Leadership

[macarena]

Hi, mates!
Hehehe... I may not agree to the topic title, since many lives will depend on the leader decisions.
But to keep feeding the comic content, I've read in the past from Dilbert [1] that the leader will become those ones that produce less.
Have fun!

"... companies tend to systematically promote incompetent employees to management to get them out of the workflow... "

"... employees who were never competent are promoted to management to limit the damage they can do... "

[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_principle

 

[tomahawk6]

Subject is like , does a commission really make a gentleman ? I don't think gender and competence has much to do with how well someone knows his/her job. I have seen both inefficient men and females of different rank. At some point the herd gets culled and they fall away.

 

[Quirky]

And we put more weight on second-language profiles than actual experience and leadership attributes.

Second-language? You mean if its only French or English. The former being completely useless outside of Canada. Don't even get me started on Officers with degrees completely unrelated to their trade. Only in the CAF will a degree in arts qualify you to become an engineering officer for an air squadron.  :

 

[PuckChaser]

Second-language? You mean if its only French or English. The former being completely useless outside of Canada.

Been to Africa? Super useful there. I get your point though, it's only useful if we're going somewhere that speaks it. Those who can speak Arabic, Kurdish, Ukrainian or Russian as well as English have far more value to ther CAF than French and English.

 

[Remius]

Or Haiti.

Plenty of European countries as well. 

I also agree, though, that language should not trump actual leadership qualities.

 

[SupersonicMax]

Sorry Max, but that is a built in CAF and GoC/provincial gov't constraint. Ability/accessibility to learn a second language does not directly indicate  natural or learned leadership.

I haven’t said it makes you a better leader. I said that you ability to express yourself in only one language has an impact on how effective a leader you can be.

If you are the CO or a unit or even just supervising some people that only speak English and others that only speak French (and yes, it happens) I would argue that an unilingual person certainly has less ability to influence one’s behaviour, making you less effective as a leader.

 

[dimsum]

Don't even get me started on Officers with degrees completely unrelated to their trade. Only in the CAF will a degree in arts qualify you to become an engineering officer for an air squadron.  :

Do Sqn AEREs do all that much engineering though, or is it more pers management? 

 

[tomahawk6]

From my experience the best leaders out of the box are products from OCS then maybe The military academy then ROTC grads.

 

[Good2Golf]

Out of interest, which Arts degrees are valid for AERE? ???

 

[ballz]

I haven’t said it makes you a better leader. I said that you ability to express yourself in only one language has an impact on how effective a leader you can be.

If you are the CO or a unit or even just supervising some people that only speak English and others that only speak French (and yes, it happens) I would argue that an unilingual person certainly has less ability to influence one’s behaviour, making you less effective as a leader.

While it no doubt adds an extra challenge, it is not black and white that the bilingual person is going to be more effective as a whole.

I can think of a few examples of people who couldn't communicate effectively in our mother tongue and was quite sure I'd rather be following a competent person whom needs to communicate to me via hand signals due to a language barrier.

 

[daftandbarmy]

We can never run enough of the right courses for everything, or everyone, which is why we used to keep people in jobs for at least a couple of years so they could learn 'experimentally'.

Now it's a pretty fast revolving door, and we pay the price in competence IMHO.

 

[Weinie]

I haven’t said it makes you a better leader. I said that you ability to express yourself in only one language has an impact on how effective a leader you can be.

If you are the CO or a unit or even just supervising some people that only speak English and others that only speak French (and yes, it happens) I would argue that an unilingual person certainly has less ability to influence one’s behaviour, making you less effective as a leader.

While I won't parse better vs effective, your argument is driven through a CAF perspective. The topic is leadership, not the particularities of the CAF SCRITS-driven determination of what makes a true leader.

I have sat through too many succession planning and merit boards, where my first hand knowledge and working experience of those being assessed, and my recommendations thereof, have been undermined/over-ridden by second language ability and faux or non-relevant Masters degrees. Very few militaries in the world have to accommodate the politically correct constraints that we do.

 

[garb811]

While I won't parse better vs effective, your argument is driven through a CAF perspective. The topic is leadership, not the particularities of the CAF SCRITS-driven determination of what makes a true leader.

I have sat through too many succession planning and merit boards, where my first hand knowledge and working experience of those being assessed, and my recommendations thereof, have been undermined/over-ridden by second language ability and faux or non-relevant Masters degrees. Very few militaries in the world have to accommodate the politically correct constraints that we do.

Wienie:

I split the other thread because although the initial post was about "why so many incompetent men become leaders" in general, applicable to both the military and civilian worlds, it quickly took a turn to focusing on CAF specific issues such as SLT and all the rest.

The initial discussion still exists here:  Why do so many incompetent men become leaders?

- Milnet.ca Staff

 

[Weinie]

Thx. Appreciate both the consideration and the moderation.

 

[Lumber]

From my experience the best leaders out of the box are products from OCS then maybe The military academy then ROTC grads.

From my experience, I haven't seen a major noticeable difference in terms of the number of quality leaders that come from each of these streams. I've worked with both superb and weak leaders from each of these sources, and no one source seemed to produce more of one than the other.

 

[daftandbarmy]

From my experience, I haven't seen a major noticeable difference in terms of the number of quality leaders that come from each of these streams. I've worked with both superb and weak leaders from each of these sources, and no one source seemed to produce more of one than the other.

Wouldn't it be interesting if we could gather some data on who/ which organization produces the best leaders, and then reward those who do a good job while punishing those who do a bad job?

 

[Lumber]

Wouldn't it be interesting if we could gather some data on who/ which organization produces the best leaders, and then reward those who do a good job while punishing those who do a bad job?

Interestingly, although I don't know if this still holds true, there is a disproportionate number of officers at the high senior and GOFO levels that are RMC grads. You could say it's nepotism, but I don't think it is. You could say it's because RMC produced better officers, but I don't yhi k it is either. The best explanation an Ex-Capt(N) and I could come up with at a mess dinner is that the 4 years at RMC instill a greater sense of overall "connection" to the CAF, leading to them staying in longer.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Interestingly, although I don't know if this still holds true, there is a disproportionate number of officers at the high senior and GOFO levels that are RMC grads. You could say it's nepotism, but I don't think it is. You could say it's because RMC produced better officers, but I don't yhi k it is either. The best explanation an Ex-Capt(N) and I could come up with at a mess dinner is that the 4 years at RMC instill a greater sense of overall "connection" to the CAF, leading to them staying in longer.

Sandhurst is less than a year, doesn't include a 4 year degree, is alot more like Gagetown than RMC/CMR, and alot of their graduates stay in until retirement too.

I wonder if we could measure that somehow and come up with some conclusions based on, you know, data that could then be deployed to get us, almost literally, the best bang for the buck?

 

[dapaterson]

Interestingly, although I don't know if this still holds true, there is a disproportionate number of officers at the high senior and GOFO levels that are RMC grads. You could say it's nepotism, but I don't think it is. You could say it's because RMC produced better officers, but I don't yhi k it is either. The best explanation an Ex-Capt(N) and I could come up with at a mess dinner is that the 4 years at RMC instill a greater sense of overall "connection" to the CAF, leading to them staying in longer.

Right away, if they went to MilCol, they have 4 or 5 more years of service.  And, in the past, there were explicit preferences granted to MilCol grads; for example, preference for staff college. If you build a system that provides advantage to a group, it's unsurprising that the advantaged group shows evidence of advantage.

 

[tomahawk6]

Lets look at company command where Canada uses a Major as company commander vs the US commander is a Captain. In aviation we use a Major as co, which is as close as we get to your system. Company level command is essential in our system to making the cut to Major and selection for staff college. In my time the selection rate was about 50% and now its a lot less so that has moved the cut to LT Col,LTC and battalion command. During Vietnam a Col might be considered for brigade command without having completed the War College, now its pretty much required. If a Colonel is a good line officer then I don't think it should matter. After his command tour he/she could then attend. Just my opinion.