US Army Field Manual on Leadership (1990) [pdf]

It&#x27;s interesting to see civilians looking to the military for leadership and management ideas. I&#x27;m a career Army officer, and when I was a young officer I looked to <i>civilian</i> books and other resources for management advice. Over the years, however, I&#x27;ve come appreciate more what the Army has written on the topic.<p>Here&#x27;s the current (2019) version of the Army&#x27;s doctrine on leadership, if anyone wants to see how it has evolved and what&#x27;s being taught today: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;armypubs.army.mil&#x2F;epubs&#x2F;DR_pubs&#x2F;DR_a&#x2F;ARN20039-ADP_6-22-001-WEB-5.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;armypubs.army.mil&#x2F;epubs&#x2F;DR_pubs&#x2F;DR_a&#x2F;ARN20039-ADP_6-...</a><p>And here&#x27;s the companion guide for &quot;developing leaders:&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;armypubs.army.mil&#x2F;epubs&#x2F;DR_pubs&#x2F;DR_a&#x2F;ARN36735-FM_6-22-000-WEB-1.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;armypubs.army.mil&#x2F;epubs&#x2F;DR_pubs&#x2F;DR_a&#x2F;ARN36735-FM_6-2...</a>

Nothing the military puts out on leadership should be taken very seriously because of the UCMJ and because unhappy people can&#x27;t quit with serious repercussions.<p>Anyone can make a team be productive when you can overwork people, if things don&#x27;t get done you threaten to take their money and threaten a demotion, no one can quit to get away from you, and there is a steady stream of bodies to use.<p>Civilian leaders have to actually balance keeping people happy and getting things done.

Another good book in this vein is &quot;Turn the ship around!&quot;: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;davidmarquet.com&#x2F;turn-the-ship-around-book&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;davidmarquet.com&#x2F;turn-the-ship-around-book&#x2F;</a><p>Which is written by a navy submarine captain, about how he turned one of the lowest performing crews into a high performing crews that went on to become leaders elsewhere.<p>It really spoke to helping align motivation, and making a path forward for success, which actually is somewhat easier in the military because much of the career progression is study&#x2F;competency based (at least around submarine tasks). This well defined progression is less so outside the military, which I think is why we see so much job hopping.

The text &quot;Mastering The Art of War&quot; (Liu Ji &amp; Zhuge Liang, Thomas Cleary translation) has some interesting advice for determining if someone is suitable for a leadership position:<p>&gt; &quot;Hard though it be to know people, there are ways.<p>First is to question them concerning right and wrong, to observe their ideas.<p>Second is to exhaust all their arguments, to see how they change.<p>Third is to consult with them about strategy, to see how perceptive they are.<p>Fourth is to announce that there is trouble, to see how brave they are.<p>Fifth is to get them drunk, to observe their nature.<p>Sixth is to present them with the prospect of gain, to see how modest they are.<p>Seventh is to give them a task to do within a specific time, to see how trustworthy they are.&quot;

As someone who has led companies for several decades, the foreword bullet points aren’t half bad (in my words, the context is different and not everything translates directly, mistakes aren’t so often deadly in business) :<p>- know your business<p>- teach your team<p>- be a good listener<p>- treat your team with dignity and respect<p>- know the fundamentals of your business<p>- set a good example<p>- establish a positive culture<p>I went through a year of officers training in the Swedish army before my first job, after a year as a conscript. (Quite a different thing than other armed forces, Sweden being neutral, and no prospect of going to war on foreign soil, for example). I probably learned more things about leading people in those years, than I did in the following ten years. Not everyone was a good teacher, but there were some excellent leadership teachers there.

Love that it starts here:<p>&gt; Demonstrate tactical and technical competence.<p>&gt; Know your business. Soldiers expect their leaders to be tactically and technically competent. Soldiers want to follow those leaders who are confident of their own abilities. <i>To be confident a leader must first be competent.</i> Trust between soldiers and their leaders is based on the secure knowledge that the leader is competent.<p>(emphasis mine)<p>If only this advice were followed in other spheres (and is it observed in the Army or is it aspirational?)

&quot;Leading Marines&quot; is one of the best leadership books I&#x27;ve ever read. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.marines.mil&#x2F;Portals&#x2F;1&#x2F;Publications&#x2F;MCWP%206-11%20Leading%20Marine.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.marines.mil&#x2F;Portals&#x2F;1&#x2F;Publications&#x2F;MCWP%206-11%2...</a>

It&#x27;s great to see some folks with actual military experience here. I dodged the draft, being that it was a different era, but I did a lot of work with Operation Code (helping vets &amp; their spouses get into tech).<p>Generally, there was nothing technical I could teach them. A few went to code schools (which OC helped make the GI Bill pay for) but mostly it was 4-year schools. Very, very few saw any combat.<p>One thing vets bring to the tablet that isn&#x27;t that obvious is: they&#x27;re cool under pressure. Even if they weren&#x27;t in combat, solving problems with whatever&#x27;s available is what they do. If I were picking people to keep my datacenter running, vets would be at the front of the line.<p>Also, I learned the stereotype that Marines eat crayons &#x2F;s

I don’t have any military experience but in my opinion leadership is simply about “knowing where you are going” (literally or figuratively).<p>If you don’t possess this, you are not a leader regardless of position, authority or how you “carry yourself”.

I really liked &quot;Small Unit Leadership&quot; as having some good lessons for business leaders as well.<p>One thing that stuck with me is how the military can&#x27;t just fire the people that don&#x27;t work out, so there&#x27;s significant time spent on how to get underperforming people &#x2F; units back into shape.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Small-Unit-Leadership-Commonsense-Approach&#x2F;dp&#x2F;0891411739" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Small-Unit-Leadership-Commonsense-App...</a>

The (US) Army Publishing Directorat [1]. Example search &quot;Leadership&quot; [2]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;armypubs.army.mil&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;armypubs.army.mil&#x2F;</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;armypubs.army.mil&#x2F;ProductMaps&#x2F;PubForm&#x2F;ContentSearch.aspx?q=Leadership" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;armypubs.army.mil&#x2F;ProductMaps&#x2F;PubForm&#x2F;ContentSearch....</a>

the conventional wisdom was always that the cold war era land battle calculus went to NATO&#x2F;US because of it&#x27;s well developed NCO corps. the adversary was thought to be a &#x27;hollow&#x27; force of conscripts who lacked professionalism and had few career soldiers who were capable of leading new recruits and effectively implementing the will of higher command. This way of thinking and this manual which enshrines the thinking of the day may seem out of date and was hotly debated at the time seems to be pretty spot on judging the performance of the adversary in Ukraine.

The primary difference between army leadership and corporate leadership is that corporate &quot;leadership&quot; is more about saving their own position and job.

Something adjacent to the Army Field Manual in the Civilian Sector is Nurse Leadership.