ROYAL AIR FORCE

Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

Leadership

“Leadership” has been written about, formally researched and informally discussed probably more than any other single management topic. Throughout history, the difference between success and failure - whether in war, business, Government or even a game of football - has been attributed to the presence, or lack, of leadership. At present, leadership is one of the most talked about issues in business and organization. It is hard to turn on the television, open a newspaper or attend a conference without coming across numerous references to leaders, leadership and “leading.” In short, leadership is a complex phenomenon that touches on many organizational, social and personal processes. It depends on a process of influence, whereby people are inspired to work towards group goals, not through coercion, but through personal motivation. In the literature, the definitions of leadership are numerous; however, as good a definition as any comes from a Fortune article, where Sherman states: When you boil it all down, contemporary leadership seems to be a matter of aligning people towards common goals and empowering them to take the actions needed to reach them.

The Military Context

The Defence Leadership and Management Centre, situated within the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, provides a full definition of military leadership: Military leadership is visionary; it is the projection of personality and character to inspire Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen to do what is required of them.6 At this stage, it is possibly easier to think of leadership as the subject and apply (and examine) it within the unique setting of military organizations. In essence, “military leadership” is context-specific. A full analysis of military leadership must, however, begin by noting that a modern military organization is far from the monolithic society often held in stereotypes.

A military organization consists of a diverse collection of organizations, roles, cultures, and people. For example, Her Majesty's Forces contain three Service arms: The Royal Navy, The British Army and The Royal Air Force. Each Service has its own culture and, hence, its own unique aspects of leadership. In addition, “military” may refer to people wearing the uniform all the time (the active duty forces), part of the time (reserves and ex-regular), or none of the time (civil servants, contractors and military families and dependants). In terms of size, the number of people in the British Armed Forces is considerable: as of 13 October 2009, the trained combined strength of the UK Armed Forces was 174,570.

When civilians and dependants are also taken into account, this figure could easily be inflated to approximately 500,000. Therefore, the size of the British Armed Forces means that leaders (even rather junior ones) often command large numbers of subordinates and, crucially, leadership at all levels tends to have a large impact on the performance and satisfaction of Service personnel. Culturally, leadership was, is and will continue to be a mainstay of the military - long before leadership became a topic of discussion in the corporate, academic, or ...