Leadership Foundations

It’s been my privilege and honor to experience some of the best leadership training our nation has to offer. From my Reserve Officer Training Corps program in college, to the Senior Service College I feel blessed to have had so many opportunities to learn how to lead. I fully realize few are afforded such an amazing opportunity.   

A question that I often ponder is which leadership training experience was the best? I’ve come to realize it wasn’t a particular school, but rather leadership experience over the years that was the best teacher. More pointedly, the most impactful period in my leadership journey was my time as a junior officer. The answer to the rhetorical question, “are leaders born or made” is simply, both. It takes formal learning as well as something from the inside that can only be exposed by doing. 

The leadership foundations established during those fledging years as a junior officer are in my humble opinion the most important. How are young leaders formally introduced to the art of leadership? It’s important to note at this stage of the journey one is usually practicing direct leadership. Direct leadership is face-to-face or first-line leadership that generally occurs in organizations where subordinates see their leaders all the time.

Most folks would agree, the direct leadership years are the best of their careers. Everything is new, exciting and hands on! Leader development at this stage is experiential learning during the initial operational assignment. Even the formal education at this level such as the Officer Basic Course, focuses on mastering tactics or procedures specific to one’s job in the military. Also, during the formal training, young leaders are often asked to research and reflect on historical occurrences of good and bad direct leadership.

The direct leadership lessons learned during tactical engagements at Gettysburg are just as applicable today as they were 150 years ago and well inform young leaders to make good tactical decisions. Making young Lieutenants think critically about how the actions of heroes and villains of the past will apply to their own experiences is an important piece of direct leadership development.

That being said, book learning on leadership only goes so far! “Doing” is key to forming a leader. My initial leadership experiential learning occurred in the early and mid-90s in the pre-9/11 world. Most of the tactics and leadership learned in our programs of instruction were oriented on a linear battlefield and defeating a Soviet style enemy! No one anticipated the events of 9/11 that would unfold in just a few short years or how those events would revolutionarily impact leader development. The operational environment changed quickly!

Regardless of the operational environment we trained within during the 90s, the leadership fundamentals remain the same. The grainy featured pic is from around 1996 when I was a platoon leader in the 82d Airborne Division. We were “deployed” to Ft. Bliss, TX for an annual Stinger missile live fire. I certainly didn’t know much about my craft, but the Non-Commissioned Officers in my platoon showed me the ropes. Stingers have long since left the Army inventory for the most part, but the leadership lessons I learned back then still hold true today.

Learning all the little details required to get a small group of troopers and equipment from location A to location B ready to perform a mission molded me in so many ways. It’s going on 30 years since that formative time. I’ve learned and experienced leadership all the way up to the strategic level since then. Yet it’s those Lieutenant days I remember fondly which set the foundation for who I became as a leader and who I am today.

The views, opinions and biases expressed in this blog are the authors and do not reflect those of the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense.

Know someone separating from the military soon? Check out Military Retirement: An After-Action Review where I share the lessons learned from my own military retirement. Ebook is available for FREE on at normspivey.com or paperback for purchase on Amazon.

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