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Adaptive Leaders

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Adaptive Leaders Over the years, there have been many brave men and women serving in the military, but there will always be those service members who go beyond their piers to accomplish the mission, those individuals are adaptive leaders. In the following paragraphs, we will discuss, what is an adaptive leader and who can we consider among the many to be a good example of an adaptive leader. Also, what are the characteristics of an adaptive leader, and how do you mentor or shape adaptive leaders, to make this Battalion better. The key to change is an adaptive leader. Adaptive leader’s must be capable of having the mental stability to maintain tactical patience or won’t allow the situation to take control over them but for them to take control …show more content…

We can start Building an adaptive leader by beginning with the mastery of basic knowledge of ambiguity, complexity, and change. Ambiguity we need to accept that there is no one way to solve a problem, but many different means to provide a solution to a problem. With ambiguity an easy way to understand how this needs to be understood and accepted is that our prior experience and standards may not work with the new environment, but that we still need to use those prior experiences to establish a new method that fits our current environment. One example within our Battalion to describe complexity is during one training cycle we may be Training one class on the importance of advising allied forces in Iraq one cycle and within a week switching gears and training another class on the importance of advising another branch of service, such as the U.S Navy or Air Force on their roles of advising and mentoring in Afghanistan. With complexity we have to be flexible to any immediate change in plan or mission in order to be successful. Change of course, there is change and will always be change this is what we are accustomed to the most in the military, however accepting this change without skipping a beat and being productive within our environment is arguably the most important of all. We need to allow our subordinates to be challenged and tested in practice and real world in order for them to build experience …show more content…

As history has taught us an Army at war is stretched and stressed in some cases similarly to a rubber band ready to break. In today’s Army we have a large number of Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers who have learned or have been taught to be comfortable with ambiguity, complexity, and change. While we do not appear much different than our predecessors we carry our wisdom and savvy that can only be gained from our obstacles experienced through multiple deployments fighting an enemy hidden within the cities, intermixed with innocent civilians, and no distinctive means of recognition. We have faced variables that constantly change noted throughout our military history such as; weather, terrain, civilian population, ever evolving enemy, and different dynamics. To continuously improve the leaders today in adaptability we need to be constantly tested, and pushed to our limits in order to overcome our impasse. Through my research on developing adaptive leaders I have found a statement from a former Chief of Staff of the Army General Eric Shinseki and he set the stage for change by chartering the Army Training and Leader Development Panel (ATLDP) in his anticipation

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