Your topic is related to this one: "22 Measures of Leadership - New Concept?":
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/67850/post-657297.html#msg657297
(In that the two papers are written by the same pair of academics).
In reply to your comments:
"I've often heard comments such as "Its the military way" or "That's how its done in the military" or "Thousands of people have been doing it before you, and will continue on doing it long after you've left"... etc... as reasoning/arguments against strong incremental or dramatic change within the military world."
When you join the military, you will hear this quite often. Most of the time (IMO) its because the members saying it dont know why a specific thing is done, arent interested in exploring the issue, or dont have time to debate the issue. The job of your instructors is to teach you what is known now, the way it is known now. After you have mastered the basics, and learned the occupation, and understand how it relates to other trades, then you can promote innovation, as many CF members do. Instructors have a set schedule and dont have time to deal with every proposal for change. There is room for change afterwards, often dependent on the situation, the need, and the type of change you propose. Many people outside the CF have no idea of the constant level of change within the CF, covering everything from IT to HR to operations and equipment. It is a continuous learning environment.
"I've heard these same arguments in the civilian world used quite frequently. My profession (IT Project Management) is one that is dramatically tied to implementing innovative change, and quite frequently, users do not want the newfangled thing because the oldfangled thing has worked for decades, and given their experience, why change? Why innovate?"
As we become older, job security becomes more important. Everyone wants the pension and career advancement. There is also the matter of professional knowledge, which older managers base their reputations and effectiveness on. Implementing a new 'tool' lessons their knowledge and expertise, challenging their authority on many levels. Change also entails risk, which in turn threatens these desires and individual expertise. Further, even the smallest changes can have wide-ranging impacts, especially in organizations that employ tens of thousands of employees. One 'minor' change in computer software can create a whole training cycle that interferes with critical operations, communications, production, training cycle planning that may have already been planned for several years in advance, plus the rewrite of numerous procedural manuals, policies, and guidelines (mucho $$$ !!!). Overall, it is not about the age of the managers but the size of the organization and the proliferation of documented material that matters. The managers have to be convinced that the change is worthwhile, requiring a significant amount of time in proposal and ROI writing. Other change, as many members have seen, is implemented directly as a result of lessons learned in operational environments.
"This was posted in another thread, and proposes some interesting statistics regarding Age and Leadership, the most prominent being that Younger leaders were invariably much better at Innovating than older: http://www.mrg.com/documents/Age_and_Leadership.pdf"
In general I would disagree with this. While younger employees (as a group, not individually) are much better at innovating, exploring new ideas, and adapting to change, they lack the experience and credibility that older managers (again, as a group, not neccesarily individually) have in regard to how their changes affect the organization as a whole. This is why many companies have formed leadership teams with mixed levels of expertise and age, as pointed out in your referred-to document. It is also highly dependent on the workplace environment, some workplaces can adapt more quickly to change than others.
"I'm interested in hearing members thoughts on the following:
1 - Does or should Innovation have an important role in Military Leadership? If so, at what levels?
2 - Generally speaking, is the quantity of experience one holds inversely proportionate to the ability one has to innovate?"
#1 - Citing my previous comments, there is continuous change and innovation in the military environment, even if you dont see it in person. As such, most of the military leaders I had contact worth were always open to change, provided you demonstrated its value. No one likes to waste time, money and people on change that does not improve the situation, or 'change for change's sake'.
#2 - Your statement implies that the less experience you have, the more ability you have to innovate, which makes little sense. Rather, experience is directly proportional to the ability to innovate. The more you know, the more you know what needs to be changed, how to change it, and how to convince others what needs to be changed, plus historical memory and precedent as to the results of similiar previous changes.
In summary, it cannot be denied that there are workplaces out there run by managers and not leaders, and where change is frowned upon. However, it might help if you cited specific examples of times when change was denied. Many members here could provide insight into the reasons behind why such changes were denied.
