Has the Army Lost the Art of Leadership?

CW4 (Join to see) I have read the entire article and there are points that I totally agree with in this Commander's assessment, but all leaders don't fall into that category and the entire Army (in my opinion) is not taking the easy wrong over the hard right. I can't tell you how many days and nights that the CSM and I pondered over ideas and concepts to improve the welfare of our soldiers. We were always assessing our leadership and how we operated. I never enjoyed processing a soldier out of the Army until I did everything in my power and everything within the chain of command to find out what made that individual tick and what we could do from a leadership standpoint that would take them from being a non-productive soldier into a productive individual within the command; and for their future. I feel that author's frustration, but I don't think it is across all the ranks in todays military and I would never throw in the Hat because I couldn't figure it out. There are definite pockets of this compliancy abound! My objective as a leader was to inspire, motivate, and build a culture and climate that was conducive to success and wining under the requirements within garrison (peace time) and success and winning on the battlefield. A leaders job isn't supposed to be easy or have all the answers. It’s hard work every day and leaders have to constantly find ways to improve their leadership reach, their command teams, and improve the overall readiness of the soldiers under your watch! If it was easy then we could use the drive-up window at McDonalds and get our Easy Leadership Meal for the day! I perceive this article as a “wake-up” call to anyone who has given up and takes on that duck like mentality and says: “This is just the way it is!”
Remember this is just my perspective on the the subject RP Members!

There are plenty of good leaders left. And there has always been bad ones. I have experienced both. We live in a time where everything is metric based. PT score, length of hair are easy things to quantify. Real leadership is much harder to measure. Some folks seem to have a hard time understanding that. I think this officer does.

On first reading the article, I understand where the author is trying to go, but I think he missed the mark with his initial assessment, and went down the wrong "rabbithole" so to speak.

The Haircut & PT thing is about being a shining example. Setting a superior example FOR your folks. Something to emulate. I think he just completely missed that.

His article has some great meat to it, and for the most part I agree with several of his assessments on why X is NOT good leadership, however his "inspirational spark" was off-target, and requires an azimuth check.

That said, not knowing that simple things is very telling. Knowing WHY we do things is often more important than how we do them. If you understand the general philosophy, execution regardless of situation becomes significantly simpler.

Speaking from the Marine Corps side, the "Mission Accomplishment, Troop Welfare" coin of leadership is like the needle on a compass. It always points us back to absolute North.

Again, I see where his is going with this, and generally agree with him based on his logic chain, BUT I think he missed the very first turn on the hike, and ended up somewhere that isn't quite right.

2ndLt Matthew Johnson Capt Richard I P. Maj Richard "Ernie" Rowlette can you "check my math" on this, and make sure I haven't done the same thing I'm accusing the author of?