Unified Leadership Development

The Armed Forces must establish a unified leadership development enterprise to develop the leadership skills required to build trust at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of conflict. Current leadership development practices do not develop military leaders sufficiently for them to excel in unified organizations. Specifically, the Armed Forces do not train and educate leaders properly to overcome barriers of trust, culture, and communication within friendly organizations. A unified leadership development enterprise consists of a Joint Center of Excellence for Leadership Development, a unified network as a body of knowledge and practice, and existing service-based institutions responsible for leadership development. The plan to develop unified skills resembles a campaign plan, using an ends-ways-means-risk construct to illustrate how the enterprise meets intent. Key recommendations include establishing a Joint Center of Excellence for Leadership Development, creating a unified network, establishing joint leadership doctrine with shared values, requiring foreign language proficiency of all officers, and expanding Joint Professional Military Education requirements. Although the audience of military leaders includes commissioned, warrant, and noncommissioned officers, this analysis focuses on commissioned officers only. Clarifying commissioned officers leadership problems will inform future studies on improving warrant and noncommissioned officer development.