President’s Spotlight: Dr. Lisa Marie Kerr and Our Flag and Senior Executive Courses

Through the end of my time here at the U.S. Naval War College, I’m regularly highlighting someone or something that’s caught my attention over the previous couple of weeks. It might be a person – student, faculty or staff – who deserves recognition, or it might be an occasion I want to draw more attention to. These short ‘President’s Spotlight’ pieces will be posted about once every two weeks.

Being nominated for the rank of flag officer is the honor of a lifetime – it’s the culmination of years of hard work and mission success at each of a number of progressively more challenging leadership positions, with greater and greater responsibility.

With that success under his or her belt, it would be natural for a rear admiral-select – or senior – to fall into the trap of believing he or she has got it all figured out. And for sure, those ascending officers have gathered a tremendous amount of valuable experience, sometimes from the deck plates all the way up to the command cabin, that will always serve them well and can never be replaced.

But the approaches and mindsets that may have served us so well as commanders or captains may not be enough once we pin stars on our collars, and that’s a harsh reality we all face as we advance.

More importantly, our Navy needs us to face that reality, to train and to improve as leaders and warfighters.

Because of that, I want to highlight the work of Dr. Lisa Marie Kerr of our College of Leadership and Ethics (CLE).

Three years ago, she began working with N7 to develop a definitive Navy Leadership Continuum and – as our resident curriculum developer for our Flag and Executive Course (FLEX) series – building out concentrated weeklong courses geared specifically toward helping ascending flag officers reach milestones on that continuum.

You see, the Navy has long held a regular Navy Flag and Executive Development Program (NFLEX) for newly promoted rear admirals lower half – or one-star admirals. A decade ago, the Naval War College launched an Intermediate Flag and Senior Executive (IFLEX) course for newly promoted two-star admirals, and a year later added the Advanced Flag and Senior Executive (AFLEX) course for new three-star admirals, or vice admirals.

Senior Navy leadership asked us to take a leadership role in NFLEX two years ago and, together, we determined the missing puzzle piece was that continuum: A comprehensive alignment of the courses that could allow these flag-level leaders to incrementally grow and expand their capabilities and cognitive capacities, course-by-course, as they advanced in rank and responsibilities at the highest levels of our maritime forces.

NFLEX is focused on orienting new flag officers within their cohort, and familiarize them with higher level instructions and resources. IFLEX adds learning milestones associated with increasingly complex enterprise-wide problem sets, while AFLEX moves on to continuum landmarks dealing with systemic, as well as national and global security, issues. 

Dr. Kerr – building off the foundations developed by former CLE Dean and retired Rear Adm. Peg Klein and transformational former CLE faculty members Dr. Olenda Johnson and Dr. Liz Cavallaro – is applying the latest in scientific understanding of the brain to arrange courses that stretch the plasticity of the mind, literally establishing new neuropathways to allow our Navy’s leaders to more adaptively solve problems as environmental ambiguities and battlefield challenges mount.

Under current CLE Dean Dr. Jeffrey Macris and Deputy Dean Capt. Justin Harts, U.S. Navy, the FLEX team includes Associate Professor and retired U.S. Navy Capt. Scott Smith, renowned Associate Professor Dr. Leigh Ann Perry, U.S. Navy Capt. Paul Tremblay and Education Technician Frank Harnedy, in addition to Kerr herself.

They give course participants the mindsets, skillsets and toolsets necessary to think through what may seem like impossible problems and find success without breaking.

The latest NFLEX was scheduled to wrap up in Washington, D.C., just a few days ago.

These courses aren’t some cushy retreats for senior officers – their days start at 6 a.m. and often wrap up after 7 p.m., and those of us who have experienced boot camp have described Dr. Kerr’s assigned mental workload as just as taxing.

Her courses force our flag officers to uncover limiting assumptions, recognize mental reflexes and confront challenging questions about themselves and how they think, breaking down barriers and building back up to new and expanded cognitive capacities.

That’s hard to do if you’ve always had success in your professional career and think you’ve got it all figured out. You learn as a new flag officer very quickly that you can – and you must – get better. Our Navy is counting on it.

Dr. Kerr and our FLEX team are unlocking the leadership mind to solve the Navy’s most challenging problems and win when the stress and the stakes are the highest.

I want to thank Dr. Kerr, Dr. Perry, Capt. Smith, Capt. Tremblay, Ed Tech Harnedy and the full CLE and FLEX team – as well as all those who came before them – for all they’ve done preparing our Navy leaders to be the best they can be.

They have truly made our fighting force better, more effective and more capable.

– Rear Adm. Darryl Walker,
President, U.S. Naval War College