Leadership is a core competency of any military officer and developing a deep understanding of leadership and building critical leadership skills is a life-long pursuit. Officers in the 21st century will be faced with expanding missions, life-threatening circumstances and difficult environments where they will be forced to solve both technical problems and lead adaptive change -- often without well-established organizational boundaries and most often in front of and among people with diverse backgrounds, agendas and personal biases.
The challenge of this course. While this course builds on many of the foundational academic and practical skills you will learn here at the college and have acquired elsewhere, this particular course will push you to examine yourself as a leader and stimulate you to think about all of personal elements that have gone in to shaping you as a leader.
If you have the desire and disposition to be truly self-reflective, want to understand yourself as a leader and are willing to share your experiences and open yourself up to your peers --
THEN THIS COURSE IS FOR YOU.
But, if you believe you need more time and exposure to other leadership elements before taking a class like this or if you are not prepared to do a bit of difficult critical self-examination and undertake a frank assessment of yourself as a leader–
THEN DO NOT TAKE THIS COURSE.
This course will build on and augment established and well-researched elements of leadership to expand and deepen the student’s understanding of leadership outside situations already encountered in their professional lives to-date. It will attempt to develop within each student a self-awareness of their own specific leadership narrative and identify their own individual strengths and vulnerabilities. Also, the course will identify methods for understanding complex and difficult leadership challenges and provide opportunities to use these methods in examining specific cases.
Understanding yourself as a leader, obtaining an accurate assessment of the environment you will be required to operate in and understanding the motivations, goals and operating modes of those you are attempting to lead are keys to success as a leader. Moreover, as the demographics of the services changes it will become increasingly important for leaders to understand how to reach across generational, gender and ethnic orientations within their own service or joint organization to motivate the people they are charged to lead and to mentor them to their fullest potential while meeting the goals and objectives of the organization.