Modern Military Leaders

Relations with subordinates and chiefs can interfere with a quick and efficient decision making, which is of paramount importance, in the light of the large amounts of information a modern military leader is confronted to. Indeed, the challenges we will be focusing on are generated by human relations, namely interaction between the leader and his team. The examples developed will mainly be concentrated on daily life difficulties faced by young cadets.

First and foremost, modern warfare is different from traditional warfare, in the sense that military leaders are confronted to collaboration with foreign personnel, with a different cultural background. Not only do they have to adapt to a certain culture and way of seeing things, but they also

Therefore, the subordinates will ultimately be more qualified in doing their job than the leader would, as it is inhuman for one person to be the most qualified in his team in every single area. Ordering people to complete a task you are not able to complete yourself can reveal a real struggle for a leader. This is why, in my opinion, there is a gap between officers and non-commission officers: while the first group has to give orders, the second one has to obey, while conscious that the directives come from people unable to do what they instruct them to. Earning their respect is therefore more complicated, and to keep credibility, other qualities are required, as we expressed in the first part. The awkward situation of commanding highly qualified people, when you are almost ignorant on the matter, is something we face in the 2015 year entry of the French Air Force Academy. Indeed, for the first time in its history, the French air force academy decided to unite two schools: the one for former non-commissioned officers and the one for former preparation school students. Although we considerably have to learn from each other, the age difference and diversity of backgrounds makes it difficult for some of the younger ones to impose themselves in the

However, according to part two, this the leader should know not to put too much effort into making his men want to do the task- otherwise it would be more efficient to use one’s authority and give the strict order, despite the possibility of not getting as good a result. Balancing the effort put into motivating one’s personnel unfortunately only is a matter of experience. This is why I believe that giving cadets certain responsibilities will help them appreciate the challenge and acquire the experience. For example, if one cadet is given the responsibility of making sure his group meets the schedule it is imposed for a week, he will be confronted with the difficulty of motivating his group for it to be on time. Further, leadership exercises involving a team leader being demanded his team achieves a certain task in specific conditions will directly confront the cadet to the issue discussed