Leadership of U.S Army Section of ARDEC

Leadership of U.S Army Section of ARDEC

Introduction

In All organisations at every level there must be individuals who are capable of taking actions to make their organisation work efficiently, they are leaders. Leaders can take initiatives and responsibilities. They must be confident and motivated at their hard times. Leadership at all levels in the organisation has its vitality. The lower level leadership can produce a great change in organisation and benefits to the higher level leadership, by behaving responsible in their domain. Being a leader is not a matter of status. Thus, a manager in an organisation may have many sub-ordinates but, these sub-ordinates may act like the followers to their manager, entirely depends on the manager, who must act like a leader. There are various styles of leadership such as; Autocratic leadership, Bureaucratic, Charismatic leadership, Democratic or Participative leadership, Laissez-Faire, transactional leadership and Transformational leadership (Gardner. J. W, & Den Hartog. D, & Koopman. P, 1997).

Leadership in ARDEC (Transformational Leadership)

Armament, Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) is a section of U.S army, which provides complete support for about 90% of weaponry and ammunition. In 1995, base realignment and closure (BRAC) proposed to close (ARDEC) after few years of the first Gulf war. Because of a significant recession in the Defense budget of U.S. BRAC provided leaders of ARDEC a platform of change. At that time, the commanding general of ARDEC was Brig. Gen. James Boddie, who took the charge as the leader. Boddie claimed that ARDEC had to focus on quality, cost and time constraints such as a for-profit organization, where these constraints are considered to exceed the customer's expectations. At ARDEC, the employees have been empowered by giving participation in the decision and strategic processes. Thus, ARDEC's leadership style is transformation leadership (Wong. P, 1991).

Multi Layered Hierarchy of ARDEC Leadership

Layer

1

U.S Army Director ARDEC

Special Staff

Inspector general, Administration officers, Intelligence and Security Officers

Associate Technical Directors

Sen. Scientists for Research in technology

Layer

2

Munitions Engr. Tech. Center

Quality Engr. & Sys. Assurance Directorate Center

Enterprise and system Integration Center

Weapons & Software Engr. Center

Financial Management Office

Layer

3

Systems & technology Directorate

Quality, reliability 7 safety Engr. Division

Strategic & process

office

Research &

Eng. Directorate

Fire Control Sys.

& tech.

directorate

Managerial Accounting Division

Layer

4

Fuze & Precision Armaments tech. Directorate

Product

quality management division

War fighter Central

office

Army Fuze Management

Weapons & technology Directorate

Financial Operations Division

Layer

5

Explosive Ordnance Disposal Tech. Directorate

System and Quality assurance

Business Interface

office

Joint Service

small arms program office

Benet labs

Program & Budget Division

Layer

6

Energetic war heads & Manufacturing tech. Directorate

Business Services

office

Electromagnetic gun program

office

Transformation systems

Directorate

Cost

Analysis Division

Layer

7

Portfolio management office

Systems Engr. Directorate

Transformation

& business e-sys. Directorate

Layer

8

Process management office

Project

integration

office

Layer

9

Human Capital management

Sys.

(www.pica.army.mil)

Reward Power of ARDEC Leadership

The Baldrige Award Criteria were developed by business professionals, and this criterion is a solid foundation for any organization in both the public and private sector. Boddie was convinced by his research that Baldrige Award Criteria to drive ARDEC's leadership would be the best support. The Boddie assigned the deserving leaders as Baldrige's ...