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(ATLD) Panel (Officer) report adequately coveredthe development of direct and organizationallevels of leadership. Thus, there is no reasonto examine the development of leadershipcompetencies other than strategic leadershipcompetencies. This report also assumes that theleadership competencies required at the directand organizational levels will be resident inemerging strategic leaders.Finally, this report assumes that a postSeptember 11th environment is the same as theObjective Force environment. Both environmentsinvolve breaking the linear method of warfareand allowing the Nation to directly applyoperational maneuver from strategic distancesthrough the use of joint and coalition forces. Bothperspectives require strategic leaders capable ofhandling a more complex, uncertain, and globalsecurity environment.2vision with the mission and environment througha strategic plan. Aligning consists of ensuring theorganizational structure, systems, and operationalprocesses all contribute to achieving the missionand vision. Empowering is igniting the latenttalent, ingenuity, and creativity in the people toaccomplish the mission.Other leadership theorists bring up aspectsof strategic leadership not included in Covey’stypology. In his research on future strategicleadership, James F. Bolt focuses less on theenvironment and more on the leader.5 He arguesthat there are three dimensions of a leader:business, leadership, and personal effectiveness.The business dimension has been traditionallythe focus in executive development. This dimension includes the creation of new kinds oforganizations, leading change, and how theorganization works. The leadership dimensionhas typically been overlooked because manypeople do not believe it can be taught. Accordingto Bolt, this dimension is developed by the studyof a broad range of classical and contemporaryleadership theories and skills. The personaleffectiveness dimension, according to Bolt, has beenneglected because of the widespread view thatwork and personal matters must be separated.The personal dimension concentrates on helpingto clarify and develop an individual’s purpose,vision, values, and talents. The emphasis onself-reflection is found in the “self-leadership”literature that is becoming popular and is actuallyas old as Thales (“Know thyself”) or Shakespeare(“To thine own self be true.”).A related aspect emerging in the strategicleadership literature is self-efficacy.6 Self-efficacyrefers to individuals’ judgments about theirperceived capabilities for performing specifictasks. Self-efficacy is the result of life experiencesthat teach one that one can, in fact, take actionsthat will effectively have an impact on one’senvironment. This concept parallels the findingsof the Army Training and Leader Development(ATLD) Panel. In the ATLD report, one of thetwo leadership competencies for the 21st centuryis self-awareness. Self-awareness is the abilityto assess abilities, determine strengths in theStrategic Leadership.The search for strategic leader competencies3is a natural progression of the research in the fieldof leadership. In the late 1980s, some social scienceresearchers began to question whether leadershipactually made a difference in organizationswhile others suggested that perhaps the studyof leadership had reached its culminating point.Rather than disappearing, however, the study ofleadership took on new energy with an emphasison leadership of organizations, rather than thetraditional leadership approaches that focused onface-to-face interaction at lower levels. Studiesof transformational leadership, organizationalculture, visionary leadership, organizationalchange, and charismatic leaders reinvigorated thefield of leadership. Thus, the notion of strategicleadership was introduced.While lists of leadership competencies werevery popular in the 1980s, the most recentliterature distills strategic leadership to a fewkey skills and competencies or a process. Forexample, Stephen Covey states that strategicleaders have three basic functions: pathfinding,aligning, and empowering.4 Pathfinding dealswith tying the organization’s value system and2

environment, and learn how to sustain strengthsand correct weaknesses. The ATLD report alsoargues that a key leader competency is adaptability.According to the panel, adaptability is the abilityto recognize changes to the environment, todetermine what is new, what must be learnedto be effective, and includes the learning processthat follows that determination.7Karl Weick states that in a world ofuncertainty and doubt, leaders must focus oncertain properties. Two of those properties areimprovisation and lightness.8Improvisationinvolves the flexible treatment of preplannedmaterial. It is not about making somethingout of nothing. Instead, it is about makingsomething out of previous experience, practice,and knowledge. Improvisation is something thatis almost intuitive to good leaders at the tacticallevel, but seldom is addressed at the strategiclevel.Weick’s novel concept of lightness refers tothe ability to drop heavy tools that are no longeruseful. Weick’s analogy is the foreman who yells,“drop your tools,” to wildland firefighters whoare trying to outrun an exploding fire. Firefighterswho refuse to drop heavy tools such as chainsawsare prone to be overtaken by the fire and perish(as has happened at least 23 times since 1990).To strategic leaders, the now-unwieldy tools arethose that presume the world is stable, knowable,and predictable. Future strategic leaders must beable to drop outmoded perspectives, methods, orassumptions in a world of uncertainty.In their review of strategic leadership, KimBoal and Robert Hooijberg distill the essence ofstrategic leadership to three factors—effectivestrategic leaders must create and maintainabsorptive and adaptive capacity in additionto obtaining managerial wisdom.9 Absorptivecapacity involves the ability to learn byrecognizing new information, assimilating it,and applying it. Adaptive capacity involves theability to change due to variations in conditions.Managerial wisdom consists of discernment andintuition. Boal and Hooijberg’s assertion thatabsorptive and adaptive capacities are requiredat the strategic level of leadership is very similarto the Army’s emphasis on self-awareness andadaptability. Although the Army competenciesare intended to apply to all levels of leadership,not just strategic leaders, it is interesting to seethe parallel development of parsimonious leadercapabilities in both the military and academicliterature.Strategic Leadership in the Military.In 1991, the U.S. Army War College hosteda conference on the fledgling field of strategicleadership. At that conference, strategic leadershipaspects were based on Jaques’s Stratified SystemsTheory (SST).10 SST essentially argues that thereare critical tasks that must be performed byleaders in effective organizations. At each higherlevel in an organization, these tasks becomeincreasingly complex and qualitatively different.Consequently, leaders at the strategic levels musthave higher levels of cognitive complexity—theability to deal with abstract, longer timeframeconcepts. The influence of SST on the ArmyWar College (and the broader Army) is evidentwith the emphasis on cognitive complexity thatpermeates much of the strategic leadershipinstruction.In its Strategic Leadership Primer,11 the ArmyWar College provides a list of strategic leadercompetencies using the “Be, Know, Do” typology.The list is extremely comprehensive and appearsto capture every possible aspect of leadership.BE (Disposition—values, attributes): The Values Champion—the standardbearer beyond reproach Master of the Strategic Art—ends, ways,means Quintessential Student of History Comfortable with Complexity High Personal Stamina—physical, mental,stress management Skilled Diplomat Possesses Intellectual Sophistication—alternative frames of reference, patternrecognition, and able to see 2d, 3rd, and4th-order effects.3

KNOW (Disposition—skills):Conceptual—o Envisioning-anticipating the future,proactive thinking—practices critical,creative, reflective thinkingo Frame of Reference Development—including systems understanding,scanning, pattern recognitiono Problem Management—competingissues, no right answers, ability torecognize and ignore irrelevant issueso Critical Self-Examinationo Critical, Reflective Thoughto Effective within Environment ofComplexityo Skillful Formulation of Ends, Ways,Means.DO (Action—influencing, operating, andimproving): Provide for the Future—visioning (longterm focus, time span, perspective) Initiator of Policy and Directive Shape the Culture—Values-basedorganization, leverage diversity,understanding and accepting differences,multiple perspectives Teach and Mentor the Strategic Art Manage Joint/Combined and InteragencyRelationships Manage National-Level Relationships Represent the Organization Leverage Technology Lead and Manage Change—creating andbuilding “learning organizations” Build Teams and Consensus at StrategicLevel (can’t dictate action at this level)—co-opting, coalition building, negotiating,etc. Practice the Strategic Art—allocateresources, develop and execute strategicplans derived from the interagencyprocess.Interpersonal—o Communication—to a muchbroader audience; negotiations,consensus-building across a varietyof stakeholders; systems knowledge;sophisticated persuasion skillso Inspire Others to Acto Organizational Representation—tointernal and external audiences/stakeholderso Skillful Coordination of Ends, Ways,Meanso Master of Command and PeerLeadership.Similarly, in FM 22-100, Army Leadership, theArmy’s doctrinal leadership manual, the skillsand actions required of strategic leaders are acumulative list of 41 competencies addressingthe direct, organizational, and strategic levels.12Twenty-one competencies are provided for thestrategic level alone:Technical—o Systems Understanding—political,economic, cultural, logistical, forcemanagement, and joint/combinedinterrelationships, etc.o Recognize and UnderstandInterdependencies—systems,decisions, organizations, etc.o Information-age TechnologicalAwareness—next generationawareness, sophisticated time/spaceselectiono Skillful Application of Ends, Ways,Means.FM 22-100, Army Leadership:Strategic Level Skills and Actions—o Communicatingo Using dialogueo Negotiatingo Achieving consensuso Building staffso Envisioningo Developing frames of referenceo Strategic arto Motivatingo Leveraging technologyo Executingo Communicating a vision4

DevelopingDecisionmakingLeading changeStrategic planningLearningStrategic assessingTranslating political goals into militaryobjectiveso Buildingo Dealing with uncertainty andambiguity.description, but is not obvious in the wordsprofessional astuteness.Understanding themeaning and intent behind each metacompetencyis much more important than creating a catchymnemonic containing the first letter of each of thesix labels. Similarly, the metacompetency labelsmay be misinterpreted if separated from theirdescriptions. For example, cross-cultural savvyincludes the ability to work across organizationalboundaries, but the metacompetency can benarrowly misinterpreted to refer to working onlyacross national boundaries. In other words, thesix metacompetency labels were not developed asa stand-alone list. The concepts behind the labels,not the labels themselves, are the focal points forleader development and assessment.The following section describes the six metacompetencies. After a brief discussion of each,the development of each in future officers

capability. Looking across the existing literature on strategic leadership, the current lists of Army strategic leader competencies, and the future environment of the Objective Force, six metacompetencies can be derived: identity, mental agility, cross-cultural savvy, interpersonal maturity, world-class warrior, and professional astuteness.Cited by: 85Publish Year: 2003Author: Leonard Wong, Stephen Gerras, William Kidd,