Becoming an adaptive leader

Military Review,  Nov-Dec, 2007  by Harold H. Whiffen

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MANY ARMY OFFICERS know the story of Lieutenant Colonel Nate Sassaman. Even if they do not recognize his name, they probably remember a New York Times article about him, "The Fall of the Warrior King," which tells how Sassaman, a rising star in the Army officer corps, resigned after Soldiers under his command pushed two Iraqi civilians into the Tigris River for violating a local curfew. (1) One of the Iraqi civilians survived; the other either drowned or escaped and went into hiding. When Sassaman learned of the incident and its impending investigation, he suggested to his subordinates that they tell investigators the entire story of their detention of the Iraqi civilians, except for the part where the Soldiers pushed the Iraqi civilians into the Tigris River. Army investigators eventually uncovered the entire scheme. Several Soldiers were punished, and others, including Sassaman, left the Army.

This is not the only example of leadership failure in Iraq. Others include the widely publicized Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal and reports of unnecessary killing of civilians or the unjustified destruction of private property. These were isolated incidents, but students of military leadership must question what causes military leaders, especially proven ones like Sassaman, to foster a command climate that supports illegal acts and endorses unethical behavior that clearly runs counter to Army values.

Sassaman was respected by senior officers and reportedly idolized by subordinates. (2) To have been selected for battalion command, he must have excelled as a company commander and a staff officer. He had completed all requisite training and education the Army deems necessary for one to command an infantry battalion of nearly 800 Soldiers. Like many of his peers, however, he had spent most of his career preparing to fight a large-scale linear battle against well-equipped armies, and had little, if any, training on counterinsurgency; the Army had shelved its counterinsurgency doctrine and training after the Vietnam War. Nevertheless, Sassaman's 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry, was part of a larger force that became a major player in the counterinsurgency fight that broke out shortly after U.S. forces occupied Baghdad. Some Army leaders adapted well to the counterinsurgency fight. Others, like Sassaman, maintained a kinetic-operations mind-set in a world that needed nation-building and peacekeeping operations. Like other recent leadership failures in the Army, Sassaman's failure was a result of his inability to adapt to the changing battlefield in Iraq. His story illustrates why military leaders need to practice adaptive leadership to succeed in the challenging contemporary operating environment.

Adaptive Leadership

To understand a military leader's failure to adapt in unfamiliar circumstances, we ought to first define adaptive leadership. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "adapt" as "to make fit (as for a specific new use or situation), often by modification." (3) Thus, in its essence, adaptive leadership is the ability to modify individual and collective actions based on circumstances. In his study, Developing Adaptive Leaders: The Crucible Experience of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Leonard Wong tells us: "Adaptive leaders learn to live with unpredictability. They spend less time fretting about the inability to establish a routine or control the future and focus more on exploiting opportunities." (4) In other words, the recipe for success in stability operations depends upon embracing the possibilities created by the changing environment.

This focus on exploiting opportunities seems to run counter to such formulas as the Army's military decision-making process and troop leading procedures. Army leaders are quick to reach for a field manual (FM) or Army regulation to learn the next step to take in any set of circumstances, and the canon of Army literature does an outstanding job guiding them in the familiar actions of preparing for combat. Any Soldier, from a private to a general, can grab a manual and read what is required for success on tasks ranging from physical fitness to rifle marksmanship. But during the early phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), there was no manual on how to conduct a counterinsurgency campaign and no metrics to gauge success.

In the absence of experience and doctrine, commanders struggled to find a way to measure progress during OIF. They used reports of the number of killed insurgents, captured weapons, and houses cleared, and even resorted to diligently charting the murder rate in Iraqi cities. Today, commanders like Sassaman continue to struggle to find the right formula for success. However, when given the option of adapting or maintaining their mental status quo, many leaders choose the latter with no hesitation, and often with negative results.

While authors like Wong have highlighted the necessity for adaptive leadership in the Army, the 1999 edition of FM 22-100, Army Leadership, uses the word "adapt" only 6 times in its entire 278 pages? The FM implies that such flexibility is important, but with so little discussion devoted to the topic, we should not be surprised that Army officers fail to associate the term with success in military leadership.