21st Century U.S. Military Manuals: Leadership for American Army Leaders - FMFRP 12-17 (Value-Added Professional Format Series)
U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Military, Department of Defense
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Progressive Management
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CHAPTER 1 * LEADERSHIP CAN BE LEARNED
CHAPTER 2 * THE MANNER OF THE LEADER
CHAPTER 3 * THE LANGUAGE OF THE LEADER
CHAPTER 4 * TACTFULNESS CAN BE ACQUIRED
CHAPTER 5 * CHEERFULNESS SPREADS; SO DOES GLOOM
CHAPTER 6 * COURTESY HAS NO LIMITS
CHAPTER 7 * THE LEADER'S DECISION OF MIND
CHAPTER 8 * INITIATIVE, TOO, CAN BE DEVELOPED
CHAPTER 9 * LOYALTY TO-AND OF-THE LEADER
CHAPTER 10 * MILITARY DUTY—THE LEADER MUST GIVE HIS BEST
CHAPTER 11 * THE LEADER MUST KNOW HIS MEN
CHAPTER 12 * COMPLAINT AND CRITICISM
CHAPTER 13 * RELATIONS OF OFFICER-LEADERS AND THEIR MEN
CHAPTER 14 * DISCIPLINE-BUT NOT THROUGH FEAR
CHAPTER 15 * THE SPIRIT OF A MILITARY UNIT
CHAPTER 16 * DISCONTENT—THE LEADER MUST WATCH FOR THE FIRST SIGN
CHAPTER 17 * TRAINING FOR COMBAT-THE AIM OF LEADERSHIP
CHAPTER 18 * COMPETITION—THE PRINCIPAL GAME IS WAR
CHAPTER 19 * LEADERSHIP IN THOUGHT AS IN ACTION
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FMFRP 12-17
Leadership for American Army Leaders
U.S. Marine Corps
1. PURPOSE
Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication (FMFRP) 12-17, Leadership for American Army Leaders, is published to ensure the retention and dissemination of useful information which is not intended to become doctrine or to be published in Fleet Marine Force manuals. FMFRPs in the 12 Series are a special category of publications: reprints of historical works which were published commercially and are no longer in print.
2. SCOPE
This reference publication was written by a seasoned leader for the purpose of providing a leadership primer for the thousands of newly commissioned officers of the expanding U.S. Army at the beginning of World War II. Although written almost a half century ago, the aspects of leadership discussed and insights presented in this publication are timeless. This publication remains a solid source of information for the young company grade officer facing initial assignment to a leadership position.
FOREWORD
The need for a brief, understandable, common sense handbook on leadership became urgent with the initiation of our present armament program. Before that there was time for junior officers and young noncommissioned officers to learn how to handle men by the trial-and-error method. Mistakes made resulted in no great harm since experienced senior officers and long-service noncoms were on hand to correct them promptly and put the young shavetail or corporal on the right track. By the time the gold bars turned to silver and the two stripes to three, the wearers had usually learned enough of the essentials to make a favorable showing as leaders.
We cannot afford to train our junior leaders in such leisurely fashion today. Fortunately Colonel Munson has provided a timely and powerful aid to speeding up the process. He has given us just what the doctor ordered in this monograph on leadership—the most practical, sanely balanced and usable treatise on the subject that is available for those whose business it is to know, train and lead soldiers.
Colonel Munson's book is primarily for junior leaders but it is more than that. Commanders of all grades —even the highest, if their minds have not taken on a permanent set—will find it useful as a check against time-honored practices that may be outmoded or which may never have been sound.
In view of the imperative need to train and train quickly a great army of subordinate leaders and the usefulness of this book to that end, it is not too much to say that Leadership for American Army Leaders is the most important literary contribution to National Defense that has come off the press since America began to arm. It should be read, re-read and pondered by every soldier in authority over others.
E. R Harding, Major General, U. S. Army.
THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK
The principles discussed in the following pages are directed to leaders in general, with appropriate emphasis on the officer-leader where that emphasis seems applicable. These principles, even though backed with specific facts, are nevertheless expressed in the fewest possible words consistent with the objective of the book. For that reason it is felt that this is not a book that can be raced through and then shoved into a bookcase and forgotten—that is, it cannot if anything of real value is to be learned from it. It is the sort of book to be turned back to from time to time as a reference for handling problems—practical problems of leadership—that come again and again to every leader. It is the sort of bonk that it is hoped will supply a mirror for those frequent moments of self-analysis and introspection that are characteristic of every progressive and successful leader.
In its pages there has been an effort to keep a reasonable balance between what to do and what not to do. Since most of the material is focused on the problem of smoothing out the rough spots that arise in personal relationships, the superficial reader may jump to the conclusion that application of the principles given would produce a far too gentle and even an emasculated kind of leadership. Nothing is farther from the truth.
It is hoped that as each reader goes through the following pages he will keep one thought constantly in mind: A leader can be consistently hardboiled or consistently considerate and turn out a passing job of handling his outfit. But if he shifts his pattern, mixes his shots—if he is so inconsistent that his men feel insecure in their relationships with him—he is inevitably doomed to failure.
To Brigadier General Edward L. Munson, pioneer in the field of scientific leadership, is rendered appreciative acknowledgment for the inspiration behind the compilation of this book. His monumental work, The Management of Men, has supplied much of the framework upon which it has been built. Indeed, there are not only thoughts but paragraphs herein which, with his cooperation, have been taken bodily from chat book. To the staff of The Infantry Journal is expressed sincere appreciation for its invaluable editorial assistance and for the many ideas which have sprung from its keen perception of the problems of troop-leading.
This book has been submitted, as Army Regulations require of certain writings by active officers, to the War Department, which declared it "unobjectionable" without suggesting alterations or omissions. The views it contains are purely those of its writer and have no official inspiration or sanction.
E. L. M., Jr.
CHAPTER 1 * LEADERSHIP CAN BE LEARNED
Successful handling of men implies the application of the qualities of intelligent leadership. The goal of leadership is the instant, cheerful, and willing obedience and cooperation of subordinates. Thus, true discipline is concerned with the desires, the mental states, of individuals and groups. "Mental state" falls naturally under the label morale.
Leadership and morale are not synonymous; yet they are as inseparable as the component parts of an electrical circuit. Morale is like the current—the powerful electromotive force—and leadership is like the conductor that guides and transmits that force to the motor. Hence the state or quality of morale produced is directly proportional to the quality of the conductor or leader. Thus the theory that leaders are born and not made is the saw of the defeatist, for acquaintance with the things that produce morale is one of the vital elements of leadership that any reasonably intelligent and forceful man can acquire, no matter how inexperienced he may be or how little he may know to begin with about the practical problems of leading men.
Since morale is a mental state, a psychological state, practical knowledge of the laws that govern human behavior is essential to its successful development and maintenance. Study of the theoretical, nebulous, and abstract side of psychology is unnecessary, though any training in psychology that a leader may possess through education or reading is to his advantage. But if a leader knows the basic principles that control human behavior, if he grasps the realization that most men react in fixed and definite channels under a given stimulus or influence, if he can apply that knowledge intelligently to individual problems, he will possess the basic tool for managing men.
Some leaders have an instinctive or intuitive knowledge of human nature. These are the natural leaders. To the others but two roads to leadership are available: experience and study. The trial-and-error, hit-or-miss method—learning by experience—is costly in time and may well be costly in terms of the lives of men. This method has left a long trail of broken morale, faulty training, and inept performance behind it. Those who are its successful products rarely attain the maximum leadership of which they are actually capable. For since their knowledge is experimental rather than scientific the frequency of their mistakes under shifting situations is high.
In time of peace the costs of learning by experience are usually not self-evident. For example, if inspection discloses a low standard of training in his unit, the unit commander may receive a verbal lacing, and perhaps even some damning with faint praise upon an efficiency report he is not likely to see for years. But he will undoubtedly stay right where he is, waiting for further experiences to indicate further additions to his store of practical leadership—and the training of every man in his unit will mark time behind such a leader. For another example, a leader trying to learn the management of men through the trial-and-error method may for years produce a high rate of AWOL's among his subordinates before he consciously or unconsciously corrects the irritating flaws within himself that have driven so many soldiers over the hill.
Easier to see are the results of learning leadership through experience in battle itself. Back in 1914 the young lieutenants of the First Hundred Thousand led their men into action by walking straight ahead of them toward their enemies, swinging their swagger sticks as they went thus to their deaths. Here was leadership in the best tradition, in its way completely admirable—but in its way a hit-or-miss method, because it killed men by thousands and young leaders themselves at even a faster rate. It established a great tradition, yet it nearly wrecked the British Army. For morale just cannot continue to exist if you kill off the bulk of your men. More recent was the experience of the Spanish Loyalists, who had to learn their leadership right in combat itself and under the added handicap of political interference. They did, it is true, develop splendid leaders in their lower echelons—but the cost in men and in potential leaders was tremendous. No, the method of learning to lead by experience alone, the trial-and-error method, is costly in time and in lives.