Military Review English Edition January-February 2015 | Page 34

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rmy Doctrine Publication (ADP) 6-0,
Mission Command, defines mission command
as “the exercise of authority and direction
by the commander using mission orders to enable
disciplined initiative within the commander’s intent
to empower agile and adaptive leaders in the conduct
of unified land operations.”1 While deconstructing
this definition, it remains clear that the commander
has the central role within mission command, as the
nexus of command and decision making. However,
leadership is corporate, springing from the inculcation of the mission command philosophy through
commanders and staffs to their subordinates.2 Using
corporate leadership, commanders balance the art of
command and the science of control.
Commanders and staffs work in concert to leverage their experience and knowledge to accomplish
missions. Mission command is the preferred doctrinal
approach to command and enables this leverage. The
philosophy is based on six principles: build cohesive
teams through mutual trust, create shared understanding, provide a clear commander’s intent, exercise
disciplined initiative, use mission orders, and accept
prudent risk.3 The question is—how do commanders
instill these principles into the very fabric of their
units?
The Army Leadership Development Strategy
(ALDS) 2013, reaffirms a commitment to the
Profession of Arms, lifelong learning, and embedding the mission command principles within leader
development.4 The ALDS has three lines of effort:
training, education, and experience.5 These three lines
of effort are enabled through three training domains:
the institutional domain, the operational domain, and
the self-development domain.6
The ALDS is clear: “the operational domain is
where leaders undergo the bulk of their development.”7 Already, home-station training is the new
slogan of training and operations officers throughout
the force.
Institutional education within the Army can be
seen as a baseline—a common ground from which
each soldier and officer begins the real process of
learning. Graduation from the Army’s institutional
schools does not create experts but rather apprentices ( journeymen at more senior levels); the diploma
merely represents a license to learn. The commander,
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as his or her unit’s resident expert, is tasked to mentor,
coach, and develop apprentices.

Build Cohesive Teams Through
Mutual Trust
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, established the premise of mission command
for the joint force in his 2012 white paper, “Mission
Command.” In this paper, he shows trust to be the facilitating factor in future operations. Dempsey borrows a
phrase from Dr. Stephen Covey, saying that “operations
will move at the speed of trust.”8 Due to the changes in
operating tempo and large operational areas networked
by technology, units will be more widely distributed and
more isolated from other friendly units than ever before.
Isolation of units will result in a greater need for decentralization of command throughout all echelons.
Amplifying the theme of trust, the 2012 “38th Chief
of Staff of the Army’s Marching Orders” further defines
trust as the bedrock of the Profession of Arms. Trust is
between soldiers and their leaders, their families, and the
Army, and between the Army and the American people.9 Indeed, the mission command philosophy means
that trust should be instilled at all echelons for the Army
to be as effective as possible.
In The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes
Everything, Stephen Covey defines trust as “equal parts
character and competence.”10 Covey describes character
as constant, founded on ethics, and essential for “trust
in any circumstance.”11 Competence, on the other hand,
is situational; it will ebb and flow depending on factors
such as trainability, will, and experience.
In the exercise of mission command, it is imperative
to ensure that both character and competence are promulgated across the force. The ALDS and the U.S. Army
Mission Command Strategy FY 13-19 both see mission
command not only as a war-fighting function enabler
but also as an “instrument of cultural change.”12
The formation of ethic and character within soldiers begins at the earliest levels of professional military
education (PME). In acculturating soldiers to the Army,
whether at basic combat training, the U.S. Military
Academy, Officer Candidate School, or in the Reserve
Officer Training Corps, the common touchstone to
character development is the Army Values. Army professional military traditions and educational institutions
provide some inculcation of values and ethics. However,
January-February 2015  MILITARY REVIEW