Leadership And Discipline In The United States Army

Leadership and Discipline in the United States Army
The tasks of an infantryman can range from mundane activities like scraping wax off of floors to adrenaline pumping activities like jumping out of airplanes or avoiding enemy gunfire. Whether a United States Army Infantryman is conducting area beautification in garrison or clearing a landing zone during a deployment, the common denominator in all infantryman tasks is leadership and the discipline of the soldier to follow the directives and orders of his leaders without questioning the task, the motives behind the directive or order, or the judgement of the leader issuing the directive or order. This is the essence of discipline; maintaining individual creative thought, while at the same
Soldiers need to have the discipline to obey an order to attack a machine gun nest and face death. At the same time, leaders need to have the skills to motivate their soldiers to accomplish difficult goals. Discipline and leadership form a symbiotic relationship in which soldiers will recognize good leadership decision making processes and in return, develop a greater trust in the abilities of the leader. This trust will enable the soldiers to work harder to achieve the tasks put forth by the leaders in a manner that is conducive with how the leader would want the tasks to be accomplished. Leadership and discipline are like two opposite sides to one coin. While the infantry soldier should unquestioningly put his life at risk to accomplish a directive or order put forth by his leader, the leader needs to use his best judgement, knowledge of infantry tasks and skills, and experience to give the correct command in accordance with the situation at hand. While the soldier needs to be able to trust the judgment and decisions of the leader, the leader needs to ensure that the trust given to them by the soldiers is not
Soldiers are taught in basic training that the NCO is always right. If an NCO says that two plus two equals five, then the soldier should agree. This is not done so that soldiers will blindly follow their leaders. Instead, it is to show the soldier that they should listen to their NCO and do what their NCO tells them to do. As the soldier begins to develop trust in his NCO, he will more readily strive to put forth his full effort in accomplishing the task put forth by his NCO. Even if an order given by and NCO does not make sense to the soldier, the soldier should do it anyways. The NCO is privy to more information than the soldier. Additionally, the NCO has more experience, knowledge and infantry skills than the soldier. The reason why a directive or order might not make sense to the soldier is due to the fact that the soldier is not able to see what needs to be accomplished in the same light as the NCO sees