as evaluated by a distant superior presents a moral 

hazard to an aspiring officer by placing him in a situation where his self-interest demands he focus his attention up the chain of command while his concept of 

duty demands that he focus downward. Recognizing 

that the vast majority of his leadership behavior will 

go unobserved and unevaluated, a purely self-interested officer has great incentive to script and shape 

engagements to produce a desired illusion at the expense of the long-term health of the outfit he leads.
27

The Curious Case of Major General Lloyd 

Fredendall.

History provides a powerful example of the limited ability of any leader to accurately assess the internal dynamics of subordinate formations. In 1943, 

Major General Lloyd Fredendall, then Commander of 

U.S. II Corps, was assigned to lead his Corps into the 

Army’s first major battle in the European theater. In 

an Army so focused on leader development and so full 

of promising officers at the time, Fredendall proved a 

curious choice to lead such an important command. 

Kicked out of West Point twice for poor grades and 

possessing very limited World War I combat experience, Fredendall had a terrible reputation as a harsh 

disciplinarian, a detached leader, and an uncooperative partner. General George Marshall, however, was 

impressed by Fredendall when Fredendall was an instructor at the Infantry School at Ft. Benning, GA. As 

a result, Marshall encouraged General Dwight Eisenhower to place him in command.71 In February 1943, 

as II Corps occupied positions in the Atlas mountain 

range of Tunisia, Fredendall quickly lived up to his 

reputation. He alienated both his French and British 

allies as well as his subordinate commanders with a 

mixture of confusing and conflicting guidance to his 

division commanders and was nearly insubordinate 

to the British First Army commander. He directed 

his most capable fighting formation, the 1st Armored 

Division, to dissipate its strength in small packets of 

combat power across a wide front.72 Perhaps most 

puzzling was his directive, issued from his command 

bunker almost 100 miles from the front, for the 168th 

Regimental Combat Team to divide its combat power 
28

on two isolated hilltops near a potential axis of enemy 

advance.

The night before the German attack, Eisenhower 

toured the front lines with the 1st Armored Division 

commander, Major General Orlando Ward. Ward 

was deeply concerned with the defensive dispositions directed by Fredendall but declined to express 

his reservations directly to Eisenhower. Eisenhower 

left believing all was well. That evening, only hours 

before the disastrous battle, Eisenhower sent a note 

to Marshall that he was impressed with Fredendall’s 

“thorough knowledge of his battlefront,” adding that, 

“he seems keen and fit and I am placing a lot of confidence in him.”73

When Rommel’s forces struck on February 14, 

the results were both predictable and tragic. The two 

infantry battalions defending the high ground were 

rapidly isolated and overwhelmed. With most of the 

armored forces spread across the Corps front, counterattacks were piecemeal and ineffective. By the end of 

the first day, U.S. forces were in full retreat in the face 

of the German combined arms onslaught, with nearly 

all of the Corp’s tanks and over 1,000 lives lost. Fredendall’s behavior during the battle was as puzzling 

as his preparations. When Eisenhower sent forward 

his deputy, Major General Ernest Harmon, to assess 

the state of the command, Fredendall handed over the 

command of the battle to him and quickly retired to 

his quarters. As the Kasserine Pass fell on February 

20, Fredendall became increasingly despondent and 

was observed sitting on a crate sipping bourbon with 

his head in his hands focused on who would bear the 

blame for the tragedy.74 Eisenhower, despite traveling 

through the Corps area only hours before the fight 

had been unable to observe the toxic climate developing among the senior leaders of II Corps.
29

Leaders do not arrive on the battlefield as an accident of history. Today’s professional military officers come to lead large formations in combat only 

after successfully navigating a complex institutional 

bureaucracy that both shapes them and selects them 

from a large pool of talented peers. Their behavior in 

command is not an accident of chance but rather the 

specific and deliberate choice of an institution whose 

very purpose is to ensure they possess the skills to 

succeed. When a leader such as Fredendall so significantly departs from the stated behaviors encouraged 

by that institution at such a consequential moment, it 

demands investigation into the process that selected 

him for the enormous responsibility he bore.

In 1943 the U.S. Army was brimming with talented 

leaders. Both George Patton and Omar Bradley waited 

patiently in Casablanca for their shot at command. 

The Operations Field Manual 100-5 published 2 years 

earlier borrowed heavily from the Prussian Auftragstaktik concept and emphasized decentralized mission 

type orders based on trust between commanders.75

This command philosophy, however, did not materialize on the battlefield of Tunisia where it might have 

served the II Corps well. It failed to emerge because 

the Army at the time did not fully integrate its warfighting philosophy with its leader selection and performance evaluation policies. Fredendall’s shortcomings were not a failure of doctrine or of the Army’s 

leader development program at the time. The failure 

lay in the process of leader appraisal and selection. 

It was this faulty process that allowed two of the nation’s finest strategists, Eisenhower and Marshall, to 

select a man who was manifestly unprepared for the 

task to lead the nation’s first major battle against the 

armies of Adolf Hitler.
30

Fredendall’s unfortunate story suggests that even 

the very best senior leaders struggle to gain an accurate assessment of their subordinates as leaders. 

It also suggests that a leader, widely regarded as incompetent by those in his organization, is still able to 

stage-manage his interactions with senior leaders in 

such a way as to create and maintain an illusion of 

competence. While history largely has forgotten Fredendall, his tragic story provides a powerful lesson 

for a military that must continue to prepare for the 

unexpected and identify talented leaders to command 

our formations under conditions of incredible stress 

and uncertainty. Unfortunately, this Fredendall syndrome continues to plague the Army today because 

we have not adequately addressed its root cause. Specifically, the Army has failed to provide a systematic 

means for a senior leader to augment his own subjective judgment about his subordinates with a more objective evaluation of their individual abilities. Army 

leaders are asked to make tremendously important 

leadership selection decisions based on very limited 

subjective information gathered from infrequent interactions with subordinates. Not only does this fact 

lead to suboptimal leader selection decisions, but also 

more importantly fosters an environment where external measures of performance outweigh effective 

organizational leadership. This environment directly 

threatens the creation of a culture of mission command across the force.

ALTERNATIVE MODELS OF PERFORMANCE 

EVALUATION

Having examined the shortcomings in the Army’s 

approach, it is useful now to consider alternatives 

from the business community and the public sector 
31

that may better serve the goal of identifying and selecting mission command behaviors. In 1990, Lex Wexner 

was one of the most successful business leaders in 

America. As the founder of the retail chain The Limited, he had witnessed his business grow from nothing 

in 1963 to over 3,800 stores and $5 billion in sales. In 

the early-1990s, The Limited’s stock price plummeted. 

Puzzled by this sudden turn of events, Wexner sought 

the advice of some of the brightest CEOs in business, 

specifically Steven Spielberg and Jack Welch. What he 

observed in both of these leaders was a detachment 

from the day-to-day dramas of the business cycle and 

an obsession with the identification, selection, and development of the best and brightest leaders in their 

organization. Both leaders had multiple overlapping 

systems for assessing and evaluating their best talent 

and invested a large percentage of their personal and 

organizational capital into their hiring and promotion processes. Wexner returned to his company and 

immediately set out transforming his talent management system. He hired outside consultants to evaluate his leaders and instituted a process requiring each 

division to track its top 50 employees. Wexner began 

chairing his own talent review process. Over time, his 

stock slide arrested, and then rebounded. Wexner observed, “I used to pick sweaters; now I pick people.”76

The Army’s mission and culture are radically different from a clothing retailer so there is a danger in 

drawing too many parallels from Wexner’s experience. On the other hand, a careful review of talent 

management literature reveals some consistent best 

practices from successful corporations that diverge 

from the Army’s approach. To better understand 

how the Army evaluation practices compare with the 

best practices of the personnel assessment field, the 
32

research examined the talent management processes 

at several large and successful private corporation and 

a major public sector enterprise. These institutions 

face unique circumstances and cultural imperatives 

but share the same challenge to assess and manage 

their talent in a way that optimizes performance and 

organizational stability.

Example #1: Data-Rich Talent Management 

at International Business Machines.

In 2011, Fortune magazine conducted a detailed 

review of 470 global companies to determine which 

ones best recruited, developed, and retained talent. 

Fortune ranked International Business Machines (IBM) 

as the top corporation out of all 470 in this list.77 With 

just under 400,000 employees, IBM is only slightly 

smaller than the total Army active duty population. 

Compared to the Army, the company offers a radically different approach to evaluating and selecting 

leaders in the organization. Most notably, IBM invests 

a significantly larger level of institutional energy into 

the study and evaluation of its mid-level managers. 

Instead of relying solely on the annual performance 

review common in large corporations, IBM pulls data 

from across the company to develop a holistic picture 

of its managers. The corporation maintains detailed 

reports on managers, to include personality assessments, peer reviews, objective performance metrics, 

and records of developmental experience. IBM’s data 

analysis is not just confined to senior executives but 

extends deep into the organization including its top 

50,000 employees.78 Additionally, IBM specifically 

tracks employee retention rates as a key measure of 

manager performance evaluation.79
33

IBM uses the collected data to inform compensation plans based on a forced ranking of employees 

within job categories. It also uses the data to map out 

succession planning strategies for key assignments 

within the organization. This rich data pool provides 

a deep reservoir of information from which to draw 

conclusions about talent management decisions. Furthermore, the extensive database of peer and subordinate evaluations coupled with standard performance 

metrics allow managers to predict the likely impact 

of personnel decisions on the organizational dynamics of their subordinate teams. The data rich process is 

the heart and soul of the IBM leadership philosophy. 

As a senior IBM executive commented: 

We couldn’t get good business results without good 

leadership. We employ a heavily data-driven talent 

review process using a leadership talent database that 

has dozens of metrics on leaders. We use it heavily all 

year long to access detailed facts on people, experiences, potential, development scores, assessment center, 

performance, etc. We look at empirically based business results and review feedback on leadership approaches and facts about their leadership approaches 

(e.g., number of mentees, talent they’ve exported, talent audits, and climate).80

There is no empirical way to demonstrate that IBM’s 

rich data model is superior to the Army’s centralized 

board process. However, the fact that IBM bases personnel decisions on a broad spectrum of complementary inputs on leadership performance suggests that 

it may have a better sense of how leaders impact the 

internal dynamics of the teams that they lead. 
34

Example #2: Peer Evaluations at CEMEX UK.

A much smaller corporation, CEMEX UK, is notable in the field of performance evaluation for being 

one of the early adopters of formalized 360-degree 

performance evaluations for use in succession management decisions. CEMEX UK is the British subsidiary of a large building materials company headquartered in Mexico City, Mexico. With just over 4,000 

employees CEMEX UK is 1 1/100th the size of IBM. 

Each year, every staff member is required to select up 

to six persons to complete their evaluations. At a minimum, this must include one peer, one internal supplier, and one external supplier. The rated individual’s 

supervisor must approve the pool prior to the start of 

the assessment. What is notable in this method is the 

design of the assessment tool. The peer and customer 

evaluations are narrowly focused on those behaviors 

and dynamics assumed to be invisible to the supervisor, such as group dynamics and customer relations.81

The intent of the evaluation is not to provide a second 

opinion of the supervisor’s assessment but a complementary review focused specifically on those behaviors invisible from the top. As a result the CEMEX 

method serves as an effective complement to the blind 

spots inherent in top-down, single-source evaluation 

systems.

Like most large corporations, salary at CEMEX 

UK is based largely on organizational output while 

the results of the 360-degree reviews serve primarily 

to inform succession management decisions.82 This is 

a second important insight. Focusing the 360-degree 

reviews on succession management decisions rather 

than salary minimizes the temptation by peers to 

overinflate reports but ensures that senior manage-
35

ment has a three dimensional view of those leaders 

that have otherwise shown a potential for greater responsibility in the company. The CEMEX UK experience offers two insights that should inform the search 

for alternate models in the Army. The first is that peer 

and subordinate feedback should remain focused on 

behaviors considered invisible to the primary evaluator. The second insight is that 360-degree assessments 

appear more useful for informing succession management decisions than those related to promotion or 

retention. The CEMEX UK model demonstrates that 

top-down performance reviews and peer evaluations 

can work together if they are carefully designed to 

serve complementary rather than redundant roles.

Example #3: Assessment Centers at Municipal Fire 

Departments in the Southeastern United States.

The two examples thus far have examined alternative ways to assess organizational dynamics 

through broader inputs. In contrast, the final example 

illustrates a second important component of mission 

command defined earlier. A culture of trust can best 

exist in an environment where technical competence 

is assured through a rigorous certification process. 

Trusting untrained amateurs to execute complex tasks 

is a formula for disaster rather than excellence. Most 

professions have, therefore, sought to protect their autonomy by imposing rigorous certification standards 

for each successive level of the profession. These standards serve as gate keepers to prevent amateur practitioners from undermining public or organizational 

trust in the certified members of the profession.

Assessment centers serve the same certification role 

by providing an objective outsider an opportunity to 

thoroughly validate a candidate’s potential to demon-
36

strate the skills and abilities needed at the next level of 

the profession. The concept of the modern assessment 

center emerged in the 1950s with the AT&T Management Study. The AT&T study assessed the ability of 

137 college graduate applicants to Bell subsidiaries 

to perform a series of oral, written and situational exercises. The study then used applicant performance 

to predict the likelihood they would achieve different levels of leadership within the company’s seventiered hierarchy. Without revealing any information 

to the applicants or management, the research team 

then followed these employees for the next 20 years 

as they progressed through the company. The results 

of the assessment proved surprisingly accurate with a 

moderate correlation (p= 0.37) between predicted and 

observed results.83 Since that time, assessment center 

researchers have refined their techniques to produce 

highly accurate results.

Because of their need for sound decisionmaking in 

complex and ambiguous situations, many fire departments across the country increasingly have relied on 

the assessment center as a form of performance evaluation both for initial entry candidates and for positions 

up to and including senior management. Since assessment centers are designed to measure future potential 

more than current competence, they are most often 

used at career inflection points. For example, a senior 

firefighter seeking the position of station fire chief 

must undergo testing at an assessment center. The 

testing includes a number of tests such as an “in-box” 

exercise where candidates must rapidly prioritize a 

number of simultaneous tasks. Other testing includes 

mock tactical scenarios and written tests on legal 

procedures. Two independent evaluators score each 

exam. Results are normalized and then forwarded to 

the fire chief selection board.84
37

The Orange County Fire Department in Central 

Florida has employed this assessment center method 

to aid in the selection of mid-grade leaders for several 

years. With just under 900 full-time employees and 

approximately 69,000 service calls per year, this department is about the size of a large Army battalion. 

In 2000, the department conducted a detailed survey 

of its performance appraisal system to determine if 

the reliance on external assessment centers was a worthy investment.85 The study also solicited feedback 

from 48 other metropolitan fire departments spread 

across the southeastern United States. The research 

concluded that use of assessment centers improved 

fire department hiring and promotion decisions. This 

resulted in a general decrease in performance-based 

terminations. Additionally, the use of an external assessment center was shown to reduce legal protests 

of management decisions and to reduce the effectiveness of those protests when they did occur.86 Simply 

put, the data suggests that most firefighters regarded 

the assessment process as a fair, nonpolitical, and 

objective evaluation of their abilities. The result was 

a growth in confidence in the talent management 

system within the organization.

It is interesting to note that a large cottage industry has developed around helping firemen to prepare 

for and to pass these challenging exercises. Numerous businesses offer study guides and practical exercises to help candidates prepare. Thus, the effect of the 

move toward assessment centers in the fire prevention 

industry is the gradual professionalization of the field.

The examination of the three civilian personnel 

evaluation practices here indicate that alternate performance evaluation systems may be better suited to 

evaluating leadership in a mission command environ-
38

ment than the system currently in place in the Army. 

The examples also suggest that the Army’s search for 

an alternative performance evaluation system should 

begin by considering a mix of these practices. These 

may include 360-degree evaluations from peers and 

subordinates, objective testing at career inflection 

points, and a broader database on individual performance metrics beyond the OER.

LEGAL AND CULTURAL OBSTACLES 

TO IMPLEMENTATION

An Army Times article published in October 2013 

suggested that, while the Army might want to adopt 

a 360-degree performance appraisal system, current 

legal roadblocks rule this out.87 An examination of the 

policy documents governing military promotions indicates that this concern is unfounded. The Defense 

Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA) of 1980 

established the modern process of performance assessment in the military. Among many other reforms, that 

Act established the “up or out” promotion system. In 

the up or out system, officers twice not selected for 

promotion are subject to separation from the Service. 

In addition, the Act mandated fixed ceilings for field 

grade strengths and formalized the centralized promotion board procedures.88 While a detailed discussion 

of DOPMA and its effects is beyond the scope of this 

research, a basic understanding of the Act is necessary 

to appreciate the legal framework of the performance 

appraisal process.

Department of Defense Instruction (DoDI) 1320.14 is 

the regulatory guideline that governs the conduct of 

centralized Army promotion boards and summarizes 

the statutory parameters established by DOPMA and 
39

other sources. The instructions exhort board members 

to ensure the sanctity of the process by considering 

“all eligible officers without prejudice or partiality.”89

Additionally, Section 2c(2)(c) specifies that the Secretary of the Army may designate for consideration 

by the board “substantiated and relevant information 

that he or she considers might reasonably and materially affect the deliberations of the promotion selection board” only if that information is provided for 

all officers considered. The section also stipulates that 

the officer must be afforded the opportunity to see 

this information and submit written comments relevant to its content. Current policy, therefore, does not 

preclude the use of alternate feedback tools in board 

proceedings as long as all eligible promotion board 

candidates are subject to the same evaluation and are 

afforded an opportunity to review and appeal any results.90 Beyond these two requirements no other legal 

obstacle prevents the use of 360-degree feedback in 

either promotion or selection boards.

Allan Mohrman, Susan Resnick-West, and Edward 

Lawler conducted a detailed review of legal considerations in the civilian world for the implementation of 

360-degree performance evaluation tools. As a result 

of their research, they developed four guidelines to 

help companies avoid legal challenges to this method 

of evaluation: First, companies should carefully define 

the behaviors that the tool is intended to measure and 

then ensure that the tool’s design strictly follows that 

intent. Second, the evaluation process should remain 

confined to those behaviors that the rater population 

is qualified to evaluate. For example, it would be inappropriate for entry-level employees to evaluate a 

manager on business strategy if they have no formal 

training in this area. On the contrary, the tool should 
40

evaluate the leader on those behaviors that the rater 

can directly observe and reasonably judge. Third, to 

eliminate discrimination, the process should include 

an objective audit by an outside party to ensure that 

evaluations remain oriented specifically on work related behaviors. Finally, the data should be open to 

the rated employee and provide a mechanism for 

appeal.91

An effective multisource assessment tool must 

balance two competing and potentially contradictory 

concerns. The first is the requirement to protect the 

anonymity of the subordinate rater to ensure candid 

evaluations and mitigate the possibility of retribution. 

The second concern is to protect the legal right of the 

rated officer, explicitly guaranteed in DoDI 1320.14, to 

review data used in his own performance evaluation 

and appeal that data if he believes it to be substantially false. Balancing these two concerns requires a 

creative approach to data collection so that the act of 

collecting feedback does not undermine the integrity 

of the chain of command. A potential solution to this 

dilemma is proposed in the appendix to this research.

The examination of both DoD policy and relevant 

experience above indicates that the legal challenges 

to implementing a multisource assessment tool are 

not insurmountable. Instead, current policy allows 

for centralized promotion boards to consider substantiated performance data from sources other than 

supervisors so long as similar data is available on all 

candidates. The challenge, then, is designing a methodology that provides the candidate officer free access 

to the data but preserves the anonymity of the source 

in order to prevent both retribution and inflation.

In addition to legal obstacles, research on multisource assessment methods provides many cautions 
41

on the often unanticipated cultural hazards of using 

an assessment tool designed for employee self-development for evaluation.92 Many organizations report 

unfavorable results during the initial implementation 

of peer and subordinate evaluations due to poor execution, instrument design, or lack of executive buy-in. 

A detailed examination of these hazards will inform a 

discussion of how the Army could incorporate multisource feedback into performance evaluation.

In 1998, research by Clive Fletcher of the Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths College, University 

of London, UK, noted a growing trend in the 1990s 

among organizations to graft 360-degree development programs onto their existing performance evaluation systems in order to combat perceived bias in 

top-down appraisal systems. He also noted that, while 

these programs often were effective in providing access to subordinate behaviors that were otherwise invisible to senior management, there were risks. Most 

notably, he observed that the candor of 360-degreeevaluations was often diminished as existing developmental tools were adapted for appraisal purposes. 

Specifically, his research indicated that 35 percent 

of respondents would change their assessment of a 

peer if they believed the information would be used 

for evaluation rather than self-development.93 Maury 

Pieperl has studied the effects of peer evaluation in 17 

different organizations and noted the paradox inherent in asking co-workers and subordinates to serve as 

both a helpful coach and a hard-nosed judge.94 Considerable research into the actual practice of peer and 

subordinate evaluation outside the military suggests 

that the use of assessment tools originally intended 

for developmental purposes can lead to unintended 

consequences. The better alternative would be a sepa-
42

rate program that places a seasoned and experienced 

interviewer between the rater and rated officer.

Tracey Mallett has demonstrated that the overwhelming weight of scholarship on the subject suggests that the mixing of multi-source tools for development and performance evaluation can lead to 

difficulty in practical implementation.95 This conclusion is echoed in a 2012 study of the Navy’s pilot multisource development program named SMARTS360. 

Like the Army’s Multi-Source Assessment and Feedback forum (MSAF), SMARTS360 is an online database 

where leaders can nominate peers and subordinates 

to evaluate their leadership styles. The program was 

discontinued after 3 years in large part because Navy 

senior leaders suggested that some of the feedback 

provided may eventually be used to inform leader selection decisions. The study noted a significant decline 

in voluntary participation after this announcement.96

These findings suggest that any 360-degree evaluation 

program used by the Army should remain separate 

and distinct from existing programs such as the MSAF 

that seek to use peer and subordinated feedback for 

leader development.

CONCLUSIONS

Both the U.S. Congress and the Secretary of Defense are seeking a change to the way the Army selects 

leaders. Exhaustive survey data from the force suggests that such a change is long overdue. The research 

here demonstrates that the Army performance evaluation system, as it is currently designed, is ill-suited 

to evaluate and select leaders best adapted to mission 

command. This does not mean that leaders selected 

under the current system are incapable of effective 

mission command. It merely implies that the system 
43

is not optimized to find those leaders who execute the 

style of command most prized by the Army.

Because mission command requires a culture of 

trust, effective practitioners must possess the competence to deliver what is expected of them and the moral capacity to be both worthy of trust and willing to 

trust in others. Evaluating a leader’s ability to trust his 

subordinates requires more than just an OER. Many 

other researchers have come to this same conclusion. 

For example, Colonel Tim Reese observed in a paper in 

2002 that “the OER simply does not provide the Army 

an evaluation of an officer’s ability to lead a unit or 

organization in a way that fosters cohesion, teamwork 

and long-term health of the unit.”97 The review of the 

Prussian military experience has shown that previous 

attempts to inculcate a mission command philosophy 

required a fundamental change to the way officers 

were certified for their commands and a closer look at 

the impact they had on unit climate through subordinate evaluations.

The review of the history of the centralized promotion system showed how Upton’s early attempts to 

bring Auftragstaktik into the U.S. military were sidetracked by a corporate managerial philosophy that 

optimized efficiency above all. This philosophy saw 

leaders as interchangeable cogs producing measurable 

outputs rather than the architects of a subjective unit 

climate conducive to bold initiative. While Auftragstaktik has slowly entered Army doctrine, the vestiges 

of Taylorism remain in the personnel and promotion 

system. This system evaluates officer potential based 

on an extremely narrow slice of overall performance in 

an effort to mass-produce promotion decisions across 

a large formation with minimal investment.
44

The example of Fredendall and the more recent 

data presented earlier cautions that the current system 

of top-down evaluation does not detect and, therefore, 

cannot screen for toxicity within subordinate organizations. This evidence suggests that, absent a fundamental change to the way officers are evaluated and 

selected, toxic leaders will continue to make their way 

into positions of tremendous influence where they 

will do great harm to the soldiers they lead. A true 

commitment to the mission command philosophy 

requires more than just a change in doctrine. Colonel 

Tom Guthrie posed this challenge in an article in Army

Magazine: 

If we intend to truly embrace mission command, then 

we should do it to the fullest, and that will require 

commitment to changing a culture from one of control 

and process to one of decentralization and trust. We 

cannot afford to preach one thing and do another.98

To develop a new model requires first the development of a new perspective. A detailed examination of 

best practices in the field of talent management has 

provided that perspective. It suggests that the Army 

could improve the exercise of mission command if 

it provided a greater investment into its talent management system. This investment should include a 

broader set of perspectives into leader performance. 

Multisource performance evaluation methods have 

worked well in organizations of similar size, and the 

data suggests that they might succeed in the Army if 

properly implemented.

Furthermore, research has demonstrated that performance evaluation systems have a profound effect 

on organizational culture. To move from a results 

oriented culture to a process oriented one requires 
45

a change to the way the Army evaluates its leaders. 

Augmenting the supervisor-centric evaluation process with input from peers and subordinates may 

help to eliminate the functional anonymity that has allowed a few leaders to develop destructive Bathsheba 

Syndrome behaviors that have so damaged the Army’s prestige. It will also promote greater trust in the 

system by providing another venue for professional 

accountability.

Professional athletes, real estate agents, doctors, 

and lawyers all must undergo a rigorous and objective assessment of their abilities in order to enter and 

then continue in their careers. This accreditation process is foundational to the very idea of professionalism as the life-long pursuit and exercise of a body of 

expert knowledge.99 The use of assessment centers in 

the business world and the public service sector have 

been shown to improve confidence in talent management decisions and accurately predict those who are 

best able to transition to new levels of management. 

Providing an equally rigorous assessment process in 

the Army might provide another effective tool for 

commanders and boards to evaluate potential.

The research presented in this monograph has 

shown that the current Army top-down performance 

evaluation system lacks the capacity to evaluate effectively the practice of mission command embodied in Army doctrine. Research across the field of 

performance assessment has shown that multisource 

ratings remain the most effective means for providing a nuanced three-dimensional view of the performance necessary for effective succession management 

decisions.100 This is supported by the examination of 

best practices in the field of talent management. The 

research indicates that expanding the Army perfor-
46

mance evaluation system to include alternate perspectives of leader performance may improve internal 

organization dynamics. The data also suggests that 

a multisource approach will specifically target two 

contemporary problems facing the Army: First is the 

growing lack of faith in the fairness of the performance 

evaluation process. Second is the functional anonymity of small unit leaders that has been shown to contribute to the “Bathsheba Syndrome” effects described 

earlier. This evidence provides a compelling argument 

for a significant change in the way the Army evaluates 

the performance of its leaders.

When future historians study the Army of the early-21st century, they will no doubt take considerable 

interest in the way the Army transformed itself in the 

post-war period following the conclusion of wars in 

Iraq and Afghanistan. Parallels will abound between 

this period and a similar one a century earlier when 

the Army withdrew from its expeditionary stance and 

downsized in the face of extreme financial austerity. 

How the Army manages this transition will have a 

decisive impact on the future conflicts of the 21st century that are sure to come. While the outline of those 

conflicts is difficult to discern, we do know that war 

in the information age demands a highly skilled and 

professional force officered by a very talented cadre 

of agile and adaptive leaders. These leaders must be 

able to exercise initiative based on a culture of trust 

that runs up and down the chain of command. The 

challenge is not predicting the exact shape of future 

conflicts but ensuring that we have the right talent on 

board and ready to adapt when that shape emerges. 

Retaining and promoting the very best demands that 

the Army abandon the industrial age procedures of 

performance appraisal and embrace a new level of 
47

organizational investment in its people. If people are 

the centerpiece of the Army, then the Army must study 

them in great detail. Promoting a culture of mission 

command demands that the Army as an institution focus its energies on the exhaustive study of the quality 

and character of its men and women, not merely on 

the outputs of their labor.

49

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ENDNOTES 

1. Andrew Tilghman, “Hagel to Appoint Top-level Ethics Adviser,” Army Times, February 7, 2014, available from www.armytimes.com/article/20140207/NEWS05/302070030/Hagel-appoint-toplevel-ethics-adviser, House Resolution 1960, 113 Cong., (enacted 

2014) and Sec. 563, accessed March 10, 2014.

2. House Resolution 1960, 113 Cong., (enacted 2014) Sect. 563. 

3. The Center for Army Leadership Annual Surveys of Army 

Leadership (CASAL) for 2010 and 2012 both support the conclusion mentioned previously. In addition, see the Center for Army 

Leadership Technical Report 2011-13, “Antecedents and Consequences of Toxic Leadership in the U.S. Army: A Two Year Review and Recommended Solutions,” Ft Leavenworth, KS, which 

documented growing toxic leadership behaviors in the force.

4. Tom Vanden Brook, “Budget Plan Would Slash Army by 

100,000 Soldiers,” USA Today, January 18, 2014, available from 

www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/18/army-budget-cutsnational-guard-sequestration/4635369, accessed March 07, 2014. 

5. Jim Tice, “Delayed New OER ‘revolutionary’ for Raters, AG 

Says,” Army Times, December 4, 2014, available from www.militarytimes.com/article/20131204/CAREERS03/312040001/Delayednew-OER-revolutionary-raters-AG-says, accessed April 17, 2014. 

6. John T. Nelson, II, “Auftragstaktik: A Case for Decentralized 

Battle,” Parameters, September 1987, p. 22. 

7. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mission 

Command White Paper, April 3, 2012, p. 1. 
60

8. Army Doctrinal Publication 6-0, Mission Command, Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 2013, p. 1. 

9. Ibid.

10. Stephen M. R. Covey and Rebecca R. Merrill, The Speed 

of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything, New York: Free 

Press, 2006, p. 115.

11. Dempsey, p. 6.

12. Roger C. Mayer, James H. Davis, and F. David Schoorman, “An Integrative Model of Organizational Trust,” Academy of 

Management Review, Vol. 20, No. 3, 1995, p. 712.

13. Ibid., p. 715. 

14. Ibid., pp. 717-719.

15. Tom Guthrie, “Mission Command: Do We Have the 

Stomach,” Army Magazine, Vol. 62, No. 6, June 2012, p. 26.

16. Eitan Shamir, Transforming Command: The Pursuit of Mission Command in the U.S., British, and Israeli Armies, Stanford, CA: 

Stanford Security Studies, 2011, pp. 29-36.

17. Ibid., p. 36.

18. Nelson, p. 22.

19. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State; the Theory 

and Politics of Civil-military Relations, Cambridge, UK: Belknap 

Press of Harvard University Press, 1957, p. 48.

20. Ibid.

21. Robert Michael Citino, The German Way of War: From the 

Thirty Years’ War to the Third Reich, Lawrence, KS: University Press 

of Kansas, 2005, p. 303.

22. John W. Fleenor and Jeffrey Michael Prince, Using 360-degree Feedback in Organizations: An Annotated Bibliography, Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership, 1997, p. 51.
61

23. Ibid.

24. Thomas X. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone: On War in 

the 21st Century, New Delhi, India: Manas Publications, 2012, 

pp. 289-290.

25. 2011 Top Companies for Leaders, Survey Highlights, Aon 

Hewitt Consulting, 2011, p. 8. 

26. Gregory C. Kesler, “Setting the Leadership Agenda for 

Executive Development Managing Partner, Competitive Human 

Resources Strategies,” Global CEO Magazine, March 2004, p. 7. 

27. Owen West, “You Can’t Fool the Troops,” Proceedings, 

1127th ser., Vol. 124, No. 9, September 1998. 

28. Steven M. Jones, Improving Accountability for Effective Command Climate, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army 

War College, 2003, p. 11. 

29. Tracey Mallett, “360-Degree Feedback Revisited: The 

Transition from Development to Appraisal,” Compensation & Benefits Review, Vol. 41, No. 5, September/October 2009, p. 2. 

30. Emily R. Lai, Edward W. Wolfe, and Daisy H. Vickers, 

“Revisiting the Halo Effect Within a Multitrait, Multimethod 

Framework,” Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research 

Association, April 2013, p. 21. 

31. Kurt Eichenwald, “Microsoft’s Lost Decade,” Vanity Fair, 

August 2012, available from www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/

microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer, accessed March 9, 2014.

32. Stephen R. Satterwhite, “Here’s to the Death of Microsoft’s 

Rank-And-Yank,” Forbes, March 10, 2014, available from www.

forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2013/11/13/heres-to-the-deathof-microsofts-rank-and-yank, accessed November 13, 2013.

33. Department of the Army, 2013 Chief of Staff of the Army 

Leader Development Task Force Final Report, Washington, DC: 

Department of the Army, 2013, p. 17.
62

34. Ibid., p. 20.

35. Dean C. Ludwig and Clinton O. Longenecker, “The Bathsheba Syndrome: The Ethical Failure of Successful Leaders,” 

Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 12, No. 4, 1993, pp. 265-268.

36. The Holy Bible (American Translation), 2 Samuel 11:1-26.

37. Ludwig and Longenecker, p. 272.

38. Mark R. Edwards, and Ann J. Ewen, 360 Degree Feedback: 

The Powerful New Model for Employee Assessment & Performance 

Improvement, New York: American Management Association, 

1996, p. 9.

39. William Bynham, The Assessment Center Method and Methodology, Bridgeville, PA: Development Dimensions International, 

1994, p. 8.

40. Ed Michaels, Beth Axelrod, and Helen Handfield-Jones, 

The War for Talent, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 

2007, p. 22.

41. Richard S. Wellins, Audrey B. Smith, and Scott Erker, 

“Nine Best Practices for Effective Talent Management,” Bridgeville, PA: Development Dimensions International, Inc., 2009, 

available from www.ddiworld.com/DDIWorld/media/white-papers/

ninebestpracticetalentmanagement_wp_ddi.pdf, accessed March 

8, 2014.

42. Kenneth M. Nowack, “Self-Assessment and Rater Assessment as a Dimension of Management Development,” Human 

Resource Development Quarterly, Summer 1992, pp. 141-155.

43. James C. Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies 

Make the Leap--and Others Don’t, New York: Harper Business, 

2001, p. 13.

44. Ibid.

45. Emory Upton, The Armies of Europe & Asia: Embracing Official Reports on the Armies of Japan, China, India, Persia, Italy, Russia, 
63

Austria, Germany, France, and England, Portsmouth, UK: Griffin & 

Co., 1878.

46. Donald E. Vandergriff, The Path to Victory: America’s Army 

and the Revolution in Human Affairs, Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 

2002, pp. 30-32.

47. Upton, p. 353.

48. Ibid., p. 356.

49. Stephen E. Ambrose, Upton and the Army, Baton Rouge, 

LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1964, pp. 155-157.

50. Vandergriff, p. 45.

51. Frederick W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, New York: Harper, 1913, pp. 17-22.

52. Horace B. Drury, Scientific Management: A History 

and Criticism, II Ed., Vol. 65, Chap. 5, New York: Columbia 

University, 1915.

53. Vandergriff, p. 32.

54. Ibid., p. 52.

55. Richard W. Stewart, American Military History, Vol, II: The 

United States Army in a Global Era, 1917-2008, Washington, DC: 

Center of Military History, 2010, p. 57.

56. David P. Kite, The US Army Officer Evaluation Report: Why 

Are We Writing to Someone Who Isn’t Reading, Maxwell Air Force 

Base, AL: Air War College, 1998, p. 7.

57. Harry R. Yarger, “Army Officer Personnel Management: 

The Creation of The Modern American System to 1939,” Ph.D. 

diss., Philadelphia, PA: Temple University, 1996 (UMI Dissertation Services, 1997), pp. 246-250.

58. U.S. War Department, Operations, Field Service Regulation 

100-5, Washington, DC: U.S. War Department, May 22, 1941, 

pp. 18-21.
64

59. Department of the Army, 2013 Chief of Staff of the Army 

Leader Development Task Force Final Report, by David H. Huntoon, 

Jr. and Frederick M. Franks, Jr., Washington, DC, 2013, p. 6.

60. Tim Kane, “Why Our Best Officers Are Leaving,” The 

Atlantic, January 4, 2011, available from www.theatlantic.com/

magazine/archive/2011/01/why-our-best-officers-are-leaving/308346/, 

accessed March 8, 2014.

61. Ibid.

62. Thomas Boccardi, “Meritocracy in the Profession of 

Arms,” Military Review, January/February 2013, p. 19.

63. David S. Lyle and John Z. Smith, The Effect of High Performing Mentors on Junior Officer Promotion in the United States Army, 

West Point, NY: Center for the Army Professional Ethic, available 

from https://appam.confex.com/appam/2013/webprogram/Paper7913.

html, accessed February 10, 2014.

64. David Barno, “Military Brain Drain: The Pentagon’s 

Top Brass Is Driving Away All the Smart People,” Foreign Policy, February 13, 2013, available from www.foreignpolicy.com/

articles/2013/02/13/military_brain_drain, accessed March 10, 2014.

65. Survey Report: Survey on Officer Careers, Report No. 2000-

11, Washington, DC: Army Research Institute, 2000.

66. Timothy R. Reese, Transforming the Officer Evaluation System: Using a 360-degree Feedback Model, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army 

War College, 2002, p. 4.

67. Ibid.

68. Inspector General’s Office, Commanding Officer Detach 

for Cause Study, Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, 

2010, p. 14.

69. George E. Reed, and Richard A. Olsen, “Toxic Leadership: 

Part Deux,” Military Review, November 2010, pp. 61-62.
65

70. John P. Steele, Antecedents and Consequences of Toxic Leadership in the U.S. Army: A Two Year Review and Recommended Solutions, Fort Leavenworth, KS: Center for Army Leadership, 

2010, p. 28.

71. Steven L. Ossad, “Command Failures: Lessons Learned 

from Lloyd R. Fredendall,” Army Magazine, March 2003, p. 45.

72. Russell F. Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants: The Campaign of France and Germany, 1944-1945, Bloomington, IN: Indiana 

University Press, 1981, p. 119.

73. Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 

1942-1943, New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2002, p. 333.

74. Mark T. Calhoun, Defeat at Kasserine: American Armor Doctrine, Training, and Battle Command in Northwest Africa, World War 

II, Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff 

College, 2003, p. 68.

75. Operations, Field Service Regulation 100-5, pp. 18-21.

76. Michaels, Axelrod, and Handfield-Jones, p. 21.

77. “25 Top Companies for Leaders,” CNNMoney, November 

11, 2011, available from money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/news/companies/1111/gallery.top_companies_leaders.fortune/index.html, accessed 

May 5, 2014.

78. 2011 Top Companies for Leaders, Survey Highlights, p. 20.

79. Deanna Hartley, “Leaders Developing Leaders at IBM,” 

Chief Learning Officer, Solutions for Enterprise Productivity, 

August 23, 2009, available from clomedia.com/articles/view/leadersdeveloping-leaders-at-ibm, accessed March 8, 2014.

80. 2011 Top Companies for Leaders, Survey Highlights, p. 20.

81. Michael Armstrong, Armstrong’s Handbook of Performance 

Management: An Evidence-based Guide to Delivering High Performance, London, UK: Kogan Page, 2009, p. 337.
66

82. Ibid.

83. Bynham, p. 5.

84. Carl Weaver, Can Assessment Centers Eliminate Challenges To The Promotional Process? Emmitsburg, MD: National Fire 

Academy, 2000, p. 7.

85. Ibid., p. 11.

86. Ibid., p. 15.

87. Tilghman.

88. Bernard Rostker et al., The Defense Officer Personnel Management Act of 1980: A Retroactive Assessment, Report, Vol. R4246-FMP, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1993, pp. 7-20.

89. Department of Defense, DOD Instruction 1320.14, Commissioned Officer Promotion Program Procedures, Sec. 2.b.(1)(a), Washington DC, February 12, 2013.

90. Ibid., 2c(2)(c).

91. Allan M. Mohrman, Susan M. Resnick-West, and Edward 

E. Lawler, Designing Performance Appraisal Systems: Aligning Appraisals and Organizational Realities, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass 

Publishers, 1989, pp. 160-184.

92. Maury Pierperl, “Getting 360 Degree Feedback Right,” 

Harvard Business Review, January 2001, available from hbr.org/

2001/01/getting-360-degree-feedback-right/ar/1, accessed April 

17, 2014.

93. Armstrong, p. 116.

94. Pierperl, p. 1.

95. Mallett, p. 3.

96. Daniel C. Rolnick, Harnessing the Transformative Tsunami: 

Fleet-wide 360-degree Feedback Revisited, Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, 2012, p. 37.
67

97. Reese, p. 9.

98. Guthrie, p. 26.

99. Don M. Snider, “The U.S. Army as a Profession,” in The 

Future of the Army Profession, 2nd Ed., Boston, MA: McGraw-Hills 

Companies, 2005, p. 13.

100. H. John Bernardin, Sue A. Dahmus and Gregory Redmon, “Attitudes of First-line Supervisors toward Subordinate Appraisals,” Human Resource Management, Vol. 32, No. 2, 1993, p. 8.

69

APPENDIX

PROPOSALS SUGGESTED BY THE RESEARCH

The research has established that the Army model 

of performance evaluation was not designed to assess 

a leader’s mission command attributes and cannot easily be adapted to make that assessment. It has also established that alternative models in use in the civilian 

world hold the potential to address this shortcoming 

but only if they are carefully implemented. Dramatic 

change to the performance evaluation system in an organization can often do more harm than good. While 

any change to the promotion and selection board process should involve careful evaluation and pilot testing, the research suggests that two specific proposals 

may hold promise as a basis for a future study. 

Proposal #1: Formal Investigations for Candidates 

to be Considered by Leadership Boards. 

The uneven performance of peer reviews warns the 

Army to move cautiously if it seeks to include 360-degree subjective reviews in Army selection board files. 

The evidence shown earlier has established that effective 360-degree appraisal should adhere to four guidelines: First, it should be separate and distinct from any 

developmental tools such as the Multi-Source Assessment and Feedback (MSAF). Second, it should be 

focused narrowly on the behaviors that subordinates 

are qualified to assess. Third, it should protect the 

privacy of the evaluator while respecting the rights of 

the evaluated officer. Fourth, an effective 360-degree 

performance appraisal is best used as a tool for succession management rather than routine promotion. 
70

An implementation strategy that respects these guidelines and yet provides an effective tool for selection 

boards will not be easy or inexpensive to design. 

In 2013, the Chief of Staff’s Leader Development 

Task Force recommended examining 360-degree feedback already compiled in the existing MSAF database 

for use in the selection of Brigade Commanders.1

While this recommendation suggests senior officer 

enthusiasm for 360-degree appraisal methods, the 

specific implementation strategy is flawed for the reasons outlined earlier. The MSAF available today has 

been sold from its inception as a developmental tool 

only. For almost a decade, the Army has assured both 

recipients and evaluators that the data they submit 

is purely confidential for the benefit of the recipient. 

Any attempt to open that database to wider scrutiny, 

no matter how carefully done, has the potential to 

appear as a breach of trust. 

The Center for Army Leadership is currently exploring a program called “Commander 360” that will 

require subordinates to appraise battalion and brigade 

commanders during their first and last six months of 

command.2 Set to roll out in pilot form in 2014, these 

feedback reports will take the form of online queries 

derived from randomly selected subordinate leaders 

in the organization. The evaluated commander’s rater 

and senior rater would then have access to the results.3

Even though the results of the survey will go directly 

to the officer’s chain of command, Army leadership 

argues that Commander 360 is intended primarily as 

a developmental tool.4 Senior officers would presumably use the 360-degree feedback when counseling the 

officer in question. 

While Commander 360 will remain wholly separate from the MSAF program, the experience of the 
71

Navy provides cautionary insight. The Commander 

360 concept runs the risk of confusing assessment and 

development as the Navy did in their SMARTS360 

program.5 Since the authors of the feedback are still 

in the organization, it will be difficult to protect their 

identity in any meaningful way. The likely effect of 

this risk will be to dampen the candor of assessments 

given in Commander 360. In an extreme case, a form 

of quid pro quo may emerge whereby subordinates and 

commanders trade favorable or unfavorable ratings. 

A better way is possible. The Department of Defense already has in place a large peer evaluation system that may serve as a useful model for a truly effective performance evaluation tool. The Single Scope 

Background Investigation program investigates over 

90,000 servicemen and women each year to determine 

if they qualify for access to information classified 

Top-Secret.6 It does this by conducting face-to-face 

interviews with co-workers who can attest to a candidate’s good character and fitness to handle highly 

classified data. Typically, these investigations involve 

a short interview with three to five co-workers. The 

face-to-face interaction provides an opportunity for 

the interviewer to assess the interviewee in ways that 

are impossible in a written review. It also provides 

the opportunity for the interviewer to clarify important issues and more accurately steer the assessment 

process. 

A peer and subordinate investigation might follow 

a similar approach. Under this concept an investigator, potentially a retired military officer, would select 

a handful of officer and noncommissioned officer efficiency reports (OERs and NCOERs) written by the 

officer in question. These reports could be chosen to 

reflect a balance of above average (ACOM) and aver-
72

age reports (COM). The investigator would then contact the recipient of each report and arrange an interview. After signing a strict confidentiality agreement, 

the interviewee would be asked to comment on the 

investigated officer’s leadership style and impact on 

the organization during the rated period. Since subordinates are not qualified to assess all aspects of their 

leader’s performance, the questioning would focus 

narrowly on the climate created by their leadership 

and their effect on organizational dynamics. While 

ethical issues would certainly be appropriate to discuss in this forum, any specific accusation of misconduct should be directed to the appropriate Inspector 

General for investigation. 

After concluding the interviews and reviewing 

the quality of some number of OERs and NCOERs 

written by the candidate, the interviewer would then 

draft an investigation summary. This summary would 

omit any specific information attributable to the interviewees but would provide a broad assessment. This 

assessment would address the officer’s professional 

reputation as determined from the interviews and his 

stewardship of the profession as shown by the quality 

of his written reports. For example, a pattern of reports 

from the officer that were consistently over-inflated 

would not reflect effective stewardship. The summary 

would then be filed in the officer’s restricted Office of 

Military Personnel File for consideration by the appropriate command selection board. Since the written report reflects only the interviewer’s impressions 

and not the assessments of individual subordinates, 

the anonymity of those subordinates is protected. As 

an additional protection, candidate officers could be 

given the right to view the investigation summary and 

request a re-investigation if they could demonstrate 

bias in the report. 
73

The legal challenges to using peer feedback for 

evaluation purposes have centered on concerns about 

the proper balance between rater anonymity and the 

right of the rated officer to see his own report. Replacing the online written survey commonly used in the 

civilian world with a face-to-face interview by an experienced leader changes this dynamic considerably. 

Interviewers would be free to ask follow-up questions 

as required or to disregard unfounded or baseless 

allegations. 

Wide-spread use of interviews for every promotion board is both cost prohibitive and unnecessary. 

Instead, officers choosing to compete for centrally selected command billets at the lieutenant colonel and 

colonel level could deliberately opt-in for this level of 

scrutiny. If this population set was still too large, the 

Human Resources Command could consider a nomination process of highly competitive files that would 

then undergo the full investigation. To comply with 

the legal constraints identified earlier, this nomination 

board would require the regulatory authority to serve 

as an independent selection board itself since it would 

serve the function of reducing the number of officers 

eligible for consideration. 

In addition to improving the accuracy of command 

selection decisions, a second important effect of this 

process would be the impact it might have on organizational politics within units. Since leaders cannot 

predict who among their rated population will be selected for the investigation at some point in the future, 

it eliminates the functional anonymity that so often 

leads to Bathsheba Syndrome behaviors. Additionally, 

it provides a tangible incentive to encourage leaders to 

invest in the development of their rated subordinates. 

Consider the impact on counseling programs Army-
74

wide, if it were widely known that the first question of 

the subordinate interview was, “Were you effectively 

counseled by this officer?” This question, combined 

with an in-depth review of efficiency reports written 

by the candidate would provide the interviewer with 

a perspective on the candidate’s stewardship of the 

Army profession. 

Asking those officers who wish to compete for 

command to submit to additional scrutiny follows a 

long established tradition of investigating candidates 

for major offices throughout the Federal government. 

Such a process has three clear effects: It reduces the 

chances of bad leader decisions and the resultant cost 

to the institution and its soldiers. It promotes the credibility of those who ultimately are selected. Finally, it 

encourages and incentivizes ambitious officers to create the organizational climate that the Army is looking 

for within their formations. 

Proposal #2: Including Objective Performance Data 

in Academic Efficiency Reports. 

The 2013 Army Leader Development Task Force 

study recommended adopting assessment center 

practices in the Army.7 As demonstrated earlier, an 

effective assessment center is not so much a place as 

it is a process.8 The focus of that process is to provide 

objective measures to assess a candidate’s ability to 

perform the tasks necessary in a new position. As 

such, assessment centers measure potential more than 

performance. They focus not on what the candidate 

has done, but how he will do in a future assignment. 

For this reason, they are best employed at points in a 

leader’s career when he is transitioning from one level 

of management to another. At these leader inflection 
75

points, the skills that made a manager successful at 

the lower level are often not the ones that will ensure 

success at the next. An effectively designed assessment center can fill the gap by helping an organization 

assess how the leader would perform at the next level. 

The Officer Education System (OES) was designed 

originally to develop leaders at these same inflection 

points. For this reason, it provides the ideal periods 

in an officer’s career to perform assessments. Under 

the current OES, officers leave their field assignments 

four times in their career to receive training to prepare 

them for leadership at the next level. If the Army were 

to apply the civilian world’s practices, then the Army 

would inject rigorous and detailed assessment activities into the culminating exercises of these four training periods. Officers preparing to graduate from the 

Basic course, Captain’s course, Staff College, or War 

College would undergo a comprehensive evaluation, 

using a number of the techniques described earlier. 

These might include tactical scenarios or in-box exercises presented before a panel, and oral and written 

exams. These assessment exercises would employ the 

best practices of the field but would be uniquely tailored to the skill sets required in likely assignments 

following graduation. The officer’s Academic Efficiency Report (AER) would reflect their performance 

in the comprehensive exam, along with their relative 

class rank. This AER would then accompany the officer to his next duty station where his new commander 

would use it to inform assignment decisions in the organization. This would allow commanders to identify 

those officers who are prepared to immediately take 

on tough assignments and those who require more 

development. 
76

To maintain consistent standards across the force, 

the Training and Doctrine Command could then 

maintain an accreditation board to assist the various 

branch schools in the development of their comprehensive assessment process. Full implementation 

across all the schools in the OES program may take 

many years given cost constraints. However, a pilot 

program at the Command and General Staff College 

at Fort Leavenworth using the assessment center already standing up there would provide a feasible first 

step. Additionally, adopting the Leader Development 

Task Force recommendation to administer the Graduate Record Exam at the Captain’s Career Course is another low-cost, first step in this direction.9

One of the key findings of the research into assessment centers was the degree to which their use 

promotes a sense of fairness within an organization. 

The most recent Center for Army Leadership Annual 

Survey of Army Leadership (CASAL) showed that 

less than half of junior officers thought that promotion 

decisions were accurate.10 This survey suggests a disappointing lack of confidence among junior officers in 

the ability of the existing performance appraisal system to identify and recognize the most qualified leaders. The success of external assessment centers in the 

fire and rescue community described earlier suggests 

that their wider use in the Army may help to promote 

confidence in the objectivity of Army performance 

appraisals. 

When Major Dwight Eisenhower graduated first in 

his class from the U.S. Army Command and General 

Staff College (CGSC) in Ft. Leavenworth, KS, in 1926, 

one of the most important pieces of information in an 

officer’s personnel file was his Staff College class rank. 

This rank was based on a rigorous and highly com-
77

petitive set of exercises and exams that tested an officer’s tactical skills, intuition, and judgment. General 

George Marshall and other senior officers considered 

class rank and performance at CGSC to be a critical 

determinant of command potential.11 One of the results of this emphasis was a clear incentive for midgrade officers to develop the professional skills and 

knowledge that would make them successful on the 

battlefields of Europe and the Pacific. Implementation 

of an objective and rigorous assessment at CGSC may 

go a long way toward promoting a similar commitment to the knowledge and skills at the heart of the 

Army profession. 

Both of the proposals listed here will require further research to validate rigorously their feasibility. 

However, the research has shown that aligning Army 

performance evaluation and the Army’s mission command philosophy will require an approach to talent 

management that falls along these lines. Implementing a rigorous and objective certification program 

modeled after an assessment center will create the 

presumption of professional competence necessary to 

build organizational trust. Likewise, a process of peer 

evaluations that makes leaders directly accountable 

for the climate they create in their organization will 

enable future boards to select those officers best suited 

to the exercise of mission command.

ENDNOTES

1. 2013 Chief of Staff of the Army Leader Development Task 

Force Final Report, Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 

2013, p. 80.

2. Michelle Tan, “360-degree Evals for Commanders Start 

Oct. 1,” Army Times, December 28, 2013, available from www.ar-
78

mytimes.com/article/20131228/CAREERS03/312230028/360-degreeevals-commanders-start-Oct-1, accessed March 10, 2014.

3. Andrew Tilghman, “JCS Chief Wants Troops to Review 

COs,” Army Times, April 29, 2013, available from www.armytimes.

com/article/20130429/CAREERS/305060009/JCS-chief-wants-servicemembers-review-COs, accessed March 10, 2014.

4. Tan.

5. Daniel C. Rolnick, Harnessing the Transformative Tsunami: 

Fleet-wide 360-degree Feedback Revisited, Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, 2012, p. 37. 

6. “The Security Clearance and Investigation Process,” Boyers, PA: United States Office of Personnel Management, slide 

12, available from www.brac.maryland.gov/documents/Security%20

Clearance%20101%20PP%20Presentation.pdf, accessed March 

8, 2014.

7. 2013 Chief of Staff of the Army Leader Development Task Force 

Final Report, p. 40.

8. William Bynham, The Assessment Center Method and Methodology, Bridgeville, PA: Development Dimensions International, 

1994, p. 5.

9. 2013 Chief of Staff of the Army Leader Development Task Force 

Final Report, p. 81. 

10. John P. Steele, 2011 Center for Army Leadership Annual Survey of Army Leadership (CASAL), “Main Findings,” Vol. 2, Fort 

Leavenworth, KS: Center for Army Leadership, 2012, p. 88.

11. Peter J. Schifferle, America’s School for War: Fort Leavenworth, Officer Education, and Victory in World War II, Lawrence, KS: 

University Press of Kansas, 2010, p. 144.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General William E. Rapp

Commandant

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U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE PRESS

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

Dr. Steven K. Metz

Author

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