Defining Operational Leadership: A Grass-Roots Approach.

Operational leadership is often narrowly viewed as simply the employment of large military units in a theater of operations. With this shallow understanding of operational leadership, most people are more comfortable describing it in terms of what makes it unique to other types of leadership. This study prefers to take a grass-roots approach, building a foundation first from which conclusions may be drawn as opposed to skirting the issue peripherally. This paper fuses military leadership with the embryonic concept of operational art to define operational leadership. In order to batter frame this discussion, a World War II example is presented. General Carl TOOey Spaatz, as the U.S. Strategic Air Forces commander, provides an excellent model in viewing the application of military leadership at the operational level. The conclusions of this paper suggest that there are fundamental principles which are common to all leadership situations. Principally, that leadership traits are universal and every leader must focus on four primary factors the mission, the people, the leader, and the environment. In so doing, his leadership style will vary with each situation. Certain traits will dominate in certain situations while others are more submissive. Therefore, it is the environment and the mission, not a formula or certain leadership traits, which make operational leadership unique. Finally, given the dynamics of situational leadership, operational leadership concerns itself with the management of resources and application of operational art tools in a theater of operations.