Effective Command Philosophy

Developing an Effective Command Philosophy
Lieutenant Colonel Harry C. Garner, U.S. Army, Retired The underlying philosophy of leaders has a significant impact on the way they relate to others, attempt to influence others, judge the actions of others, and make decisions affecting others. Most leadership theories, however, neglect this factor.
— Steven J. Mayer, Ph.D., “Leadership Philosophy”

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Special thanks go to Mark R. Hurley and J. Scott Peterson for their contributions to this article.

Lieutenant Colonel Harry C. Garner is an assistant professor, Department of Command and Leadership, U.S. Army Command and General Staff School ILE Campus, Fort Belvoir, VA. He holds a masters degree in public administration from James Madison University.
The ritual of every incoming military leader providing his organization some type of “philosophy” document even before the completion of his change of command ceremony endures in Army culture as a symbol of organizational ownership. Who can forget those nights before assuming command, when we anxious young captains fumbled through a file of command philosophies attempting to extract our “philosophy” of leading? In many cases, our efforts were little more than exercises in futility and attempts to fulfill some fictitious expectation. Given the recent high-profile reliefs of command and reported cases of toxic leadership within the Army and Navy, I suspect the level of deep thought and self-analysis many senior leaders give to the preparation of their leadership philosophies is comparable to that of young captains. Field Manual (FM) 6-22, Army Leadership, is strangely silent on the concept of a personal leadership philosophy, leaving the reader to wonder what one, in fact, is. Research reveals a variety of articles on the subject, but rarely do any two agree on its purpose, content, or meaning. In most cases, leadership philosophy denotes an organizational philosophy or what the military refers to as “command philosophy.” However, an effective command philosophy is contingent on first developing a personal leadership philosophy. The U.S. Army Command and
In effect, the leader establishes a values-based contract with those he leads. Once the assessment is completed, organizational leaders begin the shared process of creating a philosophy that is the moral blueprint for the organization. The philosophy includes the organization’s vision and the priorities, goals, and objectives to achieve the vision, as well as metrics of performance to assess and track the organization’s performance. It is a detailed document representing the array of operating systems and functions found within the organization, all primed and focused on achieving the organization’s purpose. It communicates the leader’s expectations of others and what they can expect from him. The leader establishes the ethical and moral values of the organization. They come directly from his personal leadership philosophy. As expressed in an article by Joseph Doty and Joe Gelineau, “Leaders also set the command climate by articulating what the core values of the unit are. Core values are those nonnegotiable tenets that permeate the unit and guide everything a unit does or fails to do.”12 In its final form, the organizational philosophy is the foundation for change communicated to all. Those who developed the organizational philosophy, the subordinate leaders, are the chief communicators transmitting the message down to the lowest levels. Subordinate units