Posted on Aug 2, 2016
Which is more important, Strategic Leadership or Tactical Leadership?
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Neither. You need both for a successful operation.
First, before I get a comment referencing my lack of experience due to my rank I would like to add that I have over 14 years of service in the Army with 10 of those years as enlisted. So I have seen this from both sides.
Too often we lose the sight of the big picture. So recently I have discussed the role of the Officer in the Army only to find pretty much distaste of the junior officer and of the Officers in general. I understand that many think NCOs run the Army. Which is really half of the truth. Officers lead the Army also. If you put it together Officers lead the Army while NCOs run the Army. Trust me, if the Army was only left in the hands of the Officer Corps you would have an Army that would function much like a Middle Eastern Army. We all know how that is working out in Iraq. Thank God for the NCOs that strive for excellence and make the Army successful. I have seen what a group of officers alone can do, OCS was a great eye opener. But when it comes to it we all have our roles. The Officers are more strategic while the NCOs are more tactical. To say that they Army solely depends on Officers would be foolish at best but in all reality it really is downright idiotic. But to say the Army solely depends on NCOs would not be accurate either. We have commanders that deliver their intent at Company, Battalion, Brigade, and on up. But so often it just seems we really only focus on the Tactical Leadership in our ranks and ignore our Strategic Leadership. Why is that? Am I wrong? Am I still going to get a one liner about being a cherry LT? I guess will see if anyone is still reading or if they stopped at the first line and felt like they know it all.
First, before I get a comment referencing my lack of experience due to my rank I would like to add that I have over 14 years of service in the Army with 10 of those years as enlisted. So I have seen this from both sides.
Too often we lose the sight of the big picture. So recently I have discussed the role of the Officer in the Army only to find pretty much distaste of the junior officer and of the Officers in general. I understand that many think NCOs run the Army. Which is really half of the truth. Officers lead the Army also. If you put it together Officers lead the Army while NCOs run the Army. Trust me, if the Army was only left in the hands of the Officer Corps you would have an Army that would function much like a Middle Eastern Army. We all know how that is working out in Iraq. Thank God for the NCOs that strive for excellence and make the Army successful. I have seen what a group of officers alone can do, OCS was a great eye opener. But when it comes to it we all have our roles. The Officers are more strategic while the NCOs are more tactical. To say that they Army solely depends on Officers would be foolish at best but in all reality it really is downright idiotic. But to say the Army solely depends on NCOs would not be accurate either. We have commanders that deliver their intent at Company, Battalion, Brigade, and on up. But so often it just seems we really only focus on the Tactical Leadership in our ranks and ignore our Strategic Leadership. Why is that? Am I wrong? Am I still going to get a one liner about being a cherry LT? I guess will see if anyone is still reading or if they stopped at the first line and felt like they know it all.
Leadership
Planning
Officer
NCOs
Edited >1 y ago
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 9
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Between the question itself and the responses this post has already been one of the most educational experiences I've had since joining RP. Which is more of a credit to this post and those contributing than a knock on prior posts
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There has to be a balance of both, from NCOs and Officers. From a Soldiers standpoint (lower enlisted), speaking for myself I have no problem with tactical leadership, short term goals, FTX, SHARP training, Gunnery, Layouts etc. I keeps me going knowing that ok, this 1 task is almost over. But I enjoy knowing the strategic side, and knowing that my NCO or Officer KNOW what that strategic side is, instead of saying well the Commander wants it this way. No. I like knowing ok, this month is FTX, next month Gunnery, the following month layouts for NTC/JRTC, and the big picture is because we're deploying in a year.
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I agree that both are important. Unfortunately, at the small unit level, a mission is often assigned without any guidance concerning the overall strategic plan being orchestrated. At that point, the focus is on mission accomplishment and we only have the operational plan that we were given to execute. For example, in support of an armored division, an armored cavalry regiment is given the mission to conduct a passage of lines for the purpose of acting as a covering force to facilitate a brigade withdraw to a tactical assembly area for repair and refit. As art of this operation, a combat team from the division military police company is assigned a traffic control point at an intersection at a specific grid coordinate. The TCP team is there to conduct a specific tactical mission, they are rarely, if ever, read into the division strategic operation plan let alone the corps or higher plan. It is doubtful that the MP company commander is aware of the strategic plan let alone platoon, squad or team leaders, so that leadership is focused primarily on tactical leadership.
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