Strategic Studies Institute

U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA

REAL LEADERSHIP AND THE

U.S. ARMY: OVERCOMING

A FAILURE OF IMAGINATION

TO CONDUCT ADAPTIVE

WORK

John B. Richardson IV

Letort The

Papers

U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

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The Letort Papers

REAL LEADERSHIP AND THE U.S. ARMY:

OVERCOMING A FAILURE OF IMAGINATION

TO CONDUCT ADAPTIVE WORK

John B. Richardson IV

December 2011

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ii

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ISBN 1-58487-517-8
iii

CONTENTS

Foreword ..................................................................v

About the Author...................................................vii

Summary .................................................................ix

Introduction ..............................................................1

Case Study: Iraq 2008-09 .........................................7

1. The Army’s Campaign of Learning ...............43

2. The Army’s Adaptive Challenge ................... 55

3. Real Leadership ................................................83

4. The Real Work Ahead ..................................... 99

Appendix I. A New Framework for 

Leadership (Dean Williams) ...............................109

Appendix II. U.S. Army Officer 

Evaluation Report ................................................133

Appendix III. Recommended Changes 

to the Army Leader Development Strategy......135
iv

ILLUSTRATIONS

 Figure CS-1. “Before and After” 

Recommended Turret Modifications .................. 23

 Figure CS-2. Platoon Intervention Briefing.........25

Figure 2-1. Iceberg Conceptual Model 

of Levels of Organizational Culture ....................61

Figure 2-2. Competing Values Set and 

Effectiveness Models .............................................65

Figure 2-3. Comparison of Army 

Organizational Culture: 

“Now” vs. “Preferred” .........................................66

Figure 2-4. Comparison of Army 

Organizational Culture Data ............................... 68

Figure 2-5. Definitions of Leader 

Attributes, Skills, and Actions .............................72

Figure 2-6. Officer Evaluation Report: 

Attributes, Skills, and Actions for FY 12 

Command-Selectees .............................................. 73

Figure 3-1. Conceptual Depiction of 

Exercising Leadership within a System ..............89

Figure 3-2. Heifetz Table of Situation 

Types .......................................................................91
v

FOREWORD

To win on today’s complex and competitive battlefield our military leaders have had to try to shed 

decades of organizational culture that emphasized 

control and stability as the solution to solving problem sets. Instead, today’s leaders must be adaptive 

and agile in their analysis and development of innovative solutions to the complex challenges of the 

21st century. Today’s security environment requires 

men and women in uniform to think critically and be 

creative in developing new strategies and solutions. 

These skills will allow our military leaders to maintain 

the operational initiative against an enemy who is by 

nature adaptive and always evolving to overcome the 

tremendous advantage in technological and material 

overmatch of the United States and many of its allies. 

This paper argues that the U.S. Army should continue its bold initiatives in its current Campaign of 

Learning and go even further. It should develop creative leaders who can exercise adaptive leadership 

with the capacity to provide learning environments 

within their organizations. Included in the paper is 

an analysis of adaptive challenges facing the Army. 

Specifically, the Army espouses the need for decentralized operations and operational adaptability, but 

the author argues that the Army culture is driven by 

control, stability, and risk aversion.

A case study provides a means for analyzing the 

complexity of organizational leadership in the contemporary security environment. The study presents 

a high-stakes problem set requiring an operational 

adaptation by a cavalry squadron in Baghdad, Iraq. 

This problematic reality triggers the struggle in finding a creative solution, as cultural norms serve as bar-
riers against overturning accepted solutions that have 

proven successful in the past, even if they do not fit 

today’s reality. The case highlights leaders who are 

constrained by assumptions and therefore suffer the 

consequences of failing to adapt quickly to a changed 

environment. Emphasizing the importance of reflection and a willingness to experiment and assume risk, 

the case study transitions to an example of a successful application of adaptive leadership and adaptive 

work performed by the organization. 

The case study serves as a microcosm of the challenges facing the U.S. Army. The corresponding leadership framework presented can be used as a model 

for the Army as it attempts to move forward in its efforts to make adaptation an institutional imperative 

(Chapters 1 and 2). The paper presents a holistic approach to leadership, whereby the leader transcends 

being simply an authority figure and becomes instead 

a real leader who provides a safe and creative learning 

environment for the organization to tackle and solve 

adaptive challenges (Chapter 3). The paper concludes 

with a recommendation that Army leaders apply Harvard Professor Dean Williams’s theory of leadership 

to the challenges confronting the Army’s leader development process so as to improve its efforts to grow 

adaptive leaders (Chapter 4).

 

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

 Director

 Strategic Studies Institute

vi
vii

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JOHN B. RICHARDSON IV assumed command 

of the 3d Cavalry Regiment at Fort Hood, Texas, in 

November 2011. He graduated from the U.S. Military 

Academy and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in Armor in 1991. He served as a tank platoon 

leader and company executive officer in Germany. 

After graduation from the Armor Officer Advance 

Course, he served as a Battalion S-1, Tank Company 

Commander, and Headquarters and Headquarters 

Company Commander. During this tour, he also deployed to Bosnia (IFOR) as the Command Liaison 

Officer to the Nordic-Polish Brigade. Colonel Richardson’s previous assignments included duty as 

Company Tactical Officer at West Point, New York; 

2nd Squadron Operations Officer (S3), 2d Armored 

Cavalry Regiment (Light), in Sadr City, Baghdad, 

Iraq; and Regimental Operations Officer (S3) at Fort 

Polk, Louisiana. He returned to Iraq in 2005 as the 

Aide-de-Camp to the Commanding General of MultiNational Security Transition Command-Iraq. In 2007 

he assumed command of a cavalry squadron at Fort 

Riley, Kansas. During this 33-month command, the 

750-soldier squadron task force served a 12-month deployment in northwest Baghdad in 2008-09. This deployment encompassed the final phase of “the Surge” 

campaign, the provincial elections, and a number of 

strategic transitions during the implementation of 

the security agreement between the U.S. Government 

and Government of Iraq. Colonel Richardson holds a 

master of science degree in counseling and leader development from Long Island University; has attended 

the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College; 

and was selected as a National Security Fellow for a 
viii

1-year Senior Service College Fellowship in leadership and management at Harvard’s Kennedy School 

of Government.
ix

SUMMARY

Former Army Chief of Staff General Martin E. 

Dempsey has highlighted “failure of imagination” as 

a major obstacle in an organization’s ability to learn, 

adapt, and find solutions to complex problems. As a 

former Commanding General of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), General 

Dempsey led the redesign of the Army’s conceptual 

foundation. He and other Army officials, reflecting on 

the previous decade’s conflicts, aggressively instituted a campaign of learning, which TRADOC describes 

as “a broad set of initiatives designed to produce an 

Army capable of rapidly adapting to defeat unforeseen threats.”

This paper argues that the U.S. Army should continue its bold initiatives and go even further. It should 

develop creative leaders who can exercise adaptive 

leadership with the capacity to provide learning environments within their organizations. Included in 

the paper is an analysis of adaptive challenges facing 

the Army. Specifically, the Army espouses the need 

for decentralized operations and operational adaptability, but the Army culture is driven by control, 

stability, and risk aversion. The author provides a recommended solution for overcoming this disconnect 

and achieving adaptive leadership through the application of a leadership framework provided by Dean 

Williams of Harvard’s Kennedy School. The focus of 

“real leadership” as presented by Williams is not to 

get others to follow, but rather is directed toward getting people to confront reality and change their values, habits, practices, and priorities to deal with the 

real threat or opportunity the group faces. It is through 

this more holistic approach to leadership that the 
x

Army can maximize the adaptations in its campaign 

of learning and develop leaders with the capacity and 

skills to foster learning environments within their organizations.

In many cases in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, 

the Army is getting it right. Junior leaders, routinely 

exercising adaptive leadership, demonstrate numerous examples of how to overcome intractable challenges in changing and ambiguous environments. In 

these cases, commanders are leading their organizations through complex realities by assuming necessary 

risk and seizing the initiative from our adversaries. 

These examples of a more creative approach to problem-solving based on mutual trust inside of the organizations ensures that these units achieve and maintain momentum over the enemy, which is necessary 

to progress successfully in the fight against adaptive 

opponents in the current operational environment.

Unfortunately, the discretion and flexibility granted to many leaders in these theaters of war is not how 

business is done on a day-to-day basis throughout the 

U.S. Army. What is at stake if we do not incorporate 

these battlefield lessons into the organization’s DNA 

will be a lower likelihood that the Army will produce 

the quantity and quality of leaders who are creative, 

imaginative, and innovative, and can lead learning organizations on today’s competitive battlefield. It is the 

risk of operating at 80-percent effectiveness as an organization when 90 percent or better can be achieved 

with cultural alignment between what the Army says 

is important and what it actually rewards as success 

through professional advancement. The Army is at a 

pivotal juncture as it attempts to transition over the 

next decade from war in two major theaters back to a 

traditional garrison routine in the context of persistent 
xi

global conflict. Its ability to institute an organizational 

change in culture that can produce operational adaptability is critical to successfully moving the Army 

toward making adaptive leadership the way it does 

business. 

 This paper begins with a case study that provides 

an example of a real-world adaptive challenge during 

a cavalry squadron’s recent deployment to Baghdad 

in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. The case 

study accentuates the challenges of organizational 

leadership in complex environments and the consequences of failing to adapt fast enough on today’s 

battlefields. Ultimately, the unit makes in-stride adaptations, demonstrating how the exercise of adaptive 

leadership must start with a reflective diagnosis and 

an accurate understanding of the adaptive challenge. 

It highlights the role of the leader in presenting the 

reality of the changed conditions to the organization, 

and then providing a learning environment based on 

trust and empowerment to allow the group to develop 

adaptive solutions. Simply put, the case study confirms the requirement for operational adaptability to 

become “how we do business” in the security environment of the 21st century.

Following the case study, evidence is presented 

that suggests there is a lack of congruency between 

the Army’s espoused values (what we say we should 

do), and the Army’s basic underlying assumptions 

(what we actually do), which can cause a trust deficit and produce an organizational culture that is not 

conducive to the development of adaptive leaders. A 

review of the espoused values from emerging Army 

doctrine, focused on decentralized execution and 

operational adaptability, is contrasted with the conclusions of a study conducted by Dr. James Pierce at 
xii

the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War 

College. Dr. Pierce’s findings suggest a lack of congruency between espoused values and actual practice. 

His study brings into question whether the Army’s organizational culture is one that encourages the kind of 

imagination necessary to achieve operational adaptability. This cultural disconnect is the primary barrier 

confronting the Army’s campaign of learning.

To overcome this divergence in the Army’s organizational culture, the author presents Williams’s 

framework for leadership as a way to help close the 

gap between espoused values and basic underlying 

assumptions. Williams posits a theory of leadership 

from which the U.S. Army can glean critical insights in 

its quest to change its culture and achieve operational 

adaptability. Williams postulates that traditional notions of leadership are inadequate for today’s challenges—that they do not address the complexities and 

diversity of the problems, threats, and opportunities 

that groups and institutions must confront in today’s 

globalized and complex world—if these groups and 

institutions expect to progress. Traditional notions of 

leadership unduly emphasize the role of the leader in 

providing a vision or “showing the way,” while leading in primarily straightforward environments. In 

contrast, Williams addresses the demanding task of 

mobilizing people to confront their predicament and 

solve their most pressing problems.
1

INTRODUCTION

Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.1

 — Picasso

In the Republic, Plato presents an allegory to describe man’s resistance to imagining beyond the 

boundaries of his experiences. He describes three prisoners, perpetually held in strict bondage since childhood, chained so that they cannot move their heads 

and limited to seeing only images cast on the wall of 

the cave. The limits of their understanding are bound 

by the shadows on the cave wall produced by the fire 

behind them. One day the guards take one prisoner 

to see the world outside the cave. Imbued with new 

understanding, he can now imagine beyond the limits 

of the world in the cave. When he returns to the cave, 

he tells the others what he observed outside the prison 

boundaries. Unable to comprehend the experiences, 

they ridicule him and persist in their desire to destroy 

those who would attempt to remove them from the 

intellectual sanctuary and safety of the cave.2

This parable of man struggling to “think outside 

the box” demonstrates the difficulty leaders face 

when attempting to promote change in an organization, whether changing the culture or overcoming a 

tactical-level adaptive challenge. In recent articles, 

interviews, and lectures, former Chief of Staff of the 

Army General Martin E. Dempsey highlighted “failure of imagination” as a major obstacle in an organization’s ability to learn, adapt, and find solutions to 

complex problems. He uses the devastating disaster of 

the British Petroleum (BP) Gulf oil spill in April 2010 
2

to underscore that “the once unimaginable scenes of 

oil streaming from the broken well head at the bottom 

of the Gulf of Mexico” are powerful images of a failure of imagination.3

 Like the prisoners in Plato’s cave, 

one BP executive said, “We’ve never seen anything like 

this before. It’s impossible to fathom the impact.”4

FINDINGS

It is the failure to be creative, or to use one’s imagination to anticipate problems and come up with innovative solutions, that puts leaders like the BP executives or military leaders on the complex battlefields of 

the 21st century at risk of experiencing catastrophic 

failure. This paper confirms the necessity for the U.S. 

Army to promote the development of adaptive leaders. Army leaders must embody the attribute of creativity and possess the skills for leading groups to do 

adaptive work (to learn). This paper establishes the 

need for the U.S. Army to make changes to its organizational culture. Specifically, the Army must abandon the basic underlying assumption that control and 

stability are “how we get things done.” It must align 

its espoused values (what we say we should do) of 

adaptability and decentralized execution with basic 

underlying assumptions (what we actually do). Finally, this paper demonstrates the need to expand the 

Army’s understanding of leadership beyond current 

doctrine, departing from the traditional leadership 

model focused on the leader who provides solutions, 

and adopt instead a new paradigm in which leadership is perceived as an activity that mobilizes groups 

to face the reality of a changed environment and orchestrates group learning (adaptive work).
3

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Eliminate completely the current officer evaluation system and corresponding promotion 

system. Replace the system with one that identifies, develops, and rewards adaptability, creativity, entrepreneurial behavior, and prudent 

risk-taking.

• Initiate a 360-degree developmental feedback process for all noncommissioned officers 

(NCOs) and commissioned officers to identify 

bad (counterfeit) leaders and develop all leaders in the spirit of the professional military ethic 

(PME).

• Expand the Army’s definition of leadership beyond the present scope of providing purpose, 

direction, and motivation so as to include as 

well mobilizing people to confront and address 

problematic realities to accomplish adaptive 

work.

• Expand the Army’s Leader Core Competencies to 

include the following additional competency: 

“One who mobilizes. Navigates organizations 

through adaptive challenges by confronting 

people with the reality of changed conditions 

and provides a learning environment for the 

group to discover and develop adaptive solutions” (see Appendix III).

METHODOLOGY

A case study provides a means for analyzing complex organizational leadership in the contemporary 

security environment. It presents a high-stakes problem set requiring an operational adaptation by a cav-
4

alry squadron in Baghdad, Iraq. This problematic reality triggers a struggle in finding a creative solution, as 

cultural norms serve as barriers against overturning 

accepted solutions that have proven successful in the 

past, even if they do not fit the reality of the present 

(failure of imagination). The story highlights leaders 

who are constrained by assumptions and, as a result, 

fail to adapt quickly to a changed environment. Emphasizing the importance of reflection and a willingness to experiment and assume risk, the case study 

transitions to an example of a successful application 

of adaptive leadership and adaptive work performed 

by the organization. 

The case study serves as a microcosm of the challenges facing the U.S. Army. The corresponding leadership framework presented can be used as a model 

for the Army as it attempts to move forward in its 

effort to make adaptation an institutional imperative, 

as shown in Chapters 1 and 2. This paper presents a 

holistic approach to leadership whereby the leader 

transcends being simply an authority figure and becomes instead a real leader who provides a safe and 

creative learning environment for the organization to 

tackle and solve adaptive challenges, as discussed in 

Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, the paper concludes with a 

recommendation that Army leaders apply Williams’s 

theory to the challenges confronting the Army’s leader development process so as to improve its efforts to 

grow adaptive leaders.

 To increase the chances of success, real leadership 

must be approached as an interactive art. It is an art 

in that it requires creativity and imagination, rather 

than a singular set of well-honed practices; and it is 

interactive in that one must be willing to “dance” with 

the reality of the context so that the best solutions can 
5

emerge...real leadership requires a capacity to improvise, be imaginative, and make ongoing corrections 

according to the specific challenge the people face, the 

discoveries of the group as they tackle the challenge, 

and the shifting dynamics of the context. Therefore, 

strong diagnostic skills and considerable flexibility in 

one’s intervention style are essential if one is to lead effectively in multiple contexts on multiple challenges. 5

 —Dean Williams

ENDNOTES - INTRODUCTION

1. Rollo May, The Courage to Create, London, UK: Norton, 

1975), p. 60.

2. Plato, The Republic, New York: Oxford University Press, 

1945, pp. 232-233.

3. Martin E. Dempsey, “Driving Change Through a Campaign 

of Learning,” Army Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 10, October 2010, p. 66.

4. Ibid.

5. Dean Williams, Real Leadership: Helping People and Organizations Face Their Toughest Challenges, San Francisco, CA: BerrettKoehler Publishers, 2005, p. xiii.

7

CASE STUDY

IRAQ 2008-09:

OVERCOMING A FAILURE OF IMAGINATION

TO CONDUCT ADAPTIVE WORK

Just as our adversaries adapt and develop new tactics, 

techniques, and procedures, we too must be nimble 

and creative.1

 — National Defense Strategy 2008

The following case study is a firsthand account of 

the author’s experience while serving as a squadron 

commanding officer (SCO—pronounced Sko) of an 

armored wheeled and mechanized cavalry squadron 

operating in Baghdad, Iraq. The study provides relevant parallels with the three key elements of the adaptive challenges facing the Army: (1) emerging doctrine 

on adaptation, (2) hindered by a culture of control, 

stability, and risk aversion, which can be (3) overcome 

by a leadership framework based on mutual trust, 

experimentation, and risk-taking. Challenging the status quo should become a core attribute of the Army 

culture. Continuously challenging all aspects of the 

“way we do business around here” should become an 

incontrovertible mandate that is simply understood as 

a critical component of a healthy self-reflexive profession, and is therefore encouraged and rewarded.

BACKGROUND

In the fall of 2008, 2nd Brigade of the 1st (U.S.) 

Infantry Division deployed to Iraq and was attached 

to the Multi-National Division-Baghdad (MND-B), 
where it would serve under the command of the 4th 

Infantry Division (3 months) and later the 1st Cavalry 

Division (9 months) in the MND-B battlespace. From 

late 2008 into the spring and summer of 2009, the brigade’s cavalry squadron, a subordinate battalion-size 

organization of 750 Soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, was faced with an adaptive challenge. The 

enemy in the squadron’s area of operation (AO) had 

adapted to the U.S. Army’s successful technological 

solutions to counter the improvised explosive device 

(IED) threat and, as a result, the enemy had changed 

its primary weapon system from the IED to the RKG3 high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) hand grenade. 

Along with this new weapon came new enemy tactics. 

Instead of remotely blowing up a roadside bomb from 

a safe and undetectable location, the RKG-3 was employed in a face-to-face close combat attack. The enemy would suddenly emerge from alleyways within 

hand grenade throwing distance (10-30 meters) of the 

passing vehicle and then execute a classic hit-and-run 

irregular ambush. 

This case study is a story of a squadron struggling with a changed environment and of its authority figure, the SCO, whose initial lack of imagination 

resulted in what would be described by Dean Williams as counterfeit leadership.

2

 This prevented him 

from exercising real leadership until he stepped back 

from the problem, actively listening and sensing the 

environment, reflecting, then properly diagnosing the 

problem, and determining the need to empower the 

unit to conduct adaptive learning. It is the journey that 

one unit made to face the reality of a changed environment, to understand a complex problem, to reframe it, 

and then through the exercise of leadership, to eventually induce the squadron to conduct the necessary 

8
9

adaptive work3 to defeat the threat. Ultimately, as a 

result of successful tactical engagements based on this 

adaptive work, the unit not only protected itself from 

enemy tactics, but the success of exercising leadership 

by mobilizing the group to achieve adaptive solutions 

created a new culture of operational adaptability, which allowed the squadron to go beyond just defeating a tactical threat. This exercise of leadership helped change 

the organization’s culture and redefined the unit’s approach to all future adaptive challenges, ultimately allowing the organization to destroy an entire insurgent 

network with experimental, creative, and innovative 

combined operations by, with, and through the 54th 

Iraqi Army Brigade in northwest Baghdad.

UNDETECTED CHANGE IN THE 

ENVIRONMENT

This journey began in September 2008, while 5th 

Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment (5-4 Cavalry), conducted a relief-in-place (RIP) with 1st Squadron, 

75th Cavalry Regiment (1-75 Cavalry), in northwest 

Baghdad. After 5 years of unit rotational transitions, 

units had become very adept at transferring authority for an AO as new units replaced outgoing units. 

1-75 Cavalry was completing a 15-month tour as part 

of the Surge Campaign. Its tour was highlighted by 

the traditional combat threats of Operation IRAQI 

FREEDOM (OIF): snipers and IEDs. In April and May 

2008, 1-75 Cavalry participated in high-intensity close 

combat during a Shia uprising in the Shula neighborhood. After they soundly defeated this threat, the 

remainder of their tour was focused on consolidating the gains of the clear/hold stages articulated in 

the updated U.S. counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine 
10

of clear/hold/build. The 1-75 Cavalry then began to 

rebuild their area under the umbrella of the security 

they and their Iraqi Security Force (ISF) partners had 

established during the Surge. The 1-75 Cavalry’s AO 

encompassed Shia and Sunni neighborhoods, with an 

ethnic fault line presenting most of their challenges. 

The 1-75 Cavalry’s positive relationship with the Sons 

of Iraq (SoI) elements (former Sunni insurgents turned 

allies in the fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq) meant that 

they faced minimal anti-Coalition activity in their 

Sunni neighborhoods. Violence was down by 80 percent across Baghdad, and the operational results of 

the Surge seemed to indicate a turning point in the 

conflict. The achievement of irreversible momentum 

was growing legs and becoming part of the narrative.

As 5-4 Cavalry conducted the 3-week RIP transition with 1-75 Cavalry in October 2008, new internal 

brigade boundaries were adjusted, and most of the 

Shia population centers were shifted from 5-4 Cavalry’s AO into the AO of its sister battalion, 1-18 Infantry, on their flank. In essence, 5-4 Cavalry now had 

primarily a Sunni AO, which had been relatively quiet 

over the last 9 months. The U.S. Forces (USF) enjoyed 

a positive and productive relationship with both the 

Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) in the AO and, more importantly for local security, a strong relationship with 

three SoI battalions in the neighborhoods. It appeared 

that for 5-4 Cavalry’s tour, combat operations would 

be minimal, and that fostering greater partnership 

with the ISF and furthering the development of the 

ISF would be the primary focus for the next 12 months. 

The squadron would continue the “build” activities 

of the clear/hold/build strategy and prepare for the 

eventual passing of security responsibilities to the ISF 

by the end of the tour.
11

The first indicator that the tour would not be as 

assumed came on the night of October 21, 2008, during the RIP transition with 1-75 Cavalry. The troop 

commander (captain) of Troop A, 1-75 Cavalry and 

the troop commander (captain) of Troop B, 5-4 Cavalry, rolled out of the squadron Joint Security Station 

(JSS)—small USF and ISF joint outposts in the neighborhoods—to conduct a routine patrol to familiarize 

the Troop B commander with his soon-to-be AO. As 

the four-vehicle patrol left the safety of the JSS and 

moved into the neighborhood via Route Cecil, an explosion alerted the JSS of enemy contact just outside 

the gate. Initial assessment was an IED attack on the 

passing patrol—the first in months against 1-75 Cavalry in this Sunni neighborhood. Further investigation 

by a U.S. Explosive Ordinance Detachment (EOD) 

determined the explosion was not caused by an IED, 

but rather by an RKG-3 hand grenade that partially 

malfunctioned, causing minimal damage to the up-armored HMMWV (Humvee). No one fully appreciated 

the significance of the appearance of this new weapon 

on the battlefield. It was considered an anomaly and, 

because no one was injured, was forgotten almost as 

fast as it happened. The units’ transition process continued as planned.

Two weeks later during the final hours of the 

RIP, the two chains of command were meeting in the 

squadron headquarters (HQ) for the final out-brief 

from 1-75 Cavalry to 5-4 Cavalry to ensure that all key 

information and intelligence, and all current tactics, 

techniques, and procedures (TTPs), were shared; that 

any previously pending issues had been resolved; and 

that 5-4 Cavalry was prepared and felt comfortable assuming control for the 1-75 Cavalry AO. As the meeting was coming to a close, a large explosion sounded. 
12

About two kilometers (km) south of the JSS, a 1-75 

Cavalry patrol coming to pick up its troop commander 

from the meeting was hit. A runner from the squadron 

tactical operation center (TOC) came into the conference room. He reported there were casualties this 

time. The meeting broke up, and Soldiers went into 

the battle drills for reacting to such an event. The casualties, which were severe, had been evacuated to the 

Combat Surgical Hospital (CSH) across the city in the 

Green Zone. The two squadron commanders (SCOs) 

and command sergeants major (CSMs) moved immediately to the CSH. A platoon sergeant, on his third 

combat tour and completing what would have been 

his last patrol of this 15-month tour, had lost his arm 

in the attack. The weapon, which also destroyed the 

vehicle and wounded all its occupants, was an RKG-3. 

The 5-4 Cavalry SCO directed the staff to produce an 

information brief on this new weapon the following 

morning. 

The RKG-3 is an anti-tank hand grenade. It has an 

armor-piercing copper shaped-charge that can penetrate 9.5 inches of armored steel. It is thrown by using a wooden handle (it looks like a German “potato 

masher” grenade from World War I), and explodes 

on impact. This creates a small quarter-size hole of 

penetration, producing shrapnel and spalling inside 

the vehicle, with the molten copper dart itself destroying anything in its path. Originally designed by the 

Soviet Union and carried by Warsaw Pact infantry to 

be used in close combat with North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization (NATO) tanks, its proliferation around 

the world makes the RKG-3 a cheap and easily accessible weapon for insurgents. For 5-4 Cavalry, it was an 

enemy adaptation that had allowed the insurgents to 

seize the initiative.4
13

FAILURE OF IMAGINATION: COUNTERFEIT 

LEADERSHIP

The 5-4 Cavalry officially assumed responsibility 

of the AO on November 9, 2008, and went to work 

to accomplish its mission: “To train and support 

partnership-unit Iraqi Security Forces to secure the 

population . . . to enable continued progress toward 

achieving sustainable security and ensure continued development of Iraqi civil capacity.” Then, on 

December 1, 2008, another RKG-3 attack occurred in 

which the 5-4 Cavalry experienced its first casualties. 

One Soldier lost his leg, and a dedicated Department 

of Defense (DoD) civilian was killed. There was disequilibrium throughout the system, as frustration was 

running high. The commander felt compelled to prevent another attack in order to protect his troops. As 

the Soldiers looked to their commander for solutions, 

the SCO prepared to provide those answers. He had 

trained for 17 years to prepare himself to be a leader 

in this situation, to use good judgment and make decisive, ethical, and tactically sound decisions in a time of 

crisis. He was the commander, the premier authority5

in the organization under attack, and in this profession. That meant he was responsible for everything 

the unit did and failed to do, and at that moment the 

unit was failing to protect itself. In turn, as the SCO 

prepared to provide answers and solutions, he too 

looked to authority for solutions. He looked to the 

commanders of the SoI—the Iraq informal authority 

in the neighborhoods—for answers. Since these were 

Sunni attacks in Sunni neighborhoods and USF were 

paying the SoI commanders to prevent this kind of activity, the SCO planned to hold them accountable for 

results.
14

The SCO reviewed what he knew and provided 

motivational speeches about greater vigilance and 

enforcing standards of current TTPs to inspire and 

calm. He gave sincere answers and provided wellintentioned technical solutions6

 based on previous 

personal combat actions and years of experience, all 

typical and standard behavior for a commander seeking to lead his organization through challenging and 

dangerous times. In retrospect, however, his performance evinced a failure to exercise real leadership and 

a complete failure of imagination.

REFLECTION AND ANALYSIS: BENEFITS 

AND LIMITATIONS OF AUTHORITY

One of the challenges in leadership is understanding and then managing the use of authority. Authority 

is power granted to perform a service. Formal authority in the military is manifested when a commander 

commits to meeting a set of explicit expectations, as 

defined by the commander’s job description and the 

profession’s standards. The Army is command-centric. Stated another way, it places tremendous responsibility on authority to get things done. This paradigm 

creates an expectation that the commander must provide answers; that the leader embodies the all-knowing; and that, as a result, authority in the military can 

be inappropriately substituted for leadership. When a 

problem is too complex for the leader to solve alone, 

a culture of authority-centric leadership places constraints on finding adaptive solutions. Conversely, if 

a leader uses authority to set conditions for a group 

to conduct experiments, which results in discovery 

learning, then authority becomes a combat multiplier. 

In this paradigm, authority is used to create space for 
15

the group to do adaptive work and find solutions to 

complex problems. 

Within days the SoI leaders provided “actionable 

intelligence.” They provided the typical technical solution the unit sought; paid informants came forward 

who could point out where the alleged perpetrators 

bedded down. The squadron acted decisively, conducting midnight raids and arresting accused suspects. The raids brought back a sense of equilibrium 

and curbed the sense of helplessness for the unit, but 

the ensuing tactical questioning and interrogations by 

the ISF yielded no proof that the unit had picked up 

the right people. 

Although equilibrium and morale were temporarily restored, the SCO’s intuition was that they had not 

solved the real problem. In an attempt to find a solution, the SCO reverted to another time-tested technical 

response: he would bring in the “big dog.” He would 

ask the brigade commander (higher HQ authority) to 

come to the next neighborhood council meeting and 

confront and challenge the local civil leadership. The 

brigade commander met with local Iraqi leaders and 

demanded that the attacks on 5-4 Cavalry stop or the 

money he controlled for infrastructure projects would 

cease to flow into their communities. Pressure was 

also applied to the partner ISF units, but they were as 

clueless as the USF as to the source of this new threat. 

They even denied that the RKG-3 was the weapon being used (despite the USF leaders holding the safety 

pin and other RKG-3 components recovered from the 

attack sites and the enemy posting propaganda videos 

of the attacks on the internet).

Two weeks of quiet gave the unit a sense that the 

problem had been solved. They had looked to their 

authority figures—the Soldiers to the SCO and their 
16

troop commanders, the SCO to the SoI leaders (informal authority) and the brigade commander (formal 

authority); the unit had used the tools of the past to 

apply technical solutions to the problem—increased 

vigilance, strict adherence to standard operating 

procedures and TTPs, raids and apprehension of 

suspects—and threatened to cut off money for local 

infrastructure projects. The problem seemed to be resolved. Then on December 14, 2008, their equilibrium 

was once again disrupted as another patrol was hit 

by an RKG-3 on Route Cecil. The gunner survived, 

although he was severely wounded. The gunner and 

his crew were doing all the right things, using all the 

time-proven TTPs the unit had used during its trainup and certification for deployment. Why, then, were 

he and his crew members tactically defeated?

FACING REALITY AND DIAGNOSING THE 

REAL PROBLEM

The unit was being defeated because during their 

train-up for deployment the threat (which had become 

the routine problem on the battlefield of Iraq) was the 

IED. Time-tested, counter-IED tactics and procedures 

had proven to be effective in the past for solving the 

problem (force protection in Iraq) and had become an 

accepted way that USF did business. The IED is what 

they trained to defeat, and they were trained well. 

There is no doubt that if this crew were faced with 

an IED, the results would have been different. But the 

enemy had adapted; the environment had changed. 

Five years of aggressive U.S. counter-IED technology and tactics had rendered the Sunni IED practically ineffective against the USF and its improved ar-
17

mor and technological countermeasures. If the enemy 

wanted to remain credible in the eyes of the population and relevant in the internal struggle for power 

in the Iraqi political system, he would need to adapt. 

The Sunni insurgent group, the 1920’s Revolutionary 

Brigade, in northwest Baghdad had done exactly that. 

They changed TTPs to adapt to the USF strengths and 

became a credible irregular military threat once again. 

They stopped risking their lives emplacing IEDs, 

whose lethal effects had so dramatically decreased, 

and picked up the RKG-3 hand grenade in its stead.

The SCO had to facilitate a solution to this tactical 

problem. The problem was complex, and the solution, 

if there was one, seemed hidden. The previous solutions provided by the SCO made people feel good, like 

they were doing something to solve the problem, but 

as far as truly solving the real problem was concerned, 

the familiar solutions did nothing. The SCO was providing moral support, setting the personal example 

by leading patrols and not asking his Soldiers to do 

anything he would not do himself, but he was not exercising leadership in the face of a complex problem 

that had no technical solution that could be pulled out 

of an already established repertoire. At best, it was 

counterfeit leadership, a bandage to make the unit’s 

members feel as though they were on the offensive, 

as if they had the initiative by chasing false tasks, and 

as if they were winning. In fact, the opposite was true, 

and it was now the leader’s responsibility to present 

this reality to the organization and get down to the 

real work at hand.
18

REFLECTION AND ANALYSIS: 

UNDERSTANDING THE SYSTEM

One of the challenges in leadership is understanding and then managing the system in which the leader 

is immersed. A military organization is a system of systems, made up of different factions, each with its own 

loyalties, values, and relationships within the system. 

These factions can place obstacles in the path of progress and thwart the exercise of leadership, because 

their conflicting loyalties and values create agendas 

counter to moving the group toward an adaptive solution. These obstacles could come in the form of higher 

HQ using authority to discourage experimentation 

because of the risk and fear that failure could reflect 

poorly on them. It can be a faction inside the unit that 

is clinging to past assumptions or a faction that does 

not see the benefit of offensive action and just wants to 

survive and get everyone home alive. 

These systemic dynamics, reinforced by a hierarchical organization prone to risk aversion, make it difficult for a military leader to exercise leadership. Navigating the system and being able to step out and put 

oneself at risk requires a leader to shape conditions 

within the system so that imaginative and creative 

problem-solving can take place. Forming partnerships 

and co-opting factions within the system are critical 

in setting the conditions for experimentation and risktaking. This may mean getting buy-in from the chain of 

command to provide top-cover in the event of a failed 

experiment or educating those in factions below that 

the risk and experimentation are actually aligned with 

their current loyalties, practices, and beliefs. In this 

case it means selling the concept to resistant factions 
19

that innovative offensive solutions are the best way to 

accomplish the mission while increasing the chances 

of bringing everyone home alive. In this scenario, 

the commander brings together elements of multiple 

factions that share similar goals and empowers them 

to develop solutions. By co-opting multiple factions, 

when it is time to move the group toward accepting 

required adaptation, the leader sets the conditions 

for removing enough institutional inertia by building 

consensus and allowing the group to progress. 

INTERVENTION: PUTTING THE WORK ON THE 

GROUP

The SCO decided to bring a larger group of diverse 

leaders together, present them with a diagnosis of the 

problem, and put the group to work to come up with 

adaptive solutions to their challenge. The SCO brought 

in 12 members of the command, ranging from staff 

sergeant to major. Rank and authority played little, if 

any, part in the decision on whom to bring to what 

would become known as the RKG-3 Defeat Working 

Group. The criterion for selection was based on the 

SCO’s personal observation of these leaders over the 

previous 20 months. The selection criteria included 

leaders who had developed innovative training in 

the past, leaders who showed a propensity for taking 

prudent risk, leaders who had invented new tactics or 

new equipment configurations, and leaders who demonstrated an ability to transfer knowledge from one 

scenario to another and were skilled at imbuing it in 

others as well.

The diagnosis revealed that the unit had an enemy who had changed TTPs and weapon systems to 

adapt and overcome USF strengths, which were im-
20

proved armor protection and counter-IED technology. The enemy adapted by going low-tech—running 

from dark alleys and throwing armor-piercing hand 

grenades. No high-tech jammer was going to stop an 

individual from running and throwing a grenade. 

Though it was 1950s Soviet armor-piercing technology, it was sophisticated enough to penetrate the uparmored HMMWVs and mine-resistant, ambush-protected (MRAP) armored fighting vehicles that were 

employed to counter the IED threat in Iraq. Furthermore, the USF counter-IED mentality was defensive in 

nature. The mindset was: jam signals that trigger the 

IED, wrap armor around yourself, and hope the IED 

does not go off, or if it does, that it is misdirected or 

the armor prevents catastrophic penetration. 

After presenting this reality, the SCO provided the 

following guidance to the working group:

Don’t fight the ‘last war’ or your last deployment, take 

the gloves off, anything goes, think outside the box, 

question assumptions, be creative, use your imagination. . . . I want to hear any and every idea you have. 

Weigh risk, but do not let risk prevent you from presenting an idea . . . it may not be as risky as driving 

down Route Cecil under current conditions.7

The SCO left no one in charge and left the conference 

room, shutting them in alone.

The SCO returned 1 1/2 hours later and joined the 

discussion. The group had formed its own dynamics; 

still, no one was in charge, and the commander reintegrated into the group as a contributing member and 

not as “the SCO.” The intent of leaving the room had 

been to take authority out of the equation. If the SCO 

had stayed, the group, by the very nature of group 

dynamics and Army culture, would have looked to 
21

him for solutions, and even if he put the work back 

on them, answers would be generated to satisfy the 

authority and not to attack the problem with an open 

mind. When he returned, the group had mobilized to 

do work, and the power and momentum of the group 

were not derailed by the reappearance of authority. The group knew it was on the path to adaptive 

solution(s). The SCO joined the discussion as a group 

member, not as the leader, and as a group it developed a framework for how to overcome its adaptive 

challenge.

ADAPTIVE WORK AND OVERCOMING 

BARRIERS

From this session, the RKG-3 holistic defeat approach was born: attacking the thrower, attacking the 

network, and co-opting the population. The immediate focus was how to change, modify, and adapt the 

TTPs to attack the thrower. This was a critical forceprotection issue; the unit had to protect itself with 

new tactics and because it believed that success in this 

critical task would lead to success in the other two.8

The rallying cry which sprang from the meeting was: 

“Be the hunter, not the hunted!” This problem was 

very complex and, as a result, the adaptive solutions 

were far-reaching. For the purpose of this case study, 

covering all of or listing the actual experimental techniques and innovative solutions in their entirety is 

beyond the scope of this case study, but shared below 

are a few of the proposed solutions and insights that 

are indicative of the adaptive mentality of the group.

First, the enemy always attacked the last vehicle 

in the patrol. It was the most vulnerable, because the 

other vehicles had passed the point of attack, allow-
22

ing the attackers time and space to make their escape. 

Providing protection for the last vehicle was thus critical and became the focus of the new tactics. Protection from IEDs meant more armor protection for the 

gunner who sits exposed through a hole in the roof of 

the vehicle. This increased armor, while it protects the 

gunner from IED shrapnel, also drastically decreases 

visibility and severely limits the gunner’s ability to 

maneuver his weapon to react to the RKG-3 thrower. 

Target acquisition was identified as the single 

most important factor in preventing an RKG-3 ambush, an issue not relevant in the IED fight where the 

trigger man is likely out of sight and provides no sign 

to identify himself as the target. In an RKG-3 ambush, 

the gunner has a split second to identify the attacker, 

who will be hiding in a crowd or down a dark alley; 

assess hostile intent; bring his weapon into position; 

take aim; and fire from a moving vehicle before the 

attacker can make a baseball-style throw and run—a 

seemingly impossible task. The recommendation from 

the group: take a welding torch to the armor plates surrounding the gunner. Cut the plates away and expose 

the gunner so he can see and maneuver freely. This 

was considered radical, despite being common sense. 

The commander was all for it. The SCO’s Personal Security Detachment (PSD) was the first to implement it. 

Figure CS-1 is a slide from 5-4 Cavalry’s TTP briefing 

demonstrating the “before and after” look of the turret 

based on the recommended modifications.9
23

Figure CS-1. “Before and After” Recommended 

Turret Modifications.

This solution met immediate resistance within the 

squadron as a whole. Those who did not have the 

benefit of being part of the working group had not 

come to grips with the reality of the current threat environment. Noncommissioned officers (NCOs) with 

multiple tours in Iraq (some saved by armor protection from IED attacks in previous tours) protested 

that these adaptations assumed unnecessary risk in 

exposing the gunner to an IED explosion. Their lack of 

understanding limited their innovative spirit and prevented them from seeing the value of experimenting.

On one particular day, the SCO became engaged 

in a heated discussion with a passionate platoon sergeant, who refused to allow the welder to cut the 

armor plates from in front of his gunner. Asked to 

explain why, the platoon sergeant clung to past successful assumptions that the plates were there to protect the gunner from shrapnel from an IED and the 
24

sergeant cited a number of examples from his tour in 

Iraq in 2005, when the plates saved the gunner’s life. 

The platoon sergeant was then asked: When was the 

last IED attack in the 5-4 Cavalry AO? In fact, there 

had been no IEDs in 2008 in the AO being discussed. 

Then the sergeant was asked how many RKG-3 attacks there had been. By the end, the SCO was able to 

help him see the reality of the current situation, and 

the welder went to work. 

This encounter brought to the forefront the challenge that leaders confront when having to ensure 

the whole organization faces the reality of the current 

situation. This realization meant the smaller cohort of 

leaders from the working group had the responsibility to go back to their organizations and mobilize the 

larger group. The SCO and CSM intervened by going 

on the circuit—a “world tour” explaining the problem, laying out the diagnosis, and leading the group 

in the learning process. They owed it to the Soldiers 

and the junior leaders of the organization to explain 

the “why” so they understood and could have ownership for the experimental procedures and other adaptations. They met with each platoon (18 total) separately and explained the adaptive challenge and the 

adaptive work to be done. The concluding slide of the 

briefing used in the intervention with the platoons is 

shown in Figure CS-2.10
25

Figure CS-2. Platoon Intervention Briefing.11

These platoon briefings went a long way in helping the unit move forward. Despite these efforts, 10 

to 20 percent of the organization refused to face the 

reality. Despite future success and validation of the 

adaptations, this small group of holdouts never saw 

the value in the innovations, experimentation, and ultimately the feasibility of the adaptive work. This fact 

further accentuates the challenge of leading people 

through the learning process when they hold threatened strong beliefs and trusted practices.

Another innovative solution, also part of solving 

the target-acquisition issue, was taking the crewserved weapon off the turret and arming the gunner 

with a shotgun instead. The mounted crew-served 

weapon was usually a .50 caliber machine gun, meant 

for engagements 500-1,500 meters away, or an M240 

machine gun, likewise a weapon meant for a high 
26

rate of fire and longer-range engagements. Both can 

produce major collateral damage in an urban environment, with neither weapon conducive to rapid, 

precision engagements inside 50 meters. The working 

group challenged the assumption that a crew-served 

weapon was necessary at all. The fact that it impeded 

the vision and maneuverability of the gunner was further reason to challenge its presence. The fact was at 

this point in the campaign, Iraq 2009, that the unit was 

not going to face a threat such that every vehicle in a 

patrol would need that much firepower. The nature 

of the real threat, the 1-second RKG-3 engagement, 

would not be won by an unwieldy machine gun but 

rather by a quick-fire area blast of a shotgun, disrupting or unnerving the thrower and regaining the initiative. 

By evening the odds, the movement to contact12

had become a meeting engagement13 instead of an 

ambush.14 To lower the risk of collateral damage in 

this close combat engagement, where noncombatants 

would likely be caught in the crossfire, nonlethal 

crowd control shotgun rounds were used. This was 

because the throwers often would hide in crowds of 

innocent bystanders to camouflage themselves and 

use the civilians as shields for their escape, knowing 

the U.S. gunner would not likely fire into a crowd with 

lethal force, even in self-defense. 

The experimental concept was this: Quickly identify the hostile intent, get the first shot off with an 

area fire blast of a shotgun and prevent or disrupt the 

throw. The crowd goes down, initially angry, wondering why they were just peppered by a crowd-control 

shotgun blast. The would-be throwers on the ground 

know exactly why the crowd was blasted, and they 

will be up and on their feet immediately to escape. By 
27

this point, however, based on new innovative battle 

drills, the patrol has stopped and dismounted scouts 

who, with precision M-4 carbines, can take aimed lethal shots at the fleeing ambushers. The crowd now 

realizes the rest of the story and is appreciative that 

USF, in self-defense, did not engage the embedded enemy with immediate lethal fire. 

The abandonment of the crew-served weapons so 

ingrained in the mindset as “how we do business” 

and the introduction of nonlethal rounds in combat 

induced high levels of discomfort and resistance while 

the group struggled with the adaptive work. The 

squadron drastically modified equipment, changed 

tactics, drilled and rehearsed new actions-on-contact 

battle drills—all experimental in nature, all requiring 

risk, to adapt to the new enemy threat of the menacing RKG-3. On February 5, 2009, along Route Cecil a 

patrol returning to the JSS was confronted once again 

by an RKG-3 ambush, but this time things were different. With the experimental equipment and innovative 

tactics, the 5-4 Cavalry patrol defeated the RKG-3 ambush. Statistics tracked across all Iraq had documented 

79 RKG-3 attacks between January 2008 and January 

2009. USF win-loss record against the RKG-3 ambush 

to this point was 0-79. The USF recorded its first tactical victory against the RKG-3 that fateful night when a 

unit had adapted. The enemy was shot before he was 

able to throw the RKG-3. Severely wounded by an M4 

carbine round in the gut and shotgun wounds to the 

arm, the enemy was saved by an American medic, 

and he was taken prisoner. A feeling of elation was 

felt across the organization, its sentiments captured by 

the squadron’s executive officer that night in an email 

he sent out to the organization:
28

Tonight, I observed a patrol staged in JSS Ghaz-1 that 

had just returned from yet another RKG-3 attack in 

Ghazaliyah. There were very few similarities from this 

patrol and the first three attacked patrols that had returned to Ghaz-1 since our RIP/TOA [relief in place/

transfer of authority]. This time, there were no pockmarked or destroyed vehicles; there were no medics 

and litter bearers scrambling to treat the injured; there 

were no worried and apprehensive looks. Tonight’s 

attack had profoundly different results because of our 

unit’s ability to evolve against a new and emerging 

threat.15

Major David Dunphy, Squadron XO,

February 5, 2009

In contrast to the successful adaptations as described above, the last two successful RKG-3 attacks 

in Baghdad/Abu Ghraib were on January 29 and 

February 1, 2009. It is important to note the TTPs in 

use in the first video by a transit unit moving through 

5-4 Cavalry’s AO. The unit is not using new counterRKG-3 TTPs: In the last vehicle driving at 25-30 mph 

(5-4 Cavalry reduced in-city driving speed to a hunting pace of 15-18 mph), the gunner surrounded by 

armor has no situational awareness—facing to the 

rear with his .50 caliber machine gun raised, using old 

Cold War air-guard tactics as if a Soviet Hind helicopter may sneak up on him in Iraq. Using these TTPs, the 

gunner and his crew have no idea what is about to hit 

them.16

CHANGING CULTURE THROUGH 

SUCCESSFUL ADAPTATION

Success bred success, and the unit embraced the 

experimental modifications and innovative tactics 

and aggressively trained them to perfection. The 
29

new TTPs became accepted as “how we do business 

around here.” The squadron changed at this point. 

This adaptive challenge had been met with an effective and imaginative adaptive solution, and the culture of the entire organization changed. The culture 

of experimentation and innovation took root, and success of imagination began to spill over to all endeavors. Taking risk for the opportunity of a major payoff 

became the norm. It ignited a new offensive spirit that 

had been lost after years of base defense and counterIED TTPs. 

The tactics were developed to regain tactical initiative and achieve force protection. Stated another way, 

“the best defense is a good offense,” with the original 

end state being to protect the patrols while moving 

from point A to point B, while conducting the squadron’s primary mission of developing the ISF and 

improving civil capacity. The 5-4 Cavalry continued 

with this primary mission with new confidence that 

its patrols would win a tactical engagement with the 

RKG-3 ambush. Its new tactics became its trademark, 

and since the enemy knew when a 5-4 Cavalry patrol 

was passing, it experienced no further attacks. But the 

challenges were not over. The enemy adapted again: 

Don’t attack the patrols with the modified turrets and 

new scanning techniques (5-4 Cavalry) . . . wait for a 

patrol from another unit passing through the AO who 

was using the old tactics.

The next adaptive challenge came on March 16, 

2009, when a U.S. Army Military Police (MP) patrol 

was on the way from the forward operating base 

(FOB) at Camp Liberty en route to an Iraqi Police Station inside the 5-4 Cavalry AO to conduct Iraqi Police 

training and development. The patrol was hit by an 

RKG-3 ambush, killing one U.S. Army MP Soldier in 
30

the attack. Frustration again gripped the squadron. 

Despite its best efforts to share the gospel for how to 

maneuver inside their AO of the Mansour District and 

Abu Ghraib (RKG-3 “hot-spots”) and attempts to proliferate the new TTPs used in their AO, many units 

who transited the 5-4 Cavalry AO were still using the 

TTPs for counter-IED operations and not counterRKG-3 operations. This was by no means due to a lack 

of effort on the leadership’s part. 

The SCO/CSM “road show” brief that was used 

internally to educate the platoons in the squadron had 

been requested by the Commanding General of 1st 

Cavalry Division and posted on the division (MNDB) and corps (MNC-I) intranets for assimilation by all 

units in theater. The brigade and division commanders both made reference to the new tactics, and the expectation from them was that units that transited the 

5-4 Cavalry AO (aka the RKG-3 threat areas) needed to 

read, learn, and implement these tactics. The squadron 

went on to publish a TTP article in the Armor and Cavalry Journal and communicated with the Combat Training Centers (CTC), which are responsible for training 

and certifying units coming to theater, explaining the 

newly developed TTPs for counter-RKG-3 for integration into future CTC rotations. Despite the best efforts 

of the chain of command, most units, because they 

had not truly dealt with the adaptive challenge, failed 

to change their behavior. The transfer of this implicit 

and explicit information met resistance and was often 

not employed by transit units in the 5-4 Cavalry AO.

The real frustration, though, was the fact that despite their ability to win the tactical engagement, they 

were not providing security for others transiting their 

AO. As the land owner or the maneuver unit responsible for the security and freedom of maneuver with-
31

in its AO, 5-4 Cavalry took it personally that a U.S. 

Army Soldier was killed in their AO. This adaptive 

challenge was met with more innovation. The group’s 

solution was to adapt again and take the new tactics 

on the offense. “Be the hunter, not the hunted” was no 

longer going to be a slogan for the “best defense. . . .” 

It would mean going on the offense. Search and Attack17 operations commenced. When the 5-4 Cavalry 

patrols rolled out, they gave the appearance of being 

a transit unit by not overtly using counter-RKG-3 tactics, with the intent to entice the enemy to attempt an 

ambush so that the patrols could attack to destroy the 

enemy before transit forces moved into and through 

the AO. This allowed the patrols to maneuver unmolested. Providing security—a classic Cavalry mission!—5-4 Cavalry had the initiative and that spurred 

an offensive spirit.

The new offensive tactics were successful and kept 

the enemy on its heels by taking the initiative away 

from him and getting into his observe, orient, decide, 

and act (OODA) loop. Over the next 90 days, RKG-3 

attacks declined by 90 percent, dropping from an average of 10 ambushes a month inside the 5-4 Cavalry 

AO to one attack a month by April 2009. The fact was, 

however, that the squadron had not destroyed the 

network responsible for the employment of the ambushes. That network could regenerate foot soldiers 

and conduct attacks in the AO against transit units despite being thoroughly disrupted by the 5-4 Cavalry 

TTPs. The next adaptive challenge was defeating the 

network behind the RKG-3. Innovative tactical patrol 

TTPs were not going to solve this challenge, but the 

experimental culture born during the development of 

these TTPs would be critical to overcoming the newest 

challenge of destroying the entire network.
Fighting networks was nothing new to USF and ISF 

forces by 2008-09. The Army and Marine Corps had 

met that adaptive challenge and over time the force 

made the necessary adjustments from defeating the 

regular forces of Saddam’s Army to fighting irregular 

insurgent groups using networked cells to counter the 

strength of the U.S. military. What the new culture of 

imagination and experimentation in 5-4 Cavalry allowed the squadron to do was to take this entrepreneurial spirit into its primary mission of partnership 

with the ISF. The squadron was partnered with the 

54th Brigade of the 6th Iraqi Army Division, and the 

two units teamed up to exploit the successful capture 

of the first defeated RKG-3 thrower and the subsequent intelligence derived from him and others over 

time as the network was attacked.

The 5-4 Cavalry and the 54th Iraqi Army Brigade 

tore down traditional barriers of mistrust and stereotypes typical between U.S. and Iraqi Forces, and 

pushed the boundaries of what and how intelligence 

could be shared among the combined forces. Prudent 

risk was taken in the sharing of intelligence, which resulted in a new level of trust, respect, and teamwork 

that ensued from the experiment. Combining the human intelligence capabilities of the 54th Iraqi Army 

Brigade and the technological intelligence capabilities 

of USF, the 1920’s Revolutionary Brigade in northwest 

Baghdad was ultimately destroyed.18

REFLECTION AND ANALYSIS: LEADERSHIP, 

RISK, AND PUTTING YOURSELF ON THE LINE

The exercise of leadership is a dangerous endeavor. The higher the stakes, the more challenging the 

task as the leader balances risk associated with lives, 

32
33

mission, and personal loss. Leadership requires moral 

courage and a willingness to take personal risk, to put 

oneself on the line. The defeat of the RKG-3 ambush is 

a success story because the experiment ended with a 

positive outcome. But leaders at all level accepted risk 

to allow for the experiment to take place. What if the 

outcome had been different, and the enemy had won 

and lives were lost? There were many factions waiting 

in the wings to discard those who had been willing 

to step across the line and take risks. In a hierarchical 

culture, leaders must be willing to take risks, allow for 

experimentation, and stimulate the creative process 

that generates discoveries. 

This may place one in professional peril or even 

physical danger, but this is the essence of leadership. 

Soldiers must see you on the line both figuratively and 

literally. You may have to demonstrate personally the 

tactics and lead RKG-3 hunting expeditions, or you 

may have to underwrite and take responsibility for 

a subordinate’s failure. In the case of breaking down 

barriers and pushing boundaries with the 54th Brigade, the commander role-modeled what was expected in this paradigm shift. In building the relationship 

with the commander of the 54th Brigade, the leader 

placed himself in vulnerable positions both personally 

and professionally by placing trust in our Iraqi ally. It 

went beyond sharing tea and exchanging pleasantries; 

it was putting his life and the lives of his men in the 

hands of the Iraqi commander, it was using discretion 

in what intelligence was shared, it was bending rules 

to build a relationship.

These were all risks. If they had gone badly, for 

example if a U.S. Soldier was killed while subjected 

to tactical decisions of the Iraqi commander or if classified information shared with the 54th Brigade was 
34

compromised, the U.S. commander assuming this risk 

could face reprimand or relief by factions less willing to be creative. In the end, the exercise of leadership is about setting conditions for progress. During 

times of adaptive challenges that require creative and 

imaginative problem-solving, it means taking risk 

and shaping the environment for the unit to conduct 

experiments. In a culture that is averse to failure, it 

requires the leader to accept personal risk and be prepared to assume the responsibility of failed efforts by 

subordinates using their imagination to find adaptive 

solutions. This willingness to assume risk must be 

tempered with an understanding of how to swim in 

the dangerous waters of leadership. 

This point is so important that I will develop it by 

speaking directly to potential leaders in the second 

person: Leadership requires you to be present to exercise it. If you allow yourself to be marginalized or 

relieved, then you may have failed in your exercise 

of leadership. Be careful not to assume the role of the 

crusader or make yourself a martyr. Master the art of 

staying alive to fight another day. Pick your battles 

wisely, but when you do, be ready to step out on the 

line. There may be a time to fall on your sword, but 

understand you lose all say in the progress of the 

group if you are killed off and replaced by another 

who may not be willing to pick up the fight. One way 

to facilitate the wise acceptance of risk and to survive 

is to build alliances among factions in the system. Find 

partners and lead change with a united effort. This 

gives you more flexibility and increases the threshold 

of risk tolerance by those who find your prudent risktaking uncomfortable or stressful.

The fact is that a network could be defeated19 by disrupting its supply lines, or capturing elements of the 

cells, but could not be destroyed by USF efforts alone 
35

or limited combined operations under the old rules. 

This was because of the flat organizational structure 

and decentralized operating procedures employed 

by the Sunni insurgent cells and networks fighting in 

Iraq. Rarely is the network completely destroyed. In 

the present case there was no failure of imagination. 

With experimental combined (USF and ISF) operations 

the entire network was dismantled piece by piece, culminating with a combined effort to capture the enemy 

battalion commander of the 1920’s Revolutionary Brigade, a former major in Saddam’s Army whose area 

of operation included northwest Baghdad (Mansour, 

Ghazaliyah, and Abu Ghraib) and who had overseen 

53 RKG-3 ambushes between September 2008 and July 

2009 (providing mission command and logistical support, he was not an executor/thrower). 

This insurgent leader would later brag to ISF interrogators that his cell had gone 5 years without being defeated by Coalition Forces (he was unaware of 

the USF collaboration in his capture and thought the 

ISF alone had uncovered him). This insurgent leader 

boasted in his confession to the ISF that his 1920’s 

Revolutionary cell conducted the IED campaign on 

Route Irish in 2003-04, the most dangerous road in 

Iraq during that period, and touted the IED and sniper 

operations along Route Sword that claimed a number 

Coalition lives from 2005 to 2007. Cross-checking his 

interrogation results against historical attack data confirmed many of his claims. His capture by elements of 

the 54th Iraqi Army Brigade with USF support ended 

all RKG-3 ambushes across Multi-National DivisionBaghdad from that point forward. Due to the horizontal organization of this particular insurgent group, the 

capture of its leader completely destroyed the 1920’s 

Revolutionary Brigade, ending its 5-year reign of antiCoalition operations in northwest Baghdad.
36

At this juncture, it is important to acknowledge 

that 5-4 Cavalry was a system within a larger system 

and that the larger system played a significant role in 

the subsystem’s ability to be adaptive. The command 

climate of the larger systems determined the level of 

discretion and flexibility the SCO and squadron were 

permitted to experiment and conduct adaptive work. 

Despite 5-4 Cavalry’s immediate higher headquarters 

(2nd Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division) providing a 

command climate supportive of risk-taking, that was 

not the case at the beginning of the deployment with 

regard to the next higher level headquarters (Division). 

For the first 3 months, the 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, and its subordinate units (to include 5-4 

Cavalry) served under the command of 4th Infantry 

Division (4th ID). In addition to the SCO’s own failure of imagination, the squadron was also immersed 

in this larger system, which was characterized by a 

hostile command climate in 4th ID—commanded by 

a division commander whose caustic style of leadership produced risk aversion and paralyzed creative 

thought. This period corresponds directly to the period when the subsystem had its failure of imagination 

and struggled with overcoming its adaptive challenge. 

The 1st Cavalry Division (1st CD) transitioned into 

MND-B and took over for 4th ID. In contrast, under 

the 1st CD leadership of Major General Dan Bolger 

and Command Sergeant Major Rory Malloy, the climate was such that experimentation and initiative 

were not only tolerated, but encouraged and rewarded. The climate established within this larger system 

by the 1st CD command team provided the conditions 

for learning and adapting, thus significantly contributing to the ability of the subordinate organizations 
37

to display operational adaptability. When 5-4 Cavalry 

prepared to depart Baghdad at the end of its 12-month 

deployment, Major General Bolger invited the troop 

commanders and troop first sergeants of 5-4 Cavalry 

to the division headquarters for dinner to express his 

pride and admiration in their performance and initiative. His parting words to those junior leaders capture 

the essence of overcoming a failure of imagination to 

conduct adaptive work: “Yes Long Knives [5-4 Cavalry call sign], you out-fought the enemy here in Baghdad, but the real reason you won, and won decisively, 

is because you out-thought the enemy.”20

LESSONS LEARNED FROM LEADING A 

LEARNING ORGANIZATION

The current and future operational environments 

that the U.S. Army can expect to face in this globalized and networked world will present ambiguous 

and complex problems that will not always allow 

commanders to reach into a bag of tricks and pull 

out a suitable solution. For a commander, there will 

be times when routine problems requiring a technical solution or the application of a standard operating 

procedure will indeed apply, and as the authority you 

will be able to apply your experience and expertise to 

solve the organization’s problem. There will also be 

times, however, when your authority alone will be insufficient to produce the best course of action or the 

right solution to an adaptive challenge. In these times 

you, the commander, the platoon leader, or section 

sergeant must exercise adaptive leadership. Stated 

another way, you must mobilize the group to face 

the reality of a changed environment. You must be a 

coach, an interpreter, a guide in helping the group to 

conduct adaptive work. 
38

This is not easy, as oftentimes it requires individuals and the group to challenge assumptions, abandon 

entrenched beliefs, and change cultural norms that are 

deeply rooted and have in the past proven to be successful. The more challenging the problematic reality, 

the more the group will want to cling to what worked 

in the past and resist change and uncertainty. The 

organization will want to avoid disequilibrium and 

will look to the leader to provide a solution that will 

reestablish the equilibrium quickly and painlessly. 

Unfortunately, easy and readily available answers are 

usually the wrong solution for a complex problem, especially if it requires adaptation by a group. 

Often complex problems call for real leadership 

and require the person in a position of authority, like a 

commander, to avoid providing counterfeit solutions 

to appease the group and instead go against his/her 

tendency and natural desire to be a problem-solver. 

The authority may actually have to generate disequilibrium to mobilize the group to conduct adaptive 

work. To do this, the leader must first be reflective and 

be able to pull him/herself out of the fray to listen, 

sense, think, and then diagnose the problem. Then, if 

adaptive work is to be done, the leader must mobilize 

the group to take risk, experiment, innovate, and produce change—change that may be met with resistance 

and scorn from below and above. It is hard work to 

exercise leadership when confronted with adaptive 

challenges. It takes real leadership. 

The exercise of leadership goes beyond the mere 

possession of authority. Unfortunately, all too often 

commanders rely only on authority itself, including 

reliance on a repertoire of known solutions. This is a 

risk-averse approach to command, an approach that 

avoids creating disequilibrium. But it is in states of 
39

disequilibrium where the most effective social learning takes place. With this risk-averse approach, at the 

end of your 12-month tour you will be able to say to 

yourself, “We did what we trained to do. Yes, we took 

casualties, but not because we were deficient in our 

execution of approved solutions; the enemy just got 

the best of us that day. . . . We didn’t destroy the enemy, but we feel that we disrupted him thoroughly. . . 

. So I know in my heart we did our best.” Did you? Or 

did you just lack imagination? Did you fail to adapt or 

adapt enough? Did you take on the challenge of leading your organization to face the reality that the environment had changed and what you trained to perfection for 12-months before your deployment is less 

relevant now that you are in the arena of today, where 

in-stride changes and adaptations have to be made? 

Did you have the moral courage, while in contact with 

the enemy, to create disequilibrium in your organization so it could do real adaptive work? Did you create 

a culture in which your organization became a learning organization? Or did you lack imagination, fail 

to revisit assumptions, engage in work avoidance to 

sidestep the real work, and provide counterfeit leadership from a position of authority?

These are the hard questions that commanders 

need to ask themselves as they continue to face complex and ambiguous operational environments. Despite the superior comparative strength in military 

capabilities of the U.S. Army, it is the failure of imagination that can be the U.S. Army’s Achilles heel. The 

Army’s competitive advantage must come from its 

intellectual approach to future conflict. It will not only 

be the Army’s ability to out-fight the enemy, but to 

out-think him, to adapt faster, and to seize and maintain the initiative, that will produce future victories.
40

ENDNOTES - CASE STUDY

1. National Defense Strategy 2008, Washington, DC, p. 19, available from www.defense.gov/news/2008%20national%20defense%20

strategy.pdf.

2. Counterfeit leadership, as defined by Dean Williams, is the 

kind of action, irrespective of one’s intentions, that results in putting a false set of tasks before people, including any activity pursued by a group that has nothing to do with progress: false strategy, political game playing, interdivisional rivalries, tolerance of 

scapegoating, and refusal to admit error and learn.

3. Adaptive work, as defined by Dean Williams, is the effort 

that produces the organizational or systemic learning needed to 

tackle tough problems that often require an evolution of values, 

beliefs, or practices.

4. Information on this weapon system and the enemy adaptive 

tactics is available from www.liveleak.com/view?i=df5_1226223621.

5. Authority, as defined by Dean Williams, is the power 

granted to perform a service. Formal authority arises when the 

officeholder promises to meet a set of explicit expectations, such 

as a job description or professional standards. This exchange of 

power for a service may be informal. Informal authority arises 

when employees confer power on a person based on implicit expectations.

6. Technical Solutions, as defined by Dean Williams, is an intervention plan that includes: (1) a fixed statement of the problem, 

and, (2) fixed standards for success defined before the intervention was made. Routine solutions for routine problems. Solutions 

not requiring learning or adapting.

7. John B. Richardson IV, Command Guidance, Baghdad, Iraq: 

Headquarters 5-4 Cavalry, January 2009.

8. The TTPs developed and implemented can be found in an 

article published in the May-June 2009 edition of the Armor and 

Cavalry Journal, or through the Center for Army Lessons Learned.
41

9. U.S. Army, 5th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Command Brief, 

“Defeating the RKG-3,” January 5, 2009.

10. Ibid.

11. The OODA loop is a concept originally applied to the 

combat-operations process, often at the strategic level. It is now 

also often applied to understanding commercial operations and 

the learning processes. The concept was developed by military 

strategist Colonel John Boyd, USAF.

12. Movement to Contact is a form of the offense designed to 

develop the situation and to establish or regain contact with the 

enemy.

13. Meeting Engagement is a combat action that occurs when 

a moving force, incompletely deployed for battle, engages an enemy at an unexpected time and place.

14. Ambush is a surprise attack by fire from concealed positions 

on a moving or temporarily halted enemy. 

15. John B. Richardson IV, “Be the Hunter, not the Hunted: 

Adapting to Defeat the RKG-3,”Armor and Cavalry Journal, MayJune 2009, p. 5.

16. These videos are available from www.archive.org/details/

1920RevolutionBrigades-NewRkg-3GrenadeOnUsHumvee, and www.

archive.org/details/1920RevolutionBrigades-Rkg-3GrenadeDamageOneStryker. 

17. Search and Attack is a variant of the movement to contact 

conducted by smaller, light maneuver units and air cavalry or air 

assault forces in large areas to destroy enemy forces, deny area to the 

enemy, or collect information. Search-and-attack operations may be 

conducted against a dispersed enemy in close terrain unsuitable for 

armored forces, in rear areas against enemy special operations forces 

(SOF) or infiltrators, or as an area security mission to clear assigned 

zones.

18. Destroy is defined as: (1) a tactical task to physically render an enemy force combat-ineffective unless it is reconstituted, 
or, (2) to render a target so damaged that it cannot function as 

intended nor be restored to a usable condition without being entirely rebuilt.

19. Defeat is a tactical task to either disrupt or nullify the enemy force commander’s plan and subdue his will to fight so that 

he is unwilling or unable to further pursue his adopted course of 

action and yields to the will of his opponent.

20. Major General Daniel Bolger, speech to commanders and 

first sergeants of 5th Squadron, 4th Cavalry, Baghdad, Iraq, September 2009.

42
43

CHAPTER 1

THE ARMY’S CAMPAIGN OF LEARNING

Leaders lacking adaptability enter all situations in the 

same manner and often expect their experience in one 

job to carry them to the next. Consequently, they may 

use ill-fitting or outdated strategies. Failure to adapt 

may result in poor performance in the new environment or outright organizational failure.1

Field Manual 6-22, Army Leadership

As the U.S. Army prepares for the second decade 

in the era of persistent conflict, it is incumbent on the 

profession of arms to reflect on the previous decade of 

war and learn the appropriate lessons. This reflection 

allows leaders in the Army to diagnose, challenge, and 

intervene in the system to promote change in order to 

revamp the organizational culture and maximize the 

growth in its next generation of military leaders, and 

to strengthen their profession as it seeks to improve 

its mastery and management of lethal force.2

 In 2009, 

TRADOC launched an introspective analysis, whose 

thesis is the “campaign of learning—a set of initiatives built on the expectation of persistent conflict, 

grounded in the lessons learned from 9 years of war, 

and balanced against the emerging trends of the future operational environment.”3

THE OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT 

We have always lived in uncertain, unpredictable, 

and challenging times, but as a result of globalization 

and proliferation of technology, today’s uncertainty 

is fundamentally different. The security environment 
44

is much more competitive in the post-September 11, 

2001 (9/11) world. Countering the Soviet conventional threat was, in theory, exploiting the predictability 

by which the Soviet armored columns would attack. 

While serving as a tank platoon leader in Germany 

during the early 1990s, my ability to display conceptual agility was not an imperative, just my ability to 

do math. It was “battlefield calculus”—there are this 

many of them, coming in this manner, at this rate, and 

my platoon can kill this many, at this distance, at this 

rate. The paradigm was simple, with solutions generated from a repertoire of time-proven battle drills and 

standard operating procedures. 

Today’s tank platoon leader lives in a different 

world. As General Martin Dempsey explains, it is a 

world where “uncertainty is the result of persistent 

conflict with hybrid threats, enabled by technology, 

that decentralize, network, and syndicate . . . an environment where we should expect to be surprised more 

frequently and with potentially greater impact.”4 As 

outlined in the Army Capstone Concept, “The ability to 

adapt depends on a fundamentally sound estimate of 

future threats, challenges, and enemy capabilities as 

well as an understanding of the future operational environment.”5

 In simple terms, the future operational 

environment (OE) will exhibit uncertainty and complexity. The future OE will be highlighted by asymmetric tactics employed by “hybrid enemies: both 

hostile states and non-state enemies that combine a 

broad range of weapons capabilities and regular, irregular, and terrorist tactics; and continuously adapt 

to avoid U.S. strengths and attack what they perceive 

as weaknesses.”6

The OE requires leaders at all levels to work within 

the context of a host-nation/multinational construct. 
45

The OE will be focused on populations, thus presenting challenges in lingual and cultural differences. The 

enemy will be networked and not always rational. The 

host nation and the enemy will be news-media savvy 

and will use information operations to achieve their 

ends. Increasingly, in this networked and globalized 

world, the threat will operate in flat organizations. 

As Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom point out in their 

book, The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power 

of Leaderless Organizations, to combat the strengths of 

the United States, the threats in the networked world 

will have minimal hierarchy, making their organizations highly adaptive and decentralized for rapid decisionmaking.7

 Recent examples of this include Sunni 

insurgent groups in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and 

al-Qaeda (AQ) around the globe. The bottom line is 

that the OE will remain ambiguous and complex, with 

a highly adaptive enemy. It is this ever-changing environment that requires a fundamental shift in the approach to military problem-solving and Army leader 

development. 

ARMY INITIATIVES

Seismic shifts in how the Army operates after a decade of combat against irregular forces and networked 

cells of insurgents employing asymmetric tactics 

demonstrate that the Army can adapt. Like General 

George Casey, Chief of Staff of the Army from 2007 

to 2011 suggests, the real question is, how quickly can 

we adapt and at what cost? 

General Casey concluded his annual assessment in the 2009 Army Green Book as follows:
46

The Army of the 21st century described here will require continuous change. Our strategic environment 

has evolved dramatically, and so has the Army. The 

challenges of institutional change in large organizations like the Army are substantial, especially as we 

are adapting an organization that is already the best in 

the world at what it does. Our test must not be, “Have 

we changed?” It must be, “Have we changed enough?”

Everything is on the table except our core values.8

Senior Army leaders’ reflections on decade of war 

illuminated the need for the Army to codify new practices, values, and procedures. The U.S. Army Training 

and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) took the lead in 

redesigning the Army’s conceptual foundation by reflecting on the previous decade of persistent conflict 

and is aggressively pursuing a campaign of learning, “a 

broad set of initiatives designed to produce an Army 

capable of rapidly adapting to defeat unforeseen 

threats.”9 The Army’s Campaign of Learning is General Dempsey’s strategic intervention to promote change. 

The common thread in all the following developments and other TRADOC initiatives is the requirement for continuous learning and adaptability. It is 

a recognition that the ability to frame complex problems, to understand the problem in context, and to 

adapt quicker than the enemy can, is what will give 

the U.S. Army a competitive advantage on the battlefields of the 21st century. In essence, it is the ability to 

learn operational adaptability.

A brief description of some of TRADOC’s most significant contributions to the learning process reveals 

that the Army—as a learning organization—is making remarkable strides within the problem-solving 

process. The Army Capstone Concept (ACC) serves 

as the intellectual foundation of the Army concept 
47

framework, setting forth the Army’s strategic vision 

of future armed conflict. The central theme of the ACC 

is operational adaptability, considering future armed 

conflict within the context of four key trends in the 

current and future operating environment: uncertainty, pace of change, competitiveness, and decentralization. The ACC also identifies the substantive adaptations that we must make in how we build leaders, and 

how we train, learn, and organize ourselves. 

The Army Operating Concept (AOC) describes 

“how” future Army forces conduct operations as part 

of the Joint Forces to deter conflict, prevail in war, and 

succeed in a wide range of contingencies, all as focused 

on the employment of forces in time frame 2016-28. 

The ideas brought forth in the AOC will guide future 

revisions in Army doctrine, organization, training, 

materiel, leader development, education, personnel, 

and facilities. The AOC also elucidates the necessity of 

operational adaptability in full-spectrum operations 

against hybrid threats with the land warfare capabilities to conduct combined arms maneuver and wide 

area security.

The Army Leader Development Strategy (ALDS) 

seeks to establish the right balance between the three 

pillars of leader development: training, education, 

and experience. The ALDS describes three required 

paradigm shifts as the Army adapts its leader development model: 1) the effect of complexity and time 

on decisionmaking; 2) the effect of decentralization 

on organizational leadership; and, 3) the need for the 

ability to frame ill-structured problems. An excerpt 

from ALDS highlights the following attributes and 

core competencies sought in U.S. Army leaders: 
48

LEADER ATTRIBUTES 

Army leaders must possess and model key attributes in order to reach their full professional potential. An attribute is defined as a characteristic unique 

to an individual that moderates how well learning and 

performance occur. Leader development must build 

on the foundation of an individual’s existing qualities, 

developing well‐rounded leaders who possess three 

critical leadership attributes. 

Character. A leader of character internalizes the 

Army Values,1

 lives by our Professional Military Ethic, reflects the Warrior Ethos,2

 and displays empathy 

toward Soldiers, families and those people affected 

by the unit’s actions. Character is central to a leader’s 

core identity. In our profession, competence places an 

individual in position to lead—character makes him 

or her an effective leader. 

Presence. A leader of presence has credibility, 

exudes confidence, and builds trust. Presence is conveyed through actions, appearance, demeanor, and 

words. 

Intellect. A leader of intellect has the conceptual 

capability to understand complex situations, determine what needs to be done, and interact with others 

to get it done. Leaders must have the ability to reason, 

to think critically and creatively, to anticipate consequences, and to solve problems. 

1 Army Values: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, 

Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage. 

2 Warrior Ethos: I will always place the mission first; I will 

never accept defeat; I will never quit; I will never leave a fallen 

comrade.
49

LEADER CORE COMPETENCIES 

Army leaders apply their character, presence, 

and intellect in leading our nation’s Soldiers. The expectations for what leaders should do regardless of 

the situation are captured in the Army’s core leader 

competencies. Core leader competencies are defined 

as groups of related behaviors that lead to successful 

performance, common throughout the organization 

and consistent with the organization’s values: 

One who leads. Provides vision through purpose, 

motivation, universal respect, and direction to guide 

others. Extends one’s influence beyond the chain of 

command to build partnerships and alliances to accomplish complex work. Leading is conveyed by communicating (imparting ideas) and setting the example. 

One who develops. Leads organizations by creating and maintaining a positive environment and by 

investing effort in their own broadening and in that 

of others to achieve depth and breadth. Developing 

includes assessing needs to improve self, others, and 

the organization. 

One who achieves. Focuses on what needs to be 

accomplished. Has an expeditionary mindset and can 

adapt to unanticipated, changing, and uncertain situations. Achieving in the short term is about getting results, but in the long term it is about setting the vision 

to obtain objectives.10

Additionally TRADOC is spearheading the Army 

Learning Concept for 2015 (ALC), designed to win in 

the competitive learning environment by creating an 
50

accessible, responsive, career-long continuum of learning that supports operational adaptability. Additionally, the Army Training Concept 2015 (ATC) provides 

a vision for the Army’s way ahead for unit training, 

which strikes a balance between operational and institutional training requirements and offers flexibility, 

efficiencies, and a broad range of training capabilities 

so leaders can maintain operational adaptability.11

Finally, TRADOC is refashioning key doctrine to 

include Field Manual (FM) 3.0, Operations, which codifies the hybrid threat as critical to the commander’s 

understanding of the complex combination of threats 

the Army faces. FM 3.0 also integrates the doctrinal 

concept of mission command—the adaptation that 

captures what we have learned in 9 years of war, 

including roles and responsibilities of leaders in distributed and increasingly decentralized operations. 

The new Field Manual (FM) 7.0, Training Units and Developing Leaders for Full Spectrum Operations, supports 

FM 3.0 and encourages an intellectual rather than a 

lock-step management process by providing broad 

unit training and leader development concepts and 

encouraging the use of mission command in training.

OPERATIONAL ADAPTABILITY

Operational Adaptability emerges from these concepts and is the cornerstone of successful application 

and integration of the military component of national 

power at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war. It is a quality based on critical thinking, 

comfort with ambiguity and decentralization, a willingness to accept prudent risk, and an ability to make 

rapid adjustments based on a continuous assessment 

of the situation.12
51

Application of this concept assumes that the Army 

culture is conducive to innovation and experimentation, and rewards prudent risk takers, and that based 

on this culture, those in positions of authority in the 

Army are adaptive leaders with the skills and attributes to lead organizations through problematic challenges13 requiring adaptive work.14

As the Army attempts to move toward embracing 

operational adaptability, the question remains, has 

it as a profession made the necessary changes to its 

culture to embrace fully the concepts espoused by the 

emerging doctrine? Does the organizational culture 

nurture the growth of this type of leader? No one in 

today’s Army will deny the need to achieve operational adaptability, but aligning those espoused values with basic underlying assumptions is an adaptive 

challenge the Army faces in fully incorporating new 

behavior into its culture.

Acknowledgment of the changed OE and of the 

need to achieve operational adaptability to survive 

and win leads to the question: What type of leader 

does the Army need to perform effectively in the context of operational adaptability? General Casey answers these questions when he stated: “Our Soldiers 

must be led by agile, culturally astute, and adaptive 

leaders.”15 Based on the current OE, our profession demands leaders with greater imagination and increased 

awareness of “weak signals” of impending change.16

According to General Dempsey, “confronting hybrid 

threats . . . in such an environment requires leaders 

who not only accept but seek and embrace adaptability as an imperative.”17 In response to the emerging 

trends in the OE, he goes on to state, “Our profession 

must embrace a culture of change and adaptation. We 

must think differently about how we develop leaders.”18
52

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 1

1. Field Manual (FM) 6-22, Army Leadership, Washington, DC: 

HQ Department of the Army, 2006, pp. 10-18.

2. John B. Richardson IV, “Shaping Adaptive Leaders for the 

2nd Decade and Beyond” (pending publication), p. 1.

3. Martin E. Dempsey, “Driving Change Through a Campaign 

of Learning,” Army Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 10, October 2010, p. 66.

4. Ibid. 

5. TRADOC Pamphlet (PAM) 525-3-0, The Army Capstone Concept, Washington, DC: HQ Department of the Army, 2009, p. 15.

6. Ibid.

7. Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, New York: 

Penguin Group, 2006, p. 134.

8. George W. Casey, Army Magazine, Vol. 59, No. 10, October 

2009, p. 40.

9. TRADOC Themes and Messages, February 3, 2010.

10. Army Leader Development Strategy, November 2009, p. 

9, available from www.nps.gov/abli/.

11. TRADOC Themes and Messages.

12. PAM 525-3-0, p. 16.

13. Problematic challenge, or adaptive challenge, is a problem that resists solution even when leaders apply the best-known 

methods and procedures based on the current values in the organization; generally, the resolution of an adaptive challenge requires a shift in values. 
53

14. PAM 525-3-0, p. 209.

15. Casey, p. 28.

16. Dempsey, “Driving Change Through a Campaign of 

Learning,” p. 66.

17. Martin E. Dempsey, “Mission Command,” Army Magazine, Vol. 61, No. 1, January 2011, p. 44. 

18. Martin E. Dempsey, “A Campaign of Learning to Achieve 

Institutional Adaptation,” Army Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 11, November 2010, p. 34.

55

CHAPTER 2

THE ARMY’S ADAPTIVE CHALLENGE

Creativity provokes the jealousy of the gods.1

 Rollo May

In his speech to the cadets at West Point, Secretary 

of Defense Robert Gates stated that the Army faces 

the challenge of adapting its practices and culture to 

the strategic realities of the 21st century. “How,” he 

asked, “could it better prepare itself, and in particular 

its leaders, for a complex and uncertain future?”2 He 

continued, “From the beginning of the wars in Iraq 

and Afghanistan, our Soldiers and junior- and midlevel leaders down range have been adjusting and improvising to the complex and evolving challenges on 

the ground.”3 But he emphasized that it had taken the 

bureaucracies here at home longer to “respond with 

remotely similar agility.”4

William Deresiewicz, a former professor at Yale, 

explained the “great mystery about bureaucracies” in 

an earlier lecture to the cadets as he challenged them 

to be “thinkers” and to avoid the tendency to be consumed by the bureaucracy they are about to join. In 

reference to American leadership, Deresiewicz stated: 

For too long we have been training leaders who only 

know how to keep the routine going. Who can answer 

questions, but don’t know how to ask them. . . . Who 

think about how to get things done, but not whether 

they’re worth doing in the first place. What we have 

now are the greatest technocrats in the world. He asks: 

[W]hy is it so often that the best people [in a bureaucracy] are stuck in the middle and the people who are 
56

running things—the leaders—are the mediocrities? 

Because excellence isn’t usually what gets you up the 

greasy pole. What gets you up is a talent for maneuvering. Kissing up to the people above you, kicking 

down the people below you. Pleasing your teachers, 

pleasing your superiors, picking a powerful mentor 

and riding his coattails until it’s time to stab him in the 

back. Jumping through hoops. Getting along by going 

along. Being whatever other people want you to be, so 

that it finally comes to seem that . . . you have nothing inside you at all. Not taking risks, like trying to 

change how things are done or question why they’re 

done. Just keep the routine going.5

Such is the dire state of leadership in a bureaucracy.

Colonel Scott Krawczyk, a professor at West Point, 

here describes the model for officers as espoused early 

in our country’s history:

From the very earliest days of this country, the model 

for our officers, which was built on the model of the 

citizenry and reflective of democratic ideals, was to be 

different. They were to be possessed of a democratic 

spirit marked by independent judgment, the freedom 

to measure action and to express disagreement, and 

the crucial responsibility never to tolerate tyranny.6

This model contrasts markedly with the career pattern of the self-serving bureaucrat in uniform, General 

Courtney Massengale, as portrayed in Ken Follett’s 

fine World War II novel, Once an Eagle. Massengale’s 

foil is General Sam Damon, who spurns careerism 

and instead insists on being one of those officers who 

“think for themselves and act on their convictions.”7

As Brigadier General H. R. McMaster once wrote, 

“Commanders and senior civilian officers must be 

willing to underwrite mistakes, mistakes of com-
57

mission should be tolerated, passivity should not.”8

Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr., once wrote: 

“Collins and Bradley are too prone to cut off heads. 

This will make division commanders lose their confidence. A man should not be damned for an initial 

failure with a new division. Had I done this with Eddy 

of the 9th Division in Africa, the army would have lost 

a potential corps commander.”9

 It is the fear of having 

your head cut off for making a mistake or challenging 

the status quo that hampers the imagination of leaders 

and generates a culture of risk aversion.

During recent visits to Harvard’s Kennedy School, 

senior military leaders have voiced concern over the 

challenge of growing adaptive leaders. Lieutenant 

General Robert Caslen, commander of the Combined 

Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, KS, stated that “his 

primary concern is the culture of risk aversion that 

could pervade the force.”10 This potential aversion to 

taking prudent risk is exacerbated by the way junior 

leaders perceive how risk-taking is promoted in the 

current operating environment (OE), while the corresponding responsibility and accountability are not 

being managed to allow for mistakes. This perception 

is reinforced by the handling of incidents like Wanat 

and COP Keating in Afghanistan. At these remote 

Army outposts, relatively high U.S. casualties resulted 

from clashes with Taliban forces. The ensuing investigations into the incidents resulted in reprimands for 

junior and mid-level leaders, which was an example, 

as perceived by many of those less-senior leaders, of 

senior Army leaders taking punitive actions against 

junior leaders for taking risks and making decisions.

These perceived signals could result in a paralysis that 

runs counter to the espoused values of emerging doctrine.
58

There are examples of zero-defect command climates in our Army’s past that provide lessons for the 

Army’s leadership in managing risk in the 21st century. Dan Bolger in his 1990 Command and General Staff 

College paper entitled, “Zero Defects: Command Climate in First Army, 1944-1945,” cites historian Russell 

Weigley in highlighting that the “underlying tactical 

weakness that precipitated the major crisis in the First 

Army” was based on “‘unimaginative caution’ as the 

overriding trait of these U.S. commanders. Most First 

Army generals showed themselves ‘competent but 

addicted to playing it safe.’ By comparison, Patton’s 

Third Army and Simpson’s Ninth risked more and accomplished more with significantly fewer losses.”11

Brigadier General McMaster, former director of the 

Army Capabilities Integration Center’s (ARCIC) Concepts Development and Experimentation Directorate, 

who is also the principal author of the Army Capstone 

Concept, stated, 

We need to reject the assertion that future war will 

differ fundamentally from recent and ongoing conflicts in order to protect future commanders from 

what could become a tendency toward risk aversion 

and over-control. Assuming information superiority 

might lead some commanders to conclude that making near-perfect decisions based on near-perfect intelligence is the essence of command. Commanders must 

be capable of conceptual thought and have the ability 

to communicate a vision of how the force will achieve 

its objectives.12

When asked what the Army’s biggest challenges 

are as it prepares to tackle the future, General Ray 

Odierno, present Army Chief of Staff and former 

commander of Coalition Forces in Iraq, stated that 
59

“leaders will make the difference. We can build and 

field equipment quickly if we have to, but what we 

can’t build quickly are leaders . . . and we need leaders 

who think differently and are creative.”13 Overcoming a risk-averse culture and imbuing the attribute of 

creativity in leaders is an adaptive challenge for the 

Army. It is an adaptation that will require significant 

disequilibrium within the institution because it will 

involve questioning taken-for-granted beliefs and ultimately changing organizational culture.

In his study of the Army’s organizational culture, 

Dr. James Pierce “examines the degree of congruence

between the Army’s organizational culture and the 

leadership and managerial skills of its officer corps 

senior leaders.” At the macro level, the results of his 

research strongly suggest a “significant lack of congruence between the U.S. Army’s organizational culture and the results of its professional development 

programs for its future strategic leaders.”14 The study 

suggests that what the Army says is important is not 

believed to be truly important by the leaders in the 

Army.

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

In general, organizational culture is considered to 

be very stable and difficult to change because it represents the collective repertoire of thinking, feeling, 

and perceiving that has enabled the organization to 

adapt successfully in reacting to internal and external environmental stimuli over a long period.15 Edgar 

Schein, in his book Organizational Culture and Leadership, describes three levels of culture: artifacts that 

are visible symbols of a culture (uniforms, saluting, 
60

language, etc.); espoused values, which provide organizational members a sense of what ought to be; and 

finally, basic underlying assumptions, which evolve 

from a continuous use of a problem solution that has 

repeatedly been successful in the past and has unconsciously become taken-for-granted as the only way 

to solve similar problems. Therefore, organizational 

members instinctively perceive these basic underlying assumptions as “non-confrontable and non-debatable.”16 In essence they define “how we do business 

around here.” 

Schein emphasizes that the essence of an organization’s culture is its taken-for-granted underlying 

assumptions, which provide consistency, order, structure, boundaries and ground rules, membership criteria, communication patterns, conditions for rewards, 

punishment, and the use of power.17 Like Dr. Pierce’s 

iceberg metaphor (See Figure 2-1), the true depth and 

breadth of an organization’s culture lie beneath the 

surface and are very difficult to perceive through superficial analysis.18 As a result of its hidden and often 

subconscious nature, an organization’s culture makes 

bringing to light the realities of incongruence between 

espoused values and basic underlying assumptions a 

most difficult adaptive challenge. Organizational culture is a critical factor in the long-term effectiveness 

and survival of organizations. Consequently, senior 

leaders who provide strategic direction and vision 

for their organization must not underestimate the 

importance of culture and must realize that they are 

responsible for the analysis and management of their 

organization’s culture.19
61

Source: James G. Pierce, Is the Organizational Culture of the U.S. 

Army Congruent with the Professional Development of its Senior Level 

Officer Corps? Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army 

War College, September 2010, p. 11.20

Figure 2-1. Iceberg Conceptual Model

of Schein’s Three Levels of the

Manifestation of Organizational Culture

THE REALITY FACING THE ARMY

Some have asked why we have placed increased emphasis on adaptation. . . . Several trends have emerged 

over the past decade . . . these trends have created an 

OE [operational environment] that is very dangerous, 

increasingly competitive, and always unpredictable. 

In response, our profession must embrace a culture 

of change and adaptation. We must think differently 

about how we develop leaders and how we organize, 

train, and equip our Soldiers and units.21

 General Dempsey

 November 2010
62

General Dempsey recently stated: “Aligning and 

connecting our leader development programs and 

policies with our conceptual foundation and doctrinal 

changes such as mission command become the most 

critical adaptation we can make within our campaign 

of learning.”22 Dean Williams describes this as “the 

work in the center.”23

The espoused values articulated in the emerging 

Army doctrine and conceptual framework—adaptability, decentralized operations, discretion, initiative, 

and comfort with ambiguity—seem to be opposed to 

the basic underlying assumptions of Army leaders 

who, as Pierce explains, “emphasize stability, control, formalized structures, and a results-oriented—

get the job done—culture that frequently attempts to 

comprehend the ambiguity of the future through an 

unconscious reliance upon the successful solutions 

employed in the past.”24 Surveys completed as part of 

Pierce’s study by senior lieutenant colonels and colonels across the breadth of the force demonstrate this 

apparent lack of congruency. They paint a picture of 

a culture that values control over discretion and playing it safe over prudent risk-taking, despite what is 

espoused during formal and informal professional 

development discourse within the institutional Army. 

Pierce’s study reveals that the officers surveyed believe that they operate on a day-to-day basis in an organization whose culture is characterized by:

• an overarching desire for stability and control,

• formal rules and policies,

• coordination and efficiency,

• goal and results oriented, and

• hard-driving competitiveness.25
63

However, sharply indicating a pronounced lack 

of congruence between what they believe the Army’s 

culture to be and what it should be, the respondents

also indicated that the Army’s culture should be that of 

a profession, which emphasizes:

• flexibility and discretion,

• participation,

• human resource development,

• innovation and creativity,

• risk taking,

• long-term emphasis on professional growth, 

and

• the acquisition of new professional knowledge 

and skills.26

Recent documents such as the Army Capstone 

Concept (ACC), the Army Operating Concept (AOC), 

the Army Leader Development Strategy (ALDS), and 

Field Manual (FM)-3.0, Operations, espouse the need for 

leaders with skills and attributes found on the second 

list set forth above to combat the threats and complexity of the current OE. Culture, however, is not determined by what the profession says it wants its beliefs 

and values to be, but what it does, and that takes place 

in units on a day-to-day basis where informal professional development occurs. The incongruence in the 

Army culture highlighted by Pierce’s research creates 

a “trust deficit” that militates against producing leaders with an entrepreneurial spirit. This disjunction is 

the heart of the adaptive challenge confronting the 

Army. 

Dr. Pierce’s analysis uses the Competing Values 

Framework (CFV) Model to evaluate the Army’s culture because of its high degree of validity and reliability.27 The CFV framework consists of four quadrants 
64

representing the four major cultural types—clan, 

adhocracy, market, and hierarchy—including an explanation of the differing orientations and competing 

values that characterize human behavior.28

In conjunction with the CFV, the Origins of the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) 

allows for the diagnosis of the dominant orientation 

of an organization based on these core cultural types, 

cultural strength, and cultural congruence.29 The results from Pierce’s 2003-04 research indicated a lack of 

congruence that may be inhibiting performance and 

unconsciously perpetuating a cycle of caution and 

over-reliance on stability and control.30

To operate effectively in the current OE, companies, battalions, brigades, and divisions should strive 

to foster a culture that blends the characteristics of a 

“clan culture” and an “adhocracy culture.” This blend 

moves toward flexibility and discretion (see Figure 

2-2), thus ushering in a beneficial evolution in Army 

leadership.

Clan cultures are organizations held together by 

loyalty or tradition in which commitment to the organization is high. The organization emphasizes the 

long-term benefit of human resources development 

and attaches great importance to cohesion and morale. A clan culture places a premium on teamwork, 

participation, and consensus.

Adhocracy cultures include a dynamic, entrepreneurial, and creative place to work. People stick their 

necks out and take risks. The leaders are considered 

innovators and risk-takers. The glue that holds the 

organization together is commitment to experimentation and innovation. The organization encourages 

individual initiative and freedom.
65

Source: James G. Pierce, “Is the Organizational Culture of the 

U.S. Army Congruent with the Professional Development of its 

Senior Level Officer Corps?” p. 53. 31

Figure 2-2: A Summary of the Competing Value Set

and Effectiveness Models.

Instead of cultures that epitomize flexibility and 

discretion, the bureaucratic nature of the Army can 

lead to the creation of a culture that seeks stability and 

control more commonly associated with hierarchy 

cultures and market cultures (see Figure 2-2). This is 

the challenge for the military professional, achieving 

adhocracy effectiveness and clan-like cohesion in a 

bureaucratic organization whose hierarchical chain of 
66

command is more conducive to a controlling culture 

of efficiency and risk aversion. 

Figure 2-3 compares what the officers surveyed in 

2003-04 believed the culture of the Army to be (represented as the “Now” U.S. Army culture), with what 

they believed the profession’s culture should be (represented by the “Preferred” U.S. Army culture). These 

data highlight the gap between espoused values and 

basic underlying assumptions, and the challenge for 

Army leaders in reshaping the organization’s culture.

Source: James G. Pierce, data collection 2003-04, “Is the Organizational Culture of the U.S. Army Congruent with the Professional Development of its Senior Level Officer Corps?”32

Figure 2-3. “Now” vs. “Preferred” U.S. Army 

Culture. How the Officers Surveyed Perceive the 

Army’s Culture Is (“Now”) Compared to How they 

Think It Should Be (“Preferred”).

Professor Douglas Lovelace, Director of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, 

summarizes Dr. Pierce’s 2003-04 research:
67

Dr. Pierce’s research data provide empirical support

to the findings of the Army Training and Leader Development Panel (2001), which suggests that the training and leader development programs of the Army profession are not adequately linked and integrated within the

Army culture. Dr. Pierce states that the Army’s future 

strategic environment will be ambiguous and uncertain, and organizational culture and professionalism 

characterized by flexibility, discretion, and innovation 

offer the greatest opportunity to maximize effectiveness in such an environment. He postulates that if the 

Army profession expects to maintain its social legitimacy and professional jurisdiction, which are focused

on the development and application of the esoteric 

knowledge and related practical professional skills 

of land warfare, then the Army profession must take 

steps to make its professional culture, and particularly

the informal development program, congruent with

one that is characterized by flexibility, discretion, and 

innovation.33 (italics added by author)

After a decade of conflict in which adaptive behavior has been successfully employed on the battlefield, 

and 7 years since the previous research was completed, Dr. Pierce initiated a follow-up survey to see if the 

Army’s culture had moved toward one more conducive to discretion and flexibility. His preliminary 2010-

11 findings concerning the “Now” U.S. Army Culture 

figures are discouraging when compared to the 2003-

04 study, as indicated below (See Figure 2-4). 
68

Source: James G. Pierce, data collection, comparison of Army 

Organizational Culture Data 2003-04 and 2010-11.34

Figure 2-4. “Now” U.S. Army Culture

How the Officers Surveyed Perceive the Army’s 

Culture, Comparing Survey Data from 2003-04 and 

2010-11.

What these figures show is that 7 years after the 

first study was completed, as perceived by 494 officers 

in the second survey, and despite a decade of persistent conflict, there has been no significant change in 

perceptions of the U.S. Army culture, and certainly no 

rise in the perception of increased clan or adhocracy 

type cultural characteristics. Dr. Pierce states: 

What they really show is that an organization’s culture is without a doubt extremely difficult to change 

especially by superficial changes like modifying the 

OER, changing promotion gates, changing the uniform, changing the length of career courses, sending 

some officers to civilian schools, or creating a mandatory reading list, etc. In other words, our culture is far 

more persistent than the era of conflict that we find 

ourselves in.35
69

OFFICER EVALUATION REPORT DATA 

ANALYSIS

A brief examination of recent Officer Evaluation 

Report (OER) data supports the findings in the Pierce 

studies. One of the most powerful influencers of Army 

culture is the OER. What the cadets listening to Dr. Deresiewicz’s speech and preparing to “think for themselves and act on their convictions” in their transition 

from cadet gray to Army Blue are unaware of and do 

not fully understand is that the current evaluation and 

promotion system in the Army drives many leaders to 

Massengalian tendencies instead of Damonian. Some 

officers are rewarded on OERs for pleasing higher 

headquarters, not rocking the boat, and maintaining 

equilibrium in the system. The OER also sends signals 

to the rated officer on “what’s important in the profession” and what is expected of a leader to achieve 

professional success. 

The current OER plays a highly significant role 

in how the culture of the officer corps has evolved 

in the last 25 years. The DA Form 67-9 (Appendix II) 

that replaced the 67-8 in 1997 was meant to overcome 

the shortcomings of the old OER, such as overinflation in assessing performance and potential, and to 

be a developmental tool as well as an evaluation of 

performance. Unfortunately, the subversive nature of 

organizational culture helped to undermine the good 

intentions of the current OER, and it has continued to 

foster hypercompetitiveness and can inspire a “market culture” over a “clan culture” as highlighted in Dr. 

Pierce’s paper. 

The current OER relies on the Rater (supervisor) 

and Senior Rater (supervisor’s supervisor) to assess 

performance and potential. The front of the OER in-
70

cludes a list of skills, attributes, actions, and “yes/no” 

criteria of evaluation with an additional X by areas 

in each category that highlight the rated officer’s 

strengths. The yes/no + X method does not adequately communicate to promotion and command-selection 

boards (or to the officer for developmental purposes) 

the true strengths (and weaknesses) of the individual 

officer. More importantly, the front side constitutes a 

significant signal to officers on “what’s important in 

the profession.” The data on the following pages collected from Human Resources Command are a snapshot of recently selected battalion commanders and 

may provide insight into how the institution rewards 

skills, attributes, and actions conducive to a hierarchical organization that embraces the old notion of traditional strong-man leadership, control, and stability 

over an adhocracy culture that rewards adaptive leadership, flexibility, and discretion.

The front side of the OER presents the rater with a 

list of skills, attributes, and actions, requiring the rater 

to select ones that “best describe the rated officer.”36

Words matter and have meaning, and the definitions 

are important in the intellectual discussion of leadership in complex times. It is important to state upfront 

that all the listed skills, attributes, and actions are salient traits and are necessary characteristics for a wellrounded and balanced leader. For example, there are 

times when routine problems arise in which the problem definition and solution are clear, and the leader 

must have the expertise, proficiency, and professional 

knowledge to provide the group with the right solution from a traditional authority-based leadership 

style. However, reiterating the themes of the ACC and 

FM 3.0, the future OE will be one of complexity and 

ambiguity and, as such, it is harder to develop concep-
71

tual skills that the profession should want to nurture 

and reward throughout the organization to align better with its values and actions.

Figure 2-5 provides the list of Army definitions, 

which can be found on the front of the OER, to assist 

in clarifying what the meanings of the words are for 

raters and rated officers. Highlighted are key terms 

to explain better the characteristics of the attributes, 

skills, and actions. The words and phrases that correspond to key concepts and characteristics of traditional authority-based leadership are highlighted in 

bold. Characteristics associated more prominently 

with adaptive leadership are italicized:

The following OER data used in the analysis are 

from a random sample of FY12 combat arms battalion 

command selectees, who represent the top 15 percent 

of a given year group cohort and are those most likely 

to be promoted to colonel and to work on complex 

strategic issues at the highest levels of the Department 

of the Army (DA) and the Department of Defense 

(DoD). They are the group from which the general 

officers for the next 10-20 years will come. The data 

may provide some insights into what the profession 

believes makes a quality leader and potentially identifies the signals it sends and the traits it unconsciously 

looks for when determining who should be promoted 

and who should lead the organization at the strategic 

level into the future.

Using Army definitions, these skills, attributes, and 

actions can be separated into groups more associated 

with the traditional notion of leadership (“authority 

is leadership”) or more associated with characteristics 

found more readily in adaptive leaders. Figure 2-6 also 

includes the percent of “Xs” marked per grouping on 

the sample FY12 selected battalion commanders.
72

Source: DA Form 67-9, Officer Evaluation Report.37

Figure 2-5. Army Definitions of Leader Attributes,

Skills, and Actions.
73

Source: DA Form 67-9, Attributes, Skills, and Action for FY 

12 Command-selectees, sample data from U.S. Army Human Resources Command.38

Figure 2-6. OER Attributes, Skills, and Action

for FY 12 Command-Selectees.

The first significant divergence in traditional and 

adaptive leadership characteristics is identified in 

the “Skills” category. Technical and Tactical skills, 

which are most closely associated with solving routine (nonadaptive) problems, received 60 percent of 

the markings, whereas Conceptual (creative thinking) 

and Interpersonal (coaching, teaching), which are key 

elements of adaptive leadership, received only 40 percent. 

Of most concern were the results of the Actions 

analysis, which best describes the types of actions 

leaders take and what is actually seen by subordinates. 

The actions most closely related to traditional notions 

of leadership are Planning, Decision-making, Executing, and Motivating; they were identified 75 percent of 
74

the time as the actions that most accurately described 

the leaders selected for command, whereas adaptive 

actions such as Communicating (listening), Learning 

(leading change, adapting), and Assessing (diagnosis) 

received only 25 percent of the Xs. Most revealing was 

the insignificant percentage of marks for Learning and 

Assessing—the two most critical actions for adaptive 

work—their marks making up a combined total of less 

than 8 percent.

What can this sample tell the Army? We can reasonably interpret this data as saying that the Army 

selects leaders who value technical and tactical skills 

over adaptive skills of conceptual and interpersonal 

abilities. We can infer that the physical component of 

leadership is considered equally important as emotional intelligence. Finally, being a planner who can 

lead execution and act decisively for the group is 

highly favored over a leader who is identified as having the strength to assess (diagnose), communicate 

(intervene), and learn (lead change). 

These percentages suggest that the leaders selected 

for battalion command are best described by their raters as embodying the traits more closely aligned with 

the traditional model of leader-follower than with the 

exemplar of adaptive leadership. As we saw earlier, 

the former is more likely to struggle in complex environments, while the latter provides the best chance of 

overcoming adaptive barriers.

Another way to look at the front side of the OER 

and its use as a tool to communicate to promotion and 

command boards is to assess it through the lens of cultural gamesmanship. Hypothetically, raters who want 

to give their star players a “bump” with the senior rater or the board will mark the X that will place the rated 

officer in the best light, with regard to supporting the 
75

profession’s basic underlying assumptions. The rater 

wants to send a signal that this officer embodies the 

skills, attributes, and actions that we look for in our 

leaders (not the values we say we want but the values 

we promote and reward): Mental-Physical, TechnicalTactical, Plan-Decide-Motivate-Execute.

By marking the data on the front side of the OER, 

as demonstrated in the preceding chart, and then subsequently selecting these officers for promotion/command, the Army’s leaders perpetuate the contradiction in the organizational culture. Though most will 

acknowledge that selection boards place little or no 

weight on the front side of the OER, it is still a subtle 

but important data point and a signal, weak as it may 

be, to the junior officers of what senior leaders think is 

important and what gets things done. 

The backside of the OER is open for subjective review of performance and potential. This includes the 

“Senior Rater Block Check,” applied to field grade officers39 as a means of identifying the top 49 percent 

and is a key signal for increased chances of selection 

for command at the lieutenant colonel level. While a 

healthy level of internal competition improves overall performance of an organization, the current senior 

rater blocking system is a primary source of hypercompetitiveness within the officer corps and can feed 

into a potentially dysfunctional, even toxic, competitive culture within the profession. In the end, a reasonable conclusion can be made that the front side of 

the current OER reinforces a traditional hierarchical 

leadership culture, with the back side encouraging 

a market culture of hard-driving competition, in the 

face of espoused values calling for adaptive behavior, 

selfless service, and team play. This simple OER data 

analysis reinforces the findings of Dr. Pierce, providing yet another data set that calls into question the 
76

present alignment of espoused values and basic underlying assumptions in the professional culture of 

the U.S. Army.

ARMY LEADERSHIP

As the Army works through its adaptive challenge 

of bringing congruence to its values and practices, 

it should consider a broader understanding of leadership with regard to leading in the face of complex 

problems. Developing creative leaders is only one 

piece of the puzzle. Just because a leader has creative 

attributes does not mean that he or she understands 

the tasks of leading change, of mobilizing groups to 

face reality, and of then guiding them through the 

problem-solving process. A leader with the ability 

to be creative can fall victim to the seductive ways of 

counterfeit leadership. To exercise leadership, it is imperative that the institution teach leaders the skill of 

leading in the context of adaptive challenges.

Currently, Field Manual (FM) 6-22, Army Leadership, defines leadership as “the process of influencing 

people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation while operating to accomplish the mission and 

improving the organization.”40 Nowhere does this 

definition touch on leadership’s most challenging 

function of leading change by mobilizing people to do 

adaptive work. While providing purpose, direction, 

and motivation are critical tasks for an organizational 

authority figure, if a more holistic understanding of 

leadership is not imbued in the authority figure, these 

very dimensions can lead to counterfeit leadership. 

This is because an authority figure may enable an organization to avoid the reality of a changed environment through a false purpose and direction, or misleading motivation. 
77

The types of problematic challenges that leaders 

at all levels of authority confront in today’s OE call 

for a style of adaptive leadership requiring more than 

simply purpose, direction, and motivation. Broadening the Leader Core Competencies to include “One 

who mobilizes—Navigates organizations through 

adaptive challenges by confronting people with the 

reality of changed conditions and provides a learning 

environment for the group to discover and develop 

adaptive solutions,” will help capture the new skills 

and framework required to be an adaptive leader (see 

Appendix III).

WHAT’S AT STAKE?

What if the Army chooses not to confront the 

contradiction between espoused values and its basic 

underlying assumptions, thus hindering leader development? Or if the organization takes only half steps 

when full steps are required to fully realize an adaptation? What is at stake is the Army’s ability to produce 

the quantity and quality of adaptive leaders who are 

creative, imaginative, and innovative and can lead 

learning organizations on today’s competitive battlefield. It is the risk of operating at 80-percent effectiveness as an organization when 90 percent or better can 

be achieved with cultural realignment. It is the question former Secretary of Defense Gates posed to the 

Army leadership and was his main worry—“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 the most-battle tested young officers to lead the service in the future?”41 What is at 

stake is an Army that has counterfeit leaders that slip 
78

through the cracks and poison junior leaders with 

toxic leadership. Most important, what is at stake is 

our ability to win, learn, focus, adapt, and win again.42

Retired General Stanley McChrystal, former 

commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO) Forces in Afghanistan, stated during a visit 

at Harvard University that “the senior guy isn’t the 

expert these days . . . that leadership today must be 

done by, with, and through others.” 43 He gives an example of his grandfather leading in the Army in the 

mid-20th century. General McChrystal explains how 

so little had changed between the time his grandfather was a junior leader to when he was a more senior 

leader. As a result, his grandfather could rely on his 

past experiences and expertise to lead the group. This 

was because the problems were not really much different, weapons and tactics were basically unchanged, 

and he could rely on a repertoire of solutions from his 

past to solve the problems of the present.

General McChrystal added that the 21st century 

is much different, that today’s senior military leaders 

must learn from the bottom up and from the group as 

a whole, as they lead organizations in a world that has 

changed so drastically from when they were young 

leaders. He asserts that the expertise no longer lies 

with seniority or authority, but from within the group, 

and that the leaders, to be effective, must “have a 

touch of humility, must stop, listen, and allow others 

to inform you, and teach you.”44 Leadership in today’s 

rapidly changing environment must reflect the truth 

that “the wisdom of the whole is greater than the wisdom of one.”45

Chapter 3 presents an innovative framework for 

leading groups to overcome adaptive challenges. 

Its principles, which parallel the themes of General 
79

McChrystal’s insights into leadership in the 21st century can, if applied, assist Army leaders in tackling 

the institutional adaptations it confronts. Adoption of 

the leadership framework depicted in the next chapter 

will increase the Army’s likelihood of growing adaptive leaders.

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 2

1. Rollo May, The Courage to Create, London, UK: Norton, 

1975, p. 27.

2. Robert Gates, Speech to the U.S. Corps of Cadets, United 

States Military Academy, West Point, NY, March 2011.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. William Deresiewicz, Speech at West Point, Spring 2010.

6. Scott Krawczyk, quoted in Ibid. 

7. As explained by Deresiewicz.

8. Herbert R. McMaster, posted by Thomas Ricks, “The Best 

Defense,” Foreign Policy, April 13, 2010, available from ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/13/bg_hr_mcmaster_allow_active_mistakes_but_don_t_tolerate_errors_of_passivity. 

9. As quoted by Daniel P. Bolger, “Zero Defects: Command 

Climate in First Army, 1944-1945,” Fort Leavenworth, KS: L200 

Leadership Applied Readings, 2008, p. 51.

10. Robert L. Caslen, Discussion with National Security Fellows, Harvard Kennedy School, March 9, 2011.

11. Bolger, p. 52.
80

12. Herbert R. McMaster, “Learning from Contemporary Conflicts to Prepare for Future War,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, 

October 2008, available from www.fpri.org/enotes/200810.mcmaster.

contemporaryconflictsfuturewar.html. 

13. Raymond Odierno, Discussion with National Security Fellows, Harvard Kennedy School, March 10, 2011.

14. James G. Pierce, Is the Organizational Culture of the U.S. 

Army Congruent with the Professional Development of its Senior Level 

Officer Corps? Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army 

War College, September 2010, p. iii. 

15. Edgar Schein, The Corporate Culture Survival Guide, San 

Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999. 

16. Edgar Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1985, p. 18.

17. Edgar Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 2d Ed., 

San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1992.

18. Pierce, p. 12.

19. Ibid., p. xx.

20. Ibid., p. 11.

21. Martin E. Dempsey, “A Campaign of Learning to Achieve 

Institutional Adaptation,” Army Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 11, November 2010, p. 34.

22. Martin E. Dempsey, “Leader Development,” Army Magazine, Vol. 61, No. 2, February 2011, p. 26.

23. The work in the center, the adaptive challenge or the “real” 

work confronting the group.

24. Pierce, p. xv. 

25. Ibid.
81

26. Ibid., p. iv.

27. Ibid., p. 44.

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid., p. xv.

31. Ibid., p. 53.

32. James G. Pierce, email to the author, March 17, 2010.

33. Pierce, p. v.

34. Pierce, email to the author.

35. Ibid.

36. Department of the Army Form 67-9, Officer Evaluation Report, October 2007. 

37. Ibid.

38. OER Front-side: Attributes, Skills, and Action for FY 12 

Command-selectees, sample data from U.S. Army Human Resources Command.

39. Field Grade officers: commissioned officers in the ranks of 

major, lieutenant colonel, and colonel.

40. Field Manual (FM) 6-22, Army Leadership, Washington, DC: 

HQ Department of the Army, 2006, pp. 1-2.

41. Gates.

42. Martin E. Dempsey, “Win, Learn, Focus, Adapt, Win 

Again,” Army Magazine, Vol. 61, No. 3, March 2011, p. 25.
82

43. Stanley McChrystal, discussion with National Security 

Fellows, Center for Public Leadership, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, April 25, 2011.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.
83

CHAPTER 3

REAL LEADERSHIP

Systems are interdependent . . . if you want to keep 

up with the system, then you have to evolve at least as 

fast as the system. And if you want to get ahead of the 

system, you have to evolve at least twice as fast.1

 General Martin E. Dempsey

Leading a system confronted by a challenge demanding an adaptation requires a leader who can 

transcend the role of authority. A leader must have 

the capacity to mobilize people to confront their predicament and solve their problems. The focus of “real 

leadership,” as presented by Harvard Kennedy School 

professor Dean Williams, is not to get others to follow, 

but to get people to confront reality and change values, habits, practices, and priorities in order to deal 

with the real threat or opportunity the group faces. 

Looking at leadership through a lens provided by 

Dean Williams reveals a framework for approaching 

adaptive challenges that the U.S. Army can exploit as 

it tackles those challenges at the tactical, operational, 

and strategic levels of war. Williams defines leadership as “a process of mobilizing people to confront and 

address problematic realities for the purpose of improving the human condition and making progress.”2

Williams posits that notions of leadership based on 

a model suggesting that “leaders must craft a vision, 

motivate people through persuasive communication, 

be an example, and employ a system of punishments 

and incentives to sustain action, is insufficient for dealing with the complexity of the challenges institutions 

and communities face in the age of globalization.”3
84

He presents an alternative idea of what it means to 

be a real and responsible leader, one “that does not 

emphasize the leader-follower and goal but the dynamic 

of leadership-group and reality.”4

Williams defines an adaptive challenge as a problem that persists even when authority figures and 

organizations apply best practices and known methods or when standard operating procedures do not 

solve the problem. In these cases, the solution to the 

challenge usually requires a shift in the values and 

mindsets of the members in the group, making it an 

adaptive challenge. The “work” or learning people 

must do to overcome adaptive challenges is simply 

adaptive work, which Williams defines as “the effort 

that produces the organizational or systemic learning 

required to tackle tough problems.”5

COUNTERFEIT LEADERSHIP

Over the last 25 years, the proliferation of leadership and management literature has revolved around 

the relationship, links, and interdependence of authority, influence, power, and leadership. In addition to 

providing a framework for the study and application 

of adaptive leadership, Williams provides insights into 

false or maladaptive leadership, which he describes 

as “counterfeit leadership.”6 Distinguishing between 

“real” leadership and “counterfeit” leadership is essential to understanding and applying leadership in 

the face of adaptive challenges. Acknowledging the 

dichotomy of styles is fundamental to the study and 

understanding of adaptive leadership.

Williams, in his book Real Leadership, and, even 

more so, Ron Heifetz in Leadership Without Easy Answers, go to great lengths to uncover and explain the 
85

relationship of authority and dominance in social 

groups and how it affects the exercise of leadership. 

Both authors link human nature to our evolutionary 

instincts to seek protection and equilibrium within 

our social systems by looking to authority for answers 

to problems confronting the group. Linked to this 

natural desire to look to authority for solutions is our 

primal instinct that when in positions of authority, we 

tend to assume the role as the Alpha in the group (even 

if it is not our nature to do so). Basic primate groups 

look to the Alpha for this protection. The Alpha uses 

dominance in his role as the designated authority and 

leads the group through this means. Reflecting on former groups and organizations, most of us can think 

of times when dominant personalities have used their 

formal or informal authority to run the organization 

through dominance, fear, coercion, and ridicule. 

The U.S. Army espouses the need for leaders 

who can lead change, work collaboratively, and run 

organizations that embody the ideals of operational 

adaptability. Leadership through dominance will not 

produce the climate in an organization conducive to 

fostering these essential skills and attributes. As such, 

we would like to believe that the Army has a culture that winnows out smothering leaders through a 

command-selection process that withholds rewarding 

the behavior of those who use dominance to lead—in 

other words, a system that avoids putting counterfeit 

leaders in command. 

Unfortunately, as late as January 2011, the Army 

had to relieve a brigade commander “due to a loss of 

confidence in his ability to command.”7

 The investigation described a commander who demonstrated 

counterfeit leadership, what the journalist Jeff Gould 

described as “toxic leadership.” The Army’s inves-
86

tigating officer stated that the commander who was 

relieved “demonstrates arrogance, deception, and 

threatening behavior,” producing a “command climate that was ‘at best ineffective, and at worst toxic’.”8

How did a leader with these traits rise to one of the 

highest tactical commands in the U.S. Army? What 

behavior was overlooked or even rewarded over his 

22 years of service before he was handpicked by one 

of the most competitive selection boards in the Army 

to command the organization’s centerpiece maneuver 

formation—the Brigade Combat Team manned by 

4,000 U.S. Soldiers? These are important questions for 

leaders managing the Army’s culture. 

Persons in positions of authority, which in the U.S. 

Army are “the commanders,” who lack the ability 

to reflect, to stand back from the fray to take a large 

view of the system, and who cannot learn, are prone 

to providing counterfeit leadership. The avoidance of 

counterfeit leadership can thus be a significant waypoint in an authority figure’s approach to moving an 

organization forward. As members of social systems, 

humans depend on authority to provide order and 

structure. This dependency can cause a group to have 

false expectations of the authority figure, i.e., expecting the commander to provide all the answers. This is 

because, as Riley Sinder and Ron Heifetz of Harvard’s 

Kennedy School have stated: “[I]n our everyday language, we equate leadership with authority.”9

 Because 

we so commonly equate leadership with authority, we 

fail to see the obstacles to leadership that come with 

authority itself. “Having authority brings not only 

resources to bear but also serious constraints on the 

exercise of leadership.”10 Unlike leadership, which is 

a choice, authority is a service. Authority provides order, protection, direction, and accountability. In times 
87

of high stress, an overreliance on authority to bring 

equilibrium to the system or group can bring a false 

sense of security. Authority is frequently embraced by 

the group, and in return it feeds the group’s hunger 

for equilibrium. It does this by providing simple technical solutions to complex problems, which allow the 

group to avoid the work required to confront the need 

to adapt.11 This dynamic results in counterfeit leadership.

REALITY AND LEADERSHIP

The primary duty of a leader is to help the group 

face the reality of their problematic challenges. The 

leader must take on this responsibility because, if not, 

the group will engage in work avoidance—avoiding 

the reality of the changed conditions—because reality in adaptive scenarios will force group members to 

confront their countervailing values and deeply rooted 

beliefs, thereby causing disequilibrium in the system. 

Avoiding reality by attacking symptoms and making 

excuses allows people to “distance themselves from 

the responsibility of the real issue,” Williams says.12

It is human nature for people to avoid acknowledging a changed environment in an effort to maintain 

equilibrium within their systems. Facing the reality of 

a changed world is frightening, but when confronted 

by an adaptive challenge, the leader must be willing 

to take the responsibility to impose disequilibrium 

on the system, no matter how painful or disturbing 

it might be to the members of the organization. This 

must be done before the group can begin adaptive 

work. It is in the state of disequilibrium where real 

learning takes place.13
88

A NEW FRAMEWORK FOR ADAPTIVE 

LEADERSHIP

The exercise of leadership is discretionary, involving a choice as to whether to take responsibility and 

“respond to problems, dysfunctions, and tremendous 

opportunities that emerge in our organizations.”14

Williams presents the following framework for exercising leadership. To get people to face their adaptive 

challenges, a leader must be responsible for the following:

1. The diagnostic process, determining the precise 

nature of the problem and assessing the group’s readiness to confront the problem.

2. Manage the problem-solving process as an inclusive process by the group as it works through conflicts in 

values and priorities and embraces new practices that 

bring resolution to problematic situations and open 

up pathways for genuine progress.

3. Conceiving of oneself as an instrument of power, 

that is, achieving awareness of how one’s power—authority, presence, and interventions—affect the thinking and actions of others as they tackle their challenges is essential to success. “Ultimately, one’s power and 

authority must not be used to get others to follow, but 

to get the group to confront reality, so necessary for 

adaptive work.”15

As depicted in Figure 3-1, this framework requires 

the leader, who is an integral part of the system, to 

pull himself/herself out of the system, to sense the 

environment by listening to all factions, while diagnosing the true nature of the challenge. The leader 

then develops an intervention strategy and reenters 

the system to confront the group with the reality of 
89

the changed environment. Then, working through the 

system, the leader helps the group do adaptive work. 

The leader manages the learning process by preventing the group from engaging in work avoidance and 

keeps them focused on the work at the center. The 

leader ensures that the right level of disequilibrium 

is present for real learning to take place and helps the 

system achieve the aspiration to solve its adaptive 

challenge.

Source: Using concepts from Dean Williams, Ronald Heifetz, 

and Marty Linsky, the author developed the visual depiction of 

the theory of exercising leadership in a system as presented by 

Dean Williams in MLD-201: Exercising Leadership: The Politics of 

Change, Harvard Kennedy School, January-April 2011.16

Figure 3-1. Author’s Conceptual Depiction

of Dean Williams’s Exercising Leadership

within a System.

Work through the 

system 

(social learning)
90

Throughout the process, the leader must be aware 

of him- or herself, assuring that he/she does not allow 

the group to seduce him/her to become the technical solution provider. The leader’s self-awareness is 

essential to ensuring that he/she does not divert the 

group through counterfeit leadership by using power 

to get others to follow, instead of using the authority and power to get the group to face reality, prevent 

work avoidance, and adapt to solve the problem. The 

leader must also ensure that he/she is not “killed off” 

(marginalized, undermined, ignored, or relieved/

fired) by the group or by those above, either as a result 

of creating too much disequilibrium or by not meeting 

expectations of the group to bring equilibrium back to 

the system.

DIAGNOSING THE PROBLEM

The first and perhaps the most critical step in 

the framework is properly diagnosing the problem 

confronting the group. Dean Williams’s mentor Ron 

Heifetz posits a very similar approach to leadership. 

Heifetz’s model for determining the nature of the challenge helps clarify the nature of the challenge. He distinguishes between three types of problems that face 

organization (see Figure 3-2). In each one, depending on the degree of complexity, different demands 

are made on the authority figure and the group; as 

the complexity increases, the requirement to exercise 

adaptive leadership increases.
91

Source: Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers, Cambridge, 

MA: Harvard University, 1994, p. 76.17

Figure 3-2. Heifetz Table of Situation Types.

The leadership required to handle Type I challenges requires only technical solutions. These problems 

are routine and the solutions are readily available. 

Authority figures rely on their education, training, 

and experience to solve the group’s challenges. When 

confronted by Type II and III challenges, authority figures frequently find themselves at a fork in the road, 

where one path leads to real leadership and the other 

to counterfeit leadership. This is because authority 

figures often insist on being the problem solver, providing a technical solution when in actuality, adaptive 

solutions require the group to find the real solution.

For the U.S. military at the strategic level, the complexities of the problem set will always present Army 

leaders with Type III challenges, requiring a more inclusive notion of leadership, as described by Williams 

and Heifetz. Likewise, in the current operational environment (OE), our tactical-level leaders who used to 

live in a Type I world of linear tactics, routine garri-
92

son management, and personnel actions, now face the 

complexity and ambiguity found in Type III problem 

sets, which require different skill sets. Leaders without the skills to adapt, when presented with a Type II 

or III problem, may default to counterfeit leadership. 

They will choose the path of work avoidance mechanisms such as “holding onto past assumptions, blaming authority, scapegoating, externalizing the enemy, 

denying the problems, jumping to conclusions, or 

finding a distracting issue [that] may restore stability 

and feel less stressful than facing and taking responsibility for a complex challenge.”18

Perhaps most dangerous is the charismatic figure 

who employs work-avoidance mechanisms while reestablishing equilibrium in the system through persuasive and motivating rhetoric to help the organization avoid the reality of a changing environment. 

Instead of generating creativity and responsibility, 

charismatic authority can generate a mindless following or devolve into bureaucratic institutions that rely 

on central planning and control. Creativity is stimulated by engaging with one’s environment, but the 

skills of sensing local environments become dulled as 

people fasten their gaze on the charismatic figure or 

the chain of command for direction. Focused upward, 

people lose touch with their communities, markets, 

and personal resources.19

During the diagnostic process, the leader must 

leave the “dance floor” (See Figure 3-1) and go up to 

“the balcony” for a clearer perspective, through which 

he can make an accurate and honest assessment of the 

challenge confronting the organization.20 Once the 

leader diagnoses the challenge as either a Type II or 

Type III, the leader must assess the group’s prepared-
93

ness, its ability to confront reality, and its willingness 

to question assumptions and stimulate growth. After 

this initial analysis, the leader designs an intervention 

to move the group toward adaptive work (learning). 

To do this effectively, the leader must accurately diagnose the domain, or nature, of the adaptive challenge. There are six domains suggested by Williams 

in which most Type III (adaptive) challenges can be 

categorized. Clearly diagnosing the nature of the 

adaptive challenge will assist the leader in developing 

a strategy to intervene and then manage the problemsolving process of the group. Williams’s six domains 

of adaptive challenges include:

1. The activist challenge: Calling attention to a 

contradiction in values;

2. The development challenge: Cultivating the latent capabilities needed to progress;

3. The transition challenge: Moving from one system of values to another;

4. The maintenance challenge: Protecting/sustaining what is essential during hard times;

5. The creative challenge: Doing what has never 

been done before; and,

6. The crisis challenge: Leading in a period of extreme danger.21

When confronted by an activist challenge, the 

leadership work is to provoke and evoke, to persuade 

the group to face certain realities it would prefer to 

avoid. The process includes both inspiring people 

with a unifying purpose and calling attention to the 

contradiction between what the group espouses and 

what it actually does.22

When faced with a development challenge, the 

leadership task should orchestrate a learning process 
94

through designed experimentation that cultivates the 

group’s latent capabilities.23 To ensure the growth or 

even survival of the organization, it must build new 

capabilities, competencies, practices, and processes.24

Transition challenges emerge when some values and mindsets are no longer useful in addressing 

challenges of the organization due to a shift in the dynamics of the environment or the emergence of a new 

threat or opportunity. In this case, the leadership task 

is to help the group refashion values, loyalties, and 

mindsets.25

In a maintenance challenge, leading change is 

not the focus; rather, the ability to protect essential 

resources, maintain core values, and keep the enterprise from falling apart becomes the new preoccupation. Ignoring a threat to the group will not resolve the 

issue; leaders must mobilize the group to overcome 

dysfunctional practices and return to core values.26

When a group is confronted by what appears to be 

an insurmountable barrier that best practices cannot 

overcome, then it faces a creative challenge. Breaking the current paradigm and advancing to a new 

one requires people to create.27 Unlike a development 

challenge, a creative challenge requires a significant 

break with the past and an unconstrained leap into the 

future.28

The crisis challenge is an explosive situation in 

which survival is at stake and urgent action is required. The group is under attack and its accrued 

value is at risk.29 (A deeper and more thorough explanation of the principles in Williams’s new framework 

for exercising leadership can be found in outline form 

in Appendix I.)

The essence of leading in these complex domains is 

the ability to remain flexible. Often adaptive challeng-
95

es facing organizations will have elements of multiple 

domains and require agility of mind and effort by the 

leader to mobilize the group to address the reality of 

the day. An organization can face multiple adaptive 

challenges simultaneously, which further complicates 

the already complex nature of the challenges faced by 

the group. 

General Odierno and the next generation of Army 

leaders will continue to be faced with multiple adaptive challenges. General Dempsey’s intervention in 

the form of the “Campaign of Learning” was, in and 

of itself, a means to tackle the wide range of adaptive 

challenges confronting the Army after a decade of 

conflict and high operational tempo. Within this campaign, General Dempsey’s effort to reexamine what 

it means to be a profession was and remains an essential maintenance challenge as the Army struggles 

to balance and maintain core values. The doctrinal 

shift from command and control to mission command 

is an example of a transition challenge, and instituting a new conceptual foundation is a development 

challenge. All the while, the potential of a crisis challenge looms in this complex and dangerous world. 

However, it is leader development, which General 

Dempsey identified as “job number one,” that continues to present the Army with its most important and 

difficult adaptive challenge.30 Actually, however, the 

nature of the challenge, because it will meet resistance 

as a result of strongly held practices and assumptions, 

makes it an activist challenge.

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 3

1. Martin E. Dempsey, Leader and Concept Development 

Speech, Association of the U.S. Army Winter Symposium and Exposition, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 2010.
96

2. Dean Williams, HKS Course MLD-201, Exercising Leadership: The Politics of Change, Harvard Kennedy School MLD-201, 

January 24, 2011.

3. Dean Williams, Real Leadership: Helping People and Organizations Face Their Toughest Challenges, San Francisco, CA: BerrettKoehler Publishers, 2005, p. 5.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid., p. 7.

6. Ibid., p. 14.

7. Jeff Gould, “Germany-based colonel relieved of duty,” 

Army Times, March 6, 2011, p. 32.

8. Ibid.

9. Riley Sinder and Dean Williams, “Leadership Styles,” Clinical Laboratory Management, Washington, DC: ASM Press, 2004, p. 

209.

10. Ronald A. Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994, p. 50.

11. Sinder and Williams, p. 209.

12. Ibid., p. 11.

13. Williams, “Exercising Leadership.”

14. Williams, Real Leadership, p. 12.

15. Ibid., p. 13.

16. Using concepts from Dean Williams, Ronald Heifetz, and 

Marty Linsky, the author developed the visual depiction of the 

theory of exercising leadership in a system as presented by Williams, “Exercising Leadership.”
97

17. Heifetz, p. 76.

18. Ibid., p. 77.

19. Ibid., p. 66.

20. Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky, Leadership on the Line: 

Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading, Boston, MA: Harvard 

Business School Press, 2002, p. 53.

21. Williams, Real Leadership, p. 57.

22. Ibid., p. 231.

23. Ibid., p. 89.

24. Ibid., p. 90.

25. Ibid., p. 115.

26. Ibid., p. 142.

27. Ibid., p. 163.

28. Ibid., p. 165.

29. Ibid., p. 189.

30. Martin E. Dempsey, “Leader Development,” Army Magazine, Vol. 61, No. 2, February 2011, p. 26.

99

CHAPTER 4

THE REAL WORK AHEAD

The tendency of any big bureaucracy is to revert to 

business as usual at the first opportunity—for the military, that opportunity is, if not peacetime, the unwinding of sustained combat.1

 — Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense

 Speech at West Point, February 2011

The U.S. Army does many things right—its leaders 

and Soldiers have fought and sacrificed valiantly in 

service to the Nation; it cares for its wounded, honors 

its dead, and supports its families. However, despite 

its many successes, the U.S. Army can never be satisfied with the status quo. As a learning organization, 

the Army must view self-improvement as a sacred 

professional obligation. The profession of arms enjoys the trust and confidence of the American people 

because it self-polices. As General Martin Dempsey 

stated, “During the last 9 years of conflict, our Army 

has shown itself to be both introspective about its performance and adaptive to the lessons it has learned. 

Nevertheless, we want to formalize the effort to 

learn.”2

 Secretary Gates highlighted this impulse with 

the observation that “the Army’s ability to adapt allowed it to pull Iraq from the brink of chaos in 2007, 

and in 2010 roll back the Taliban in Afghanistan.” He 

then quoted the words of General Peter Chiarelli, Vice 

Chief of Staff of the Army: “It is important that the 

hard-fought lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan are not 

merely ‘observed’ but truly ‘learned’—incorporated 

into the service’s DNA.”3
 For the U.S. Army, the most pressing adaptive 

challenge is overcoming the contradiction between 

espoused values and actual behavior with regard to 

Army leader development. We must revisit the work 

in the center of the contradiction, “aligning and connecting our leader development programs and policies (basic underlying assumptions) with our conceptual foundation and doctrinal changes such as mission 

command (espoused values).”4

 This effort is the most 

critical adaptation we can make within the Army’s 

campaign of learning. This alignment is critical, because it is necessary in order to develop adaptive leaders, which are required to lead learning organizations. 

At first glance, this proposed adaptation appears to be 

in the transition domain. However, the fact is that this 

complex challenge is rooted in an almost intractable 

organizational culture whose nature demands a radical professional airing. Hence, we can accurately say 

that the needed adaptation occupies the activist domain as well as the transitional: “The first challenge of 

leadership [in an activist challenge] is to get people to 

wake up to the fact there is a problem—that the group 

is avoiding some aspect of reality, ignoring a threat, or 

missing an opportunity.”5

There are thus times when leaders must take an 

activist role in leading change—to get people to wake 

up and face the problem or, in this case, to seize an 

opportunity. As Williams states, “Often the problem 

is embedded in the people’s values and behavior. People might espouse one view but act in ways that are 

not consistent with that view. The leadership task in 

an activist challenge is to call attention to the contradiction in values and intervene to disrupt the thinking 

and patterns of behavior that allow the people to persist in avoiding the reality of their condition.”6

100
101

Symptoms of an activist challenge for any group 

include:

• “Some enduring behaviors, values, and/or practices have become corrosive and dysfunctional and 

serve to undermine the long-term integrity and 

survival of the group.

• An opportunity presents itself that can lead to 

great benefit and progress for the group, but no 

one is seriously considering it.

• Danger is looming due to an internal or external threat, and the group is not doing anything 

about it”7 (Italics added by the author).

In diagnosing an activist challenge, the leader 

must examine the condition of the people facing the 

challenge, the barrier that impedes progress, and the 

promise or aspiration on the other side of the barrier. 

Generally speaking, the people are unwilling to change 

their values or thinking to accommodate some aspect of reality.8

 The people are in denial, resistant to 

change, and comfortable where they are. The barrier

in an activist challenge is the people’s resistance. Individual thinking is trapped by the prevailing group 

paradigm.9 The promise is that if people can face the 

problem and seriously consider the data that they 

have neglected or denied, then a new opportunity 

for progress can open. In these cases, fundamentally, 

the leader wants people to learn, to learn about the 

problem, to learn how they contribute to the problem, and 

what can be done to solve the problem.10 This learning 

may mean swimming upstream against the current of 

organizational culture. Or, to switch metaphors, the 

leader must “burrow down into people’s underlying 

assumptions and deeply held beliefs to ascertain why 

the problem persists and what can be done about it.”11
102

As the Army reflects on the state of the profession today, it is clear that certain behaviors and practices inside the organization have become corrosive 

and dysfunctional and could potentially undermine 

the long-term integrity of the profession. General 

Dempsey identified reality, the dangers confronting 

the profession internally and externally in the operational environment (OE). His intervention was manifested in the Army’s “Campaign of Learning,” which 

challenged its members to use their imaginations 

to improve the profession. During the campaign of 

learning, there is opportunity for institutional growth 

and for real change to move the organization forward. 

Is the group ready for the adaptive work? Is the profession ready to face the reality that it must abandon 

some of its subconscious insistence on control and stability, that it must push boundaries in order to implement changes that will cause disequilibrium and rock 

the boat? Is it prepared for the discomfort of having its 

basic underlying assumptions questioned and challenged in an effort to achieve cultural adaptation? As 

Dr. James Pierce stated, “A real culture change will 

require a substantial reengineering of the way we do 

business . . . for example, making our vocation a true 

life-long profession, and, of course, a complete overhaul of the evaluation and promotion system.”12 As 

we recall from an earlier chapter, Dr. Pierce’s study 

indicates that the promotion system may itself be the 

source of a toxic competitive culture.

POTENTIAL BARRIERS

Ironically, the greatest barrier to the Army’s adaptive work is the leaders in the organization itself, specifically, the field grade officers who have the greatest 
103

impact on the day-to-day operations of organizations 

and the greatest influence on the mentorship and 

molding of the junior leaders in the organization. It is 

the power of organizational culture and its resistance 

to change that will challenge these leaders to fully embrace the adaptations required to alter how the Army 

fundamentally does business. Field grade officers, 

primarily majors and lieutenant colonels with 10-20 

years of service, are both fully immersed in and committed to the Army culture and remain professionally 

competitive as they strive to embody the professional 

ideals and compete for senior command selection. 

This combination of cultural influence and professional competitiveness makes them vulnerable to risk 

aversion and work avoidance with regard to the effort 

associated with adaptation. 

What Williams describes as work avoidance—a 

response to disequilibrium in which individuals or 

groups eschew work that challenges their values or 

beliefs13—will manifest itself through these leaders. 

The campaign of learning threatens some deeply held 

beliefs, conscious and subconscious, causing pushback against the learning process. Leaders will find 

“more pressing” issues to occupy their time rather 

than deal with the real work at hand. The leadership 

challenge is to get people to confront the gap between 

their aspiration (growing adaptive leaders) and what 

they are willing to contribute or sacrifice in order to 

fulfill that aspiration (willingness to take prudent risk, 

to make oneself vulnerable in decentralized operations, to allow junior leaders to develop by underwriting mistakes made by subordinates in the name of 

experimentation and learning).14

In a “get the job done” culture, leaders unwilling to 

risk failure will employ work-avoidance mechanisms 
104

that will subvert the institutional adaptations sought 

in the campaign of learning. Indicators that leaders are 

avoiding adaptive work include: leaders who doggedly hold onto outdated assumptions to remain in their 

comfort zone, leaders who lead through dominance 

and control, leaders who repeatedly assign provably 

bankrupt tasks to the group and get them to follow, 

and leaders who look up the chain of command for 

solutions.15

The greatest pitfall in the get-it-done culture is for 

the members of the organization to look to its authority figures to provide the solutions. Unfortunately, 

many will look to General Odierno and other senior 

leaders for the answers to the challenges, to sate their 

hunger, and to cure their ailments. As the heat goes 

up with the introduction of disequilibrium, those 

less adaptive will look to senior leaders (authority) to 

provide simple answers that will bring equilibrium 

back to the system—but will also snuff out learning, 

change, and required adaptation. They will look to the 

senior leaders’ wisdom to provide solutions, when, 

as Williams states, real leadership wisdom “requires 

pursuing truth with fervor and passion, being sensitive to the context in which the problem resides, and 

holding the question in each context, ‘What will make 

our work worthwhile—to our lives and the lives of 

others?’”16 Moreover, the real leadership wisdom that 

Williams advocates is not that of an all-knowing divine; it is the wisdom to “discern which values to promote and protect, and which values should be challenged or changed.”17 The adaptive work, however, is 

the responsibility of the entire group; it is for all the 

members of the profession to engage the uncertainty, 

to be creative and come up with innovative solutions 

to align values with practice. 
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CONCLUSION

Despite the present superior comparative strength 

in U.S. military capabilities, a failure of imagination 

and inability to achieve operational adaptability could 

become the U.S. Army’s Achilles heel. The Army’s 

true strength must become its intellectual approach 

to future conflict, where the Army not only has the 

ability to out-fight the enemy, but to out-think him, 

to adapt faster and maintain the initiative. During an 

address at the Joint Warfare Staff College in February 

2010, Admiral Eric Olson, Commander, Special Operations Command, stated it most succinctly, “We are 

not going to fight our way out of these conflicts; we 

are going to have to think our way out.”18

Authority, like command, is bestowed upon an individual to maintain order and accountability. Leadership in any given instance offers a choice. It invites 

potential leaders to assume responsibility. As members of a profession, officers collectively must ensure 

that the entire organization assumes its responsibility 

and makes the choice to create learning organizations. 

These organizations, led by leaders who exercise 

real adaptive leadership, will ensure that the Army 

achieves operational adaptability to promote peace or, 

when called on, to win the Nation’s wars.

The Army’s “Campaign of Learning” sets conditions for a continuum of learning across the Army that 

will result in a paradigm shift in the approach to institutional adaptation.19 Using a more holistic approach 

to adaptive leadership through frameworks like the 

one presented by Dean Williams, and confronting the 

contradictions in the professional culture, are essential to the Army’s ability to adapt, which is “an institutional imperative.”20 General Paul Gorman, Com-
106

mander in Chief, U.S. Southern Command from 1983 

to 1985, once said that doctrine and training will prepare us for what lies ahead only if “forceful effective 

ideas on how to fight pervade the force.”21 The Army is 

fighting effectively today in Iraq and Afghanistan—

decentralized, allowing commanders to use discretion 

and take initiative. However, as General Dempsey has 

said, “These principles have not yet been made institutional in our doctrine and in our training.” As such, 

they do not pervade the force, nor our culture. “Until 

they do—until they drive our leader development . . . 

we [the Army] cannot consider ourselves ready, and 

we should not consider ourselves sufficiently adaptable.”22

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 4

1. Martin E. Dempsey, “Leader Development,” Army Magazine, Vol. 61, No. 2, February 2011, p. 26.

2. Martin E. Dempsey, “A Campaign of Learning to Achieve 

Institutional Adaptation,” Army Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 11, November 2010, p. 34.

3. Robert Gates, Speech to the U.S. Corps of Cadets, United 

States Military Academy, West Point, NY, March 2011.

4. Martin E. Dempsey, “Leader Development,” Army Magazine, Vol. 61, No. 2, February 2011, p. 26.

5. Dean Williams, Real Leadership: Helping People and Organizations Face Their Toughest Challenges, San Francisco, CA: BerrettKoehler Publishers, 2005, p. 59.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid., p. 62.

8. Ibid.
107

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. Dr. James G. Pierce, email to the author, March 17, 2010.

13. Dean Williams, HKS Course MLD-201, Exercising Leadership: The Politics of Change, Harvard Kennedy School MLD-201, 

class January 24, 2011.

14. Williams, Real Leadership, p. 48.

15. Ibid., p. 29.

16. Ibid., p. 8.

17. Ibid.

18. Eric T. Olson, Lecture at the Joint Forces Staff College, February 2010.

19. Martin E. Dempsey, “Driving Change Through a Campaign of Learning,” Army Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 10, October 2010, 

p. 66.

20. Martin E. Dempsey, “Concepts Matter,” Army Magazine, 

Vol. 60, No. 12, December 2010, p. 40.

21. Martin E. Dempsey, “Mission Command,” Army Magazine, Vol. 61, No. 11, January 2011, p. 44.

22. Ibid.

109

APPENDIX I

A NEW FRAMEWORK FOR LEADERSHIP

Dean Williams

Center for Public Leadership

Kennedy School of Government 

Harvard University

What Does it Mean to be a Leader?

1. Leadership is the activity of mobilizing people 

to confront and address problematic realities, engage in 

learning, and create what is needed to improve the human condition or make things better. 

2. For every group, there are practices or problems (internal or external) that are impediments to 

progress. These impediments are adaptive challenges 

that must be productively resolved for the group to 

advance. To successfully address an impediment, the 

exercise of leadership is needed to design and orchestrate a series of experiments to discover what works 

or what is missing and what must be modified in the 

group’s values, practices and priorities. 

3. Our notion of leadership is significantly different from traditional notions of leadership, which overemphasize the practices of “giving people answers,” 

“gaining followers,” “showing the way forward,” and 

“getting people to do what you want them to do.” Of 

course, there are times when giving answers, showing the way forward, and motivating people are important, but the essence of adaptive leadership is in 

giving the problem-solving work back to the people 

by getting them to face reality, learn, discover, solve 

problems, and take responsibility for the work they 

must do to generate real progress.
110

4. We distinguish leadership from authority. Most 

people collapse the two, believing they are the same. 

We say that authority is a position or function in a 

group, while leadership is an activity that can be done 

with or without authority.

5. Authority generally supports the implementation of technical work while leadership orchestrates the 

process of adaptive work—a process in which groups 

modify their thinking and values and make significant adjustments in their behavior to accommodate 

the reality of a changed context produced by threats 

and dangers or the emergence of new opportunities 

and possibilities. Technical problem-solving generally 

does not require a shift in how people think and behave, while adaptive problem solving does.

6. All systems (groups and institutions) must 

strengthen their adaptive capacity in order to survive. 

Evolution is the natural process for unfolding the 

adaptive capacity of an entity or a system. But the evolutionary process takes a long time and is also inefficient and deficient, because it generates too many losers, produces too much waste, and promotes survival 

of the fittest. Since the evolutionary process takes too 

long, systems often die off or collapse because they 

cannot generate a successful adaptive response to cope 

with changed conditions fast enough. Leadership is 

the process of intervening in the system to “punctuate 

the equilibrium” or “disturb the drift” of the group 

in order to stimulate problem-solving and change at a 

faster rate than evolution provides. 

7. The intervention process of leadership gets people to attend to what is flawed, broken, or deficient 

in their thinking, values, norms, or shared patterns of 

operation. It seeks to put enough reality in the lap of 

the group so that threats can be acknowledged, flaws 

fixed, change pursued, and progress generated.
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8. Progress, according to the dictionary, means a 

move toward a “higher or better state.”

9. Within any human, organizational, social, political, or economic system, there may be differences of 

opinion about what is meant by “higher” or “better.” 

Therefore, the first adaptive challenge of leadership 

will be to work with the group to generate a shared 

perspective on higher and better that takes into consideration the reality of the group’s context, the people’s aspirations, and the threats and opportunities 

before the group.

10. The notion of progress—or what it means to 

move toward higher and better—should be subject to 

testing by many factions so that it does not become a 

narrow agenda of a single faction, and thereby lead to 

the alienation, attack, or harm of others. Testing what 

progress means to a group on an ongoing basis should 

include demanding ethical and moral standards and 

considerations to ensure that short-term, parochial 

self-interest does not override the sustainable wellbeing of the whole, as happened with the U.S. banking 

system and contributed to the recent financial crisis. 

11. The key driver of progress lies in increasing the 

system’s capacity to solve complex problems faster so 

that a successful adaptation in the system will result—

thus minimizing the danger and threat to the system 

and ensuring it has the capacity to deliver on its promise.

12. Movement toward a higher or better stage by 

any group requires added investment in time, resources, and energy, and an increase in coordinated effort 

to generate values, practices, systems, and structures 

that can produce enough adaptive work so progress 

unfolds with minimal waste and casualties. 
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13. This process of producing progress through 

adaptive work requires examining the prevailing assumptions and deep beliefs people hold concerning 

key human pursuits. For example, the prevailing belief among many groups is that democracy and the 

free market are the vehicles to get to higher and better. 

Another belief is that military interventions on behalf 

of national interests or the replacement of one regime 

with another can lead to higher and better. But, as 

we have discovered through the financial meltdown 

in the United States and elsewhere, democracy and a 

free market without enlightened rules, or indiscriminate strategic military interventions, cannot produce 

spontaneously or by design enough of the progress 

that the 21st century will require for survival of the 

valuable parts of civilization. 

14. Therefore, it is imperative that leadership be 

exercised to orchestrate adaptations that produce 

enough learning, problem-solving, and discoveries in 

groups to fix deficiencies and faults in human theories, plans of actions, implementation strategies, and 

coordination mechanisms between factions so that 

genuine progress eventuates.

Diagnostic Work, Social Learning, and Adaptive 

Work.

1. Given the threats and dangers in an ever-changing world, complex and challenging problems exist 

for all institutions, groups, organizations, and societies that expose weaknesses and deficiencies in any 

human system. We call these problems adaptive challenges. 

2. There are different kinds of challenges for every 

group. The kind of challenge the people face should 
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be determined by what’s at stake if the people persist 

in their current course. In other words, what are the 

threats to the system that necessitate people to modify 

some aspect of their habits, thinking, or priorities? 

3. There is an activist challenge—getting people to 

face and consider something they have been refusing 

to face or consider; a development challenge—bringing forth latent capabilities in order to respond to the 

threats and take advantage of opportunities; a transition challenge—shifting the values of the group from 

one set to another; a maintenance challenge—preserving essential parts of group values in the face of peril 

or threat; a creative challenge—doing something that 

has never been done before; and a crisis challenge—attending to ticking time-bombs that threaten to destroy 

much of the value that has been amassed. 

4. Leadership begins with thorough diagnostic 

work to discover the essence of the adaptive challenge 

facing the group. However, with tough problematic 

realities and demanding adaptive challenges, it is not 

always easy to frame them or put labels on them in 

a way that is accurate or useful. Often what we describe as the problem is nothing more than a symptom. Adaptive problems are usually messes that are 

extremely complex and systemic in nature and require 

a significant degree of diagnostic work to figure out 

the real issues and the values that perpetuate them.

5. The diagnostic of leadership seeks to help people, according to Plato, distinguish essence from appearance and shadows from reality. In other words, 

leadership seeks to take a group beyond surface phenomena, myth, and superstition (anything believed to 

be true that is not) and facilitate a deeper learning pertaining to the assumptions, beliefs, and values people 

hold with regard to their condition and interpretation 

of reality.
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6. In doing good diagnosis, a leader might ask: 1) 

What are the internal and external dangers and threats 

to the system? 2) Do people see and agree on these 

dangers and threats? 3) How do people interpret the 

reasons for these dangers and threats? and 4) What 

values, mindsets, and priorities need to be promoted, 

changed, discarded or modified in order to address 

the challenge? 

7. There are different kinds of problems facing any 

group. There are adaptive problems that the people 

have failed to anticipate because they have no prior 

experience and therefore do not recognize the phenomenon that indicates danger is in their midst or on 

the horizon.

8. There are adaptive problems that people recognize but are complacent in addressing because they 

feel that to take steps to address the problem would 

require too much of a sacrifice in the present. 

9. There are also adaptive problems that people 

recognize, but their interpretations are incomplete or 

biased, and they impute blame to others and fail to 

acknowledge that their own values and priorities are 

also contributing to the problem.

10. Diagnostic work must consider the systemic 

dynamics that surround and perpetuate an adaptive 

problem, because often a problematic concern resides 

in the relationship of the various factions. In other 

words, there is something deficient or maladaptive 

in the relationship between the factions that serves to 

threaten the whole. The framing of the adaptive challenge must therefore include the relationship of the 

factions.

11. Therefore, a primary function of leadership, in 

the context of an adaptive challenge, is to diagnose: 1) 

what the factions are; 2) how the different factions in-
115

terpret the challenge; 3) how each faction contributes 

to the problem; and, 4) what values and practices in 

the relationship between the factions perpetuate the 

problem.

12. In doing diagnostic work, the leader might ask, 

“What is unresolved, that if it was resolved, would 

make a difference for the system? Another important 

diagnostic question is: “What values do the people 

hold that they consider more important than facing 

the problem or making genuine progress?” These 

questions point at the work-avoidance dynamics in 

the system and help explain the reasons for the work 

avoidance.

13. An important facet of diagnostic work is to 

generate learning and discoveries about the system 

and the adaptive challenge through experimentation. 

Discoveries about the reality of the challenge or the 

group predicament can only unfold and be sustained 

when deep social learning takes place. Social learning 

and institutional learning require multiple groups and 

factions to engage the competing perspectives of the 

other to enrich their understanding of their condition.

14. To orchestrate a deep social learning, there 

generally must be some perturbance to the system to 

generate enough disequilibrium that allows for high 

levels of engagement of competing perspectives. The 

disequilibrium produces tension as people wrestle 

with what is essential and what is expendable. It is 

a conflictual process associated with the discord and 

the pain associated with a group seeking to make adjustments in their habits and practices and deal with 

the losses that must be sustained if they are to move 

forward.

15. Social learning (change, transition, and development) must be a carefully paced process. As Plato’s 
116

analogy of the Cave illustrates, you cannot overwhelm 

the group, or it will turn against you. Helping people 

sustain losses or let go of maladaptive practices, values, and perspectives is an essential part of the learning process and requires sensitivity, pacing, and a 

large dose of compassion.

Group Dynamics and Social Systems.

1. Leadership is more than getting a single group 

or team performing better. It generally requires intervening in a complex system of varying factions and 

interests. To exercise leadership, one must have an appreciation for the systemic dynamics, which include 

the unconscious forces that shape and influence the 

behavior of the individual parts and the collective 

whole. Groups, organizations, communities, and nations are more than the sum of the individual parts 

and have a life of their own. They are social systems 

with multiple interacting components that affect each 

and every part.

2. As it pertains to a tough leadership challenge, 

the leadership task is to figure out how individuals act 

out factional values, loyalties, unresolved concerns, 

and fantasies, and perpetuate the situation of irresolution. Rather than conduct a psychological analysis of 

the individuals to figure out why something is broken 

or not functioning effectively, a leader seeks to understand the forces in the background that shape and 

move the individuals who are in the foreground.

3. Groups are not particularly rational entities. 

More often than not they are inherently irrational—

that is, all manner of unconscious sentiments are 

swirling beneath the surface that impact the flow of 

the group dynamic and the people’s capacity to ad-
117

dress problematic realities. These unconscious sentiments generate work avoidance mechanisms such as 

scapegoating deviants, attack on the authority, displacement of responsibility, and the generation of decoy issues and false tasks.

4. Leadership interventions must address not just 

the individual but the system and the factional dynamics of the system if progress is to be made and sustained. The preoccupation with personalities and individual psychology without diagnosing the systemic 

dynamics is incomplete and limited in usefulness.

5. Leaders must consider what part of the system 

needs to make adjustments in values or perspectives 

to deal with the threat, danger, or opportunity. But 

in addressing the part of the system that is deficient, 

they must also consider interdependence of the various parts and how each part impacts the whole.

6. Individual analysis as it pertains to an adaptive 

challenge should be about the roles people play in the 

system. People play roles and are generally unconscious of the fact they are playing a role. A role is a 

group construct. 

7. A role is a consistent and persistent pattern of 

behavior and response that serves a particular purpose for the group. We may consciously try to change 

our role and succeed, but that is an adaptive challenge 

in and of itself. But the power of a system is such that 

it can hold us in a particular place, or use us in a particular way, so that we have little room to maneuver. 

In other words, there are patterns and dynamics in 

the relationship between the individual and the group 

that reinforce certain behaviors that make it difficult 

for individuals to change, even should they so desire. 

While roles can be constraining, they can also be a resource that allows us to make interventions or support 

others in the doing of adaptive work. 
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8. Anyone attempting to exercise leadership should 

seriously reflect on whether their role is being used 

by the group for work avoidance, distancing from 

responsibility, feeding group hungers, and putting a 

false set of tasks before the group—rather than engaging the difficult work of progress.

9. It is important to distinguish between self and

role. A role is something that we take up or have imposed upon us. But the role is not us. The moment one 

collapses the role with self, the ability to think clearly 

and exercise leadership is significantly reduced. Often, when people attack the leader or get upset with 

the boss or one becomes a lightning rod for a particular issue, it is because that person embodies the issue 

for the group. It is important not to take the attack 

personally. Likewise, when the group applauds and 

adores the leader, one should not be seduced or succumb to the excessive longings of the people to solve 

their problems for them and produce the magic solution.

Authority

1. Authority is a very ancient and important orienting function for any group, be it a family, school, 

club, community, or nation. But the authority role is 

difficult when competing factions have varied expectations and hungers that they demand the authority 

figure to respond to or sate. 

2. Some of the basic expectations of any group include the provision of means to obtain fundamental 

necessities, protect boundaries, control conflict, maintain the norms for the group, and advance its interests. 

3. Groups also look to the authority figure to embody the “mantle of the ideal.” Such figures are ex-
119

pected to display the values and practices that are 

meaningful to the people. 

4. Failure to fulfill people’s expectations, feed 

enough of their hungers, or be the mantle of the ideal 

can lead to the de-authorization of the authority figure.

5. Authority figures are often used by the people 

to avoid confronting the real work of progress. Some 

groups constantly replace their authority figures, but 

things do not get any better. The authority figure simply is an extension of themselves. 

6. The ways people use authority to avoid real 

work include: 1) the tendency to want the authority to 

be a magician and fix everything; 2) excessive dependence on or deference to the authority with the hope 

that the authority will make their life easier or bestow 

benefits (status and rewards) on them for their loyalty; 

and, 3) unnecessarily, even irrationally, fighting with 

or undermining the authority because the person is 

seen as an impediment or a threat by virtue of their 

position or dominance. 

7. While authority can be a massive work-avoidance issue for a group, its function can also be used 

productively to promote adaptive work. Authority 

should be used to formulate a holding environment to 

contain the group’s work-avoidance patterns, which 

are inevitable when dealing with tough problems. 

A holding environment consists of the set of values, 

rules, norms and boundaries that hold the group in 

their conflicts and problem-solving pursuits. 

8. While a tight holding environment can promote 

group identity, it can also limit the creativity needed 

to produce adaptive solutions. Authority plays an important role in strengthening or loosening the holding 

environment depending on what challenge the people 
120

face and the amount of creativity and conflict that is 

needed to produce a solution.

9. Because people look to authorities for guidance 

and answers, it is very seductive for authorities to act 

like they know where they are going when they do not 

and to feed the people’s hungers when they should 

be feeding themselves. This can be dangerous, as it 

promotes dependence and delusions. The challenge 

of authority figures is to use their authority to direct 

people’s attention to aspects of reality that people are 

avoiding or refuse to contend with, and call attention 

to the contradiction in values between what people 

espouse and how they behave, even when it is painful 

for the people. 

10. Authority often serves as a repository for people’s hopes, fears, aspirations, and pain. This can be 

a heavy burden for the authority figure. The authority figure, in the exercise of leadership, must seek to 

give enough of the burden of responsibility back to 

the people at a rate they can tolerate.

11. Authority can also promote learning and adaptive work by protecting the deviant voices in the system that others seek to block. 

Intervention.

1. The essence of leadership is in intervention to direct attention to a problematic concern. This is always 

difficult, as people have so many other concerns competing for their attention. Leadership interventions 

must be creative in order to get and hold attention.

2. A creative intervention necessitates stepping beyond the normal way of speaking and listening and 

ensuring that timing, pacing, voice modulation, and 

partnering are features of the intervention process.
121

3. A leadership intervention is a “perturbing force” 

that stirs the group to confront an issue that they have 

been avoiding or to pursue a course of action that they 

have been reluctant to pursue.

4. Perturbing can be done through provoking and 

evoking. A provocative intervention stirs the group 

into action by generating dissonance. An evocative intervention stirs people to action by appealing to higher 

values or noble sentiment. Excessive provocation can 

lead to rebellion, and excessive evoking can generate 

group dependency. Leadership interventions should 

use multiple means to stir the group. Doing the same 

thing all the time will reduce the potency of the interventions.

5. In order to intervene, one must be able to understand the difference between holding steady and 

holding back. Holding steady is being in a state of 

engagement and watching to see how the group is responding, while holding back is a defense mechanism 

that distances oneself from responsibility for contributing.

6. Successful interventions need partners to help 

orchestrate the intervention. It is dangerous to lead 

alone. Partners help to keep the attention on the problem. They clarify issues. They highlight the leader’s 

blind spots and provide feedback with regard to what 

is working or not working.

7. A leader must develop the capacity to make spontaneous and improvised interventions, and planned, 

designed, and highly strategic interventions. All are 

needed, since leadership interventions must deal with 

the long-term challenges of mobilizing people to do 

adaptive work and the day-to-day challenges of sustaining attention, maintaining levels of engagement, 

and minimizing distractions. Adaptive work by its 
122

very nature unfolds in a dynamic and unpredictable 

manner.

8. Not all adaptive problems are clearly framed or 

obvious to the people. Therefore, interventions should 

be used to ripen issues so that the problem steadily 

builds a constituency for engagement.

Creativity and Leadership.

1. It might be said that there can be no leadership 

without creativity. Generally there can be no adaptive 

work without creative problem-solving. Creativity is 

the engine of progress. Adaptive work necessitates 

pushing boundaries and frontiers through creative 

exploration. Creativity is needed because the solution 

for a difficult adaptive challenge may lie outside the 

current repertoire of responses. 

2. Thomas Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, says that group knowledge exists within a 

paradigm—a shared set of myths, beliefs, and assumptions. Leadership prods and pokes at the myths, 

beliefs, and assumptions of the group to see if the paradigm should be broadened, modified, or abandoned.

3. Creative leadership requires the courage to challenge a prevailing myth, norm, practice, or value. It 

requires courage because challenging the group might 

be threatening to a group that is rigidly attached to 

its paradigm, a source of comfort and security to the 

group.

4. Creative adaptations in the group, organization, 

or community generally occur in a state of tension or 

conflict. Rollo May argues that conflict is an inherent 

part of the creative process and generates the sparks 

that ignite the consideration and exploration of alternatives and unconsidered propositions. 
123

5. The conflict associated with the creative process is the product of competing values and perspectives rubbing up (even clashing) against each other. 

Through this engagement process, the spark of new 

insights and possibilities can emerge. Authority, however, must manage the disequilibrium associated with 

the creative process to ensure that it does not turn 

destructive. Indeed, creative work can be terrifying 

for people and lead them to flee, scapegoat a faction, 

or even kill the leader. Rollo May says that creativity 

provokes the jealousy of the gods!

Assassination and the Challenge of Staying Alive.

1. Leadership can be dangerous, as you are often 

on the razor’s edge or in a vulnerable space. Groups 

neutralize leaders and authority figures who challenge 

prevailing wisdom by assassinating them, undermining them, marginalizing them, or overthrowing them. 

Dissident voices, who provide some leadership without any authority and challenge the group by calling 

attention to the group’s hypocrisy, can also be attacked, marginalized, or silenced.

2. All groups have mechanisms for neutralizing 

the provocative voice or the unacceptable authority 

figure.

3. Dissident and provocative voices that are moving the group toward important aspects of reality 

should be protected and partnered with to ensure that 

they are not killed off, and that the issue they represent remains alive.

4. The leadership challenge is to keep the issue on 

the table and yourself off the table. You want people 

dissecting the issue and not dissecting you.

5. Do not be a martyr or encourage martyrdom 

in others. Martyrs are often used by groups to avoid 
the real work. They perpetuate an “us versus them” 

dynamic, encourage delusionary and grandiose thinking, and promote counterproductive battles that persist.

6. To minimize the risk of assassination, have partners and confidants to protect you. Also, pace the 

work. Do not become a self-righteous crusader who 

seeks to impose your plan upon others. While a group 

can hold terrible views and engage in negative practices, it is necessary for the leader to have a degree of 

sensitivity and understanding as to how those views 

and practices came into existence. 

7. It is important for those in the role of lightning 

rod to distinguish between attacks that are acts of 

sabotage or neutralization and the attacks that are 

inevitable on an important issue with which people 

are struggling. As a lightning rod, one must be able 

to hold steady and ascertain the deeper concerns and 

fears that are underlying the attack.

Purpose, Task and Work Avoidance.

1. Leaders need a compelling sense of purpose to 

hold them as they pursue the exercise of leadership.

2. Purpose is a place to come from rather than a destination to get to. It shapes your relationship to the 

problem. It generates a way of being with the problem.

3. Purpose serves as a holding environment for the 

leader and the group when doing adaptive work. It 

holds your doubts and your aspirations. It keeps you 

in the game. It gives you reason to intervene and challenge. It also gives you reason to learn and be curious.

4. Purpose must be self-generated and not imposed. There is no purpose beyond what you or the 

people generate.

124
125

5. Maintaining a sense of purpose is essential to 

keep the people from fleeing or succumbing to their 

hungers. Purpose puts something at stake. It puts fire 

in the belly.

6. All groups have work-avoidance mechanisms 

that they employ to distance themselves from responsibility for their real problems—this is because their 

sense of purpose is very weak, insufficiently constructed, or connected to the perpetuation of their identity.

7. Excessive work avoidance might produce a state 

of purposelessness or narrowly defined self-interest 

that leads people to act irresponsibly and endanger 

themselves and their community. The goal of leadership is to work with the group to generate a sense of 

purpose and get connected to a worthwhile and noble 

aspiration—not necessarily a vision (a place to get to) 

but an aspiration (something to live and work for).

8. Work-avoidance mechanisms include any group 

activity that leads people away from the engagement 

of a problematic reality—such as fighting; competing 

for resources or status; succumbing to one’s hungers; 

politicking; fleeing from responsibility; disengagement; the generation of false visions and delusions; 

and the pursuit of false tasks that seem momentarily 

attractive but really have nothing to do with sustainable progress.

9. A leader must be willing to tolerate a degree of 

work avoidance in the system (it is inevitable), in the 

same way that wise parents will tolerate a degree of 

work avoidance in their teenage child as the child engages in the developmental process of transitioning 

into adulthood. No group goes straight to the problem, but generally it goes around in circles for some 

time. This can be an important learning process that 

occurs in a state of disequilibrium and allows for discoveries to be made.
126

10. It is important to distinguish exercising leadership with a sense of purpose from crusading. Crusading is the thoughtless pursuit of a goal. Crusaders, 

although extremely committed, can do tremendous 

damage. Rather than engaging in learning and maintaining an attitude of curiosity, they hold onto a dogma as a truth. Leadership promotes thinking, a thinking that allows for more effective action in the face of 

complex problems. 

Listening and Leadership.

1. If one cannot listen, one cannot exercise leadership. So much of leadership work is about listening.

2. Listening allows one to access the sentiment of 

the group and its respective factions, and to hear the 

people’s fear, pain, and despair—and their hopes, 

dreams, and desires. 

3. There is no such thing as empty listening. Our 

listening is heavily warped and distorted with assessments and judgments as we listen from a particular 

position or from the tuning of our harp strings (the 

significant voices in our heads). 

4. To exercise successful leadership effectively, 

one must have a degree of self-knowledge or a willingness to pursue such knowledge. In order to build 

self-knowledge, one must inquire into how one listens 

to access reality. Consider the following questions:

a. Where do I listen from (my assumptions, my

positions, my loyalties)?

b. Whom do I listen to? (What people or factions do I consider worthwhile, and whom do I discount? Do I listen to the voices on the margins? Can I 

really listen to my enemy?)

c. What do I listen for? (We often listen for

agreement, acknowledgment, acceptance, or to feed 
127

our hungers, whatever they might be. In the exercise 

of leadership one has to listen for “what’s missing” in 

the group, the sentiment of the group, and the music 

beneath the words).

5. The challenge of leadership is to deepen and 

broaden your listening capacity. In the class, the music occasionally played is used as a metaphor for the 

challenge of listening to sounds that do not fit neatly 

into our paradigm. How difficult it is to give undivided attention and listen and hear the meaning and 

sentiment that is imbedded in the sounds, as quaint as 

they might be.

6. The challenge of leadership is to also to listen to 

the deviant voice, the individual or faction that is trying to raise an issue or concern that is in opposition to 

the prevailing view. A deviant can easily be killed off 

and marginalized. Authority figures should protect 

the deviant voice, and the leadership work is to tackle 

the concern the deviant is raising and not to tackle the 

deviant.

7. The challenge of leadership is to listen to your 

enemies—to really hear their concerns and what is 

driving their opposition.

8. The challenge of leadership is to listen to voices 

on the margins. Who is being pushed to the side and 

why? What perspectives do they embody that the 

larger group is having difficulty incorporating?

9. The challenge of leadership is to listen to the 

frontline. Can you really hear the concerns, fears, advice, and perspectives of those on the frontline who 

are fighting the battles, interacting with customers, or 

doing the real implementation work?

10. The challenge of leadership is to listen to confidants and allies who can talk straight and tell you 

when you are being a jerk or causing an unnecessary 

mess.
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Inspiration and Leadership.

1. Groups need inspiration to face demanding 

challenges. Inspiration is about breathing life into the 

group. Inspiration is needed to keep people engaged 

in the work, particularly when one is tired and finds it 

difficult to persist. Inspiration can serve to “keep the 

fire burning” and to keep people focused on the work 

that matters, particularly when the people are tired 

and seek to flee.

2. It is difficult to be inspirational when one is being excessively technical about the work or stuck in a 

particular role.

3. Inspiration can be used to shift people’s relationship to an issue, concern, or challenge. It can help 

them see what is at stake in a way that connects their 

own values to noble aspirations.

4. Inspiration serves to remind people of what is 

possible. Inspiration speaks to higher sentiments, the 

“divine spark” and the “noble” side of people. The 

dark side is often exploited by counterfeit leaders to 

stir people into a state of vengeance or to promote a 

false sense of security.

5. Leaders must take responsibility for how they 

employ and deploy inspiration. Inspiration can be 

a dangerous tool. It can be used to perpetuate work 

avoidance in a social system by generating false hope, 

by putting faith in decoy issues, or by inspiring people 

to scapegoat others and to avoid taking responsibility 

for their condition.

6. Inspiration can also lead to excessive dependency on the authority figure or one exercising leadership. The people might call the leader charismatic and 

project onto him or her some magical quality, thereby 
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diminishing their own capacity and responsibility for 

doing adaptive work and exercising creativity in the 

face of difficult problems.

7. According to the Odin myth, the gift of poetic 

inspiration was the most important gift of the gods, 

and therefore the dwarfs and giants were constantly 

fighting to steal the sacred mead (potion) that gave 

access to the gift. Whoever had the mead had the ultimate power over the people to do with them as they 

wanted! The abuse of the mead, as we see in the Odin 

myth, may lead to the destruction of all.

8. Inspiration must be connected to aspiration. Inspiration breathes life into the group, while aspiration 

is breathing out, or taking steps toward the desired 

purpose.

9. To provide genuine inspiration, the leader must 

tap into one’s personal bank of pain, joy, and experience and connect it to the reality of where the people 

are. In other words, there must be an authentic connection between the leader and the group, a connection that transcends the despair of the moment and 

creates a window of possibility for the group. 

Personal Work of Leadership.

1. To exercise leadership, one must be like the 

Norse god Odin and have a process for increasing in 

wisdom and understanding in order to minimize the 

damage your power might cause and maximize the 

effectiveness of your interventions. 

2. Use partners to detect what is missing due 

to your blind spots. A leader must ask, “How am I 

wrapped up in this problem in ways that I don’t see?” 

Partners can help answer that question. 

3. Detect when you are leading by crusading. It 

is easy to become excessively passionate and single-
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minded about the rightness of your pursuit, failing to 

see other options and alternatives and to make adjustments in your assumptions, strategies, and actions. 

Crusaders become obnoxious about their cause and 

provide no room for serious adaptive work.

4. Detect when your narcissism is getting in the 

way. Many people who enter the political arena or 

seek to lead with authority have narcissistic tendencies. This is not necessarily bad. Narcissism is the 

feeling of self-importance and the exaggeration of 

your value and contribution. Leaders must always be 

watching to ensure their narcissism does not get in the 

way of the real work. Excessive narcissism produces 

counterfeit leadership because the spotlight falls on 

the person and not the problem.

5. Detect when your convictions are getting in the 

way of your capacity for accurate diagnosis. We all 

have beliefs, desires, and convictions that frame our 

view of the world. In doing thorough diagnostic work, 

it may be necessary to put our convictions to the side 

in order to listen, observe and distinguish what really 

is going on. 

6. Detect when your hungers are getting in the way. 

Hungers are desires that we seek to fulfill in the course 

of our normal pursuits. It is easy for our hungers to 

distract us from exercising leadership and thereby 

sabotage our capacity to make a serious contribution. 

Hungers include the desire for status, prominence, 

dominance, control, territory, acceptance, adoration, 

etc.

7. Detect when your factional loyalties are impeding the doing of adaptive work. We all have attachments to family, friends, communities, and nations. 

Our loyalties to our respective factions can often lead 

us to not challenge our own group or to disappoint 
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them. If our attachment is too strong, we may promote 

tribalism at the expense of progress.

8. Detect the people’s reality; stay grounded, and 

wander. You must be able to find out what is really 

going on in the system. This will require taking off the 

robes of authority, leaving one’s hallowed office, and 

going out among the people to sense for yourself what 

is really happening without any filter.

9. Detect when to move to the side or get out of the 

way. Sometimes the work of leadership is to get out of 

the way and go home. In other words, there is nothing 

more that you can do, and if you persist in staying 

connected to the challenge, your presence will impede 

progress. It might be time to get lost and let someone 

else take over. 

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APPENDIX II

U.S. ARMY OFFICER EVALUATION REPORT
134
135

APPENDIX III

RECOMMENDED CHANGES

TO LEADER CORE COMPETENCIES

OUTLINED IN THE

ARMY LEADER DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY,

NOVEMBER 2009

Leader Core Competencies extract from the Army 

Leader Development Strategy (ALDS), with recommended additions.

LEADER CORE COMPETENCIES 

Army leaders apply their character, presence, and 

intellect in leading our nation’s Soldiers. The expectations for what leaders should do regardless of the 

situation are captured in the Army’s core leader competencies. Core leader competencies are defined as 

groups of related behaviors that lead to successful performance common throughout the organization and 

are consistent with the organization’s values. There 

are eight leader competencies that fall into four areas: 

One who leads. Provides vision through purpose, 

motivation, universal respect, and direction to guide 

others. Extends one’s influence beyond the chain of 

command to build partnerships and alliances to accomplish complex work. Leading is conveyed by communicating (imparting ideas) and setting the example. 

One who develops. Leads organizations by creating and maintaining a positive environment and by 

investing effort in their broadening, and that of others, 

to achieve depth and breadth. Developing includes assessing needs to improve self, others, and the organization. 
136

One who achieves. Focuses on what needs to be 

accomplished. Has an expeditionary mindset and can 

adapt to unanticipated, changing, and uncertain situations. Achieving in the short term is about getting results but in the long term, it is about setting the vision 

to obtain objectives. 

One who mobilizes. Navigates organizations 

through adaptive challenges by confronting people 

with the reality of changed conditions. Provides a 

learning environment for the group to discover and 

develop adaptive solutions.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Gregg F. Martin

Commandant

*****

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II

Author

John B. Richardson IV

Director of Publications

Dr. James G. Pierce

Publications Assistant

Ms. Rita A. Rummel

*****

Composition

Mrs. Jennifer E. Nevil
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

This Publication SSI Website USAWC Website