Our efforts to unscramble the stresses and strains at battalion level should reap a great harvest in enhanced leadership effectiveness. As we attempt to select, educate and then trust our leaders, we must provide them a disciplined environment in which to serve. Our young soldiers keep signaling that they expect an Army to be tough and fair. Leadership and discipline go hand in hand. Realizing in this day and age that even within a healthy organization the individual leader must establish somewhat independently his own credibility, the portrayal of competence has never been more important.
Leaders have to know their job and show it.
Although many of our soldiers have remarkably high expectations of what their leaders should be, most do not expect miracles. But they do not tolerate the careless or the vacillating leader very well. So, in effect, a healthy organizational climate enhances the development of individual leadership, and successful leadership contributes to the robustness of the organizational climate. A final note is that proper individual value systems within the officer corps are essential both to good leadership and to healthy organizations. The willingness to make sacrifices, to take risks in the interest of the mission and the soldiers, to look deeply inside and figure out what really motivates us are simply key to building a climate of special trust and confidence.