The Army Leadership Code
The military requires it soldiers to function under stressful environments where death is lurking around every corner. The development of the Army Leadership Code by the British Army helped to brace its leaders for stressful situations. Developed by General Sir Nick Carter on September 3, 2015, the ALC features seven main values:
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"Management and Leadership".
Leading the team by example
Encouraging rational thinking
Apply discipline and reward
Seeking high performance
Encouraging self-confidence within individuals
Recognizing abilities and shortcomings of individuals
Striving for team goals (Defence, 2015).
The basis of the ALC is Transactional and Transformational Leadership theories (Ministry of Defense, 2015). Initially, these two theories were mutually interdependent, but scholars view them as different concepts.
Transformational and Transactional Leadership consists of eight factors. Transactional leadership involves passive administration by exemption, active supervision by omission, and contingent compensation. Transformational leadership requires stimulating motivation, idealized encouragement, individualized consideration, and intellectual inspiration. Both transactional and transformational leadership factors consider the individual and the prevailing situation of the environment. The factors of the ALC are not applied in every case, as this would affect the personnel negatively. Stress conditions are the best breeding grounds for ALC techniques.
The research question addressed is the effectiveness or impact of ALC measures during stress conditions. A stressful situation arises when a soldier’s life is endangered (Lazarus R, 1999). Transformational leadership is effective in stressful situations because leaders work together with their subordinates to form visions, create inspiration, acknowledge the necessary change, and execute changes based on individual commitments. Furthermore, transformational leadership is effective in boosting morale, job performance, and motivation. Stressful situations like in large organizations, police, and the military require role models who provide inspiration when the general perception is a massive loss, failure, or death. Transformational leadership offers a challenge that makes followers develop a great commitment to their work despite transitional occurrences.
A combination of transactional and transformation leadership styles offers additional benefits under stressful conditions. According to Bass and Riggio, transformational leadership utilizes punishments and rewards to generate specific feedback from followers (2015). During stressful circumstances, transformational leaders employ transactional leadership as a means to get members to accomplish goals because they already have rewards to motivate them. ALC methods are helpful during such circumstances since members are aware of the benefits and costs of making individual choices (Williams & Cooper, 2014).
The effectiveness of ALC strategies is evident when one examines the triumph of leaders who utilized transformational and transactional techniques. For example, Nelson Mandela employed both transformational and transactional techniques to enforce change and abolish apartheid in South Africa (Kalungu-Banda, 2008). Dwight Eisenhower is another great leader who applied transformational leadership during the stressful D-day invasion where he had to deal with military and political difficulties and stubborn generals who participated in demoralizing acts because they thought they were going to lose the war. General Tommy Frank is another example of a leader who applied transformational and transactional styles during a stressful situation- The Iraq War. Despite the fact that American soldiers were fearful that they could not defeat a modernized and well-organized Iraqi military, Eisenhower managed to deliver victory by motivating his troops to defend the security of the world and protect America’s superiority. The key elements that led to the mentioned leaders to employ transformational and transactional strategies included tenacity, vision, integrity, resilience, and self-motivation (Gardner H.E., 2011).
The main criticism of transformational leadership is that it can create room for abuse of power. This arises when leaders motivate followers by manipulating their emotions for the wrong reasons. For example, in the case study featuring Nelson Mandela, the leader could have succeeded in using transformational techniques to amass power for his selfish interests without changing the world. In some cases, transformational techniques cause conflict among followers when leaders have hidden agendas to separate the supporters.
Methodology
The method used in determining the effectiveness of ALC in stressful situations was interpretivism. According to Mullins L.J., the impact of leadership is best understood by observation and interpretation of the followership (2016). The author uses both qualitative and quantitative methods of research. The survey population was the British Army’s Intelligence Corps (Junior Non-Commissioned Officers). These students learn how to apply leadership in different stress conditions. The sample included nineteen students and two members of the teaching staff. The researcher used homogenous sampling whereby everyone sampled shared similar traits and characteristics- same military experience- to make it easier to determine the effectiveness of ALC (Saunders M, 2012).
The quantitative aspect of the study examines how active the ALC was by observing students during the exercise and through their placement. To transfer the traits in the ALC into observational factor, the author uses several behavioral criteria marking and tallying to show the frequency with which she observes these characters. The qualitative aspect of the study involves interviewing students to discuss what parts of the ALC they thought were effective in stress conditions.
One revelation of the interview showed that students believed that leadership was ineffective when a leader led during stress conditions. Many students neither agreed nor disagreed that a leader’s behavioral traits were active when handling stressful situations. These meant qualities in the ALC are necessary for leadership around stress environments.
Furthermore, the students did not believe that reward and discipline were applicable during stress conditions due to lack of performance encouragement. Many students noted that reward in a stressful situation and control in fear involves negative verbal correction.
On the aspect of leading by example, a majority of the students agreed that subordinates could not be willing to do something that their leader opposed. Therefore, they decided that setting an example is suited for leading in stressful situations. Allowing followers to express their ideas and demand for high performance received credibility from the students. They argued that leaders require high performance in stressful condition compared to normal situations because, in these circumstances, there is a significant requirement to achieve the primary objective (Bingham, 2010).
The majority of the students supported the trait of recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of one’s subordinates. According to the students, a leader should nominate the strongest person to perform a task and to rectify the fault that is intolerable (Jeanquart & Mangold, 2002). Lastly, the students agreed that the leader should strive to achieve individual goals through teamwork especially in stressful conditions.
The quantitative part of the study revealed that the most important trait in terms of leading under stress is striving for team goals. This finding was supported by the evidence derived from the interviews. Specifically, the majority of respondents agreed on the importance of striving for common goals when leading under stress. It is important to note, however, that while the respondents showed more than 90% support on the necessity of leading by example in the interview, this trait was revealed to be less important as a result of survey. This can be explained by the differences in the cognitive and behavioral component of an attitude. Namely, whilst the students may believe that leading by example is one of the more important traits, they may not be in position to demonstrate it when in stress. As to the exercise that aimed to reveal the placement of individuals, there were two traits that were most frequently demonstrated, which are applying reward and discipline.
The study was efficient and thorough in answering the research question on the effectiveness of ALC during stress conditions. From literature review, ALC elements, namely transformational and transactional control styles are effective in motivation, inspiration, productivity, and achieving goals during stressful conditions. However, there is a risk in leaders manipulating the ALC process for their selfish gain; therefore, there is a need for controls against such occurrences. Also, the study managed to answer the research question regarding the factors that are effective for military personnel when leading under stressful conditions. According to the findings gathered from interviewing Intelligence Corps, some elements of the Army Leadership Code are more efficient in stress environments than others. Following the interviews conducted on 18 students, the researcher found that they all believed that having an action and behavior to replicate and follow assists subordinates in how they behave or react in situations of uncertainty or distress. Therefore, the trait of leading by example ranked high among the most effective elements of ALC in stress situations. Finally, the study managed to answer the research question regarding the leadership style that is more effective when leading under stress, which is the transformational leadership.
The study satisfies all the requirements including backing evidence using relevant literature and using standard sampling methods. From the methodology the researcher is a member of the Intelligence Corps, thus, the investigation is biased. The interviewees were liable to respond to her requests and questions in fear and lacked accurate answers. Improvement in the methodology of the study should involve use of a non-partisan researcher in the interviewing process.
- Avolio, B. J., & Bass, B. M. (Eds.). (2001). Developing potential across a full range of Leadership Tm: Cases on Transactional and transformational leadership. Psychology Press.
- Bass, B. M. (1997). Does the transactional–transformational leadership paradigm transcend organizational and national boundaries? American Psychologist, 52(2), 130.
- Bass, B. M. (1999). Two decades of research and development in transformational leadership. European journal of work and organizational psychology, 8(1), 9-32.
- Jeanquart Miles, S., & Mangold, G. (2002). The impact of team leader performance on team member satisfaction: the subordinate’s perspective. Team Performance Management: An International Journal, 8(5/6), 113-121.
- Zhu, W., Riggio, R. E., Avolio, B. J., & Sosik, J. J. (2011). The effect of leadership on follower moral identity: Does transformational/transactional style make a difference?. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 18(2), 150-163.
