Leadership Decisions - Most Thinking Stops at Stage One

            The U.S. Army, an institution that embeds contingency planning into its doctrinal planning process, is often guilty of failing to consider the second and third order effects of decisions. When I say “the Army” I am obviously referring to individual leaders within the institution.

            In the fall of 2013, I was serving as an aviation brigade commander in the 101st Airborne Division. I was months from deploying the brigade from Fort Campbell, Kentucky to Afghanistan to provide aviation support in Regional Commands-East and North. In August, I, along with my battalion commanders (direct reports) and key staff members, traveled to Afghanistan on a Pre-Deployment Site Survey (PDSS). The PDSS is a leader’s reconnaissance of sorts during which incoming leaders visit the unit they would replace in combat. During this visit, commanders get a first-hand view of how things are going, what is working, and what is not.

            2014 would be my fourth combat deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. I was relatively experienced in how to conduct combat operations. When I arrived that fall, I was surprised to find that all risk assessment approval levels had been elevated by the commanding general. A risk assessment is conducted prior to all combat operations.  Generally speaking, in training, low-risk missions can be approved by a company commander (captain). Moderate-risk missions are approved by a battalion commander (lieutenant colonel), and high-risk missions are approved by the brigade commander (colonel).

            In 2013, the commanding general elevated risk approval such that a company commander had no risk approval authority, battalion commanders could approve low-risk missions, brigade commander moderate, and all high-risk missions were approved by the Deputy Commanding General for Operations (DCG-O) – a brigadier general, and in this case an infantryman.

            Very few missions, aside from training, are low-risk in combat; thus, I knew the vast majority of deliberate operation missions were moderate- and high-risk. Therefore, nearly all missions required approval by the brigade commander (myself) or the DCG-O. With my experience and understanding of our system, I knew that getting approvals that far up the chain would take time. The company commander would still have to review the risk assessment as would the battalion commander. The assessment would have to go all the way up the chain and back down. Leaders at each level are incredibly busy in combat. I wondered,

“How long does this process take?”

            I knew what my gut told me. They were sacrificing accuracy to meet a bureaucratic process. We deployed to Afghanistan in January 2014. The relief in place took two weeks for each unit assigned to my brigade. Once our organizations were in place and had taken over combat operations, I began visiting each of them. On one visit, I specifically went to visit with a young female captain who commanded an Apache Company. I knew her well. She was a bright, articulate officer, and I knew that she would tell me the truth, not just what she thought I wanted to hear. 

            “How is the risk assessment / mission approval process working for you?” I asked her.

            “I suppose fine, sir,” she said, as if I were asking a trick question.

            “Look, I know it takes a long time to get approval and things change rapidly in combat,” I said. “How are you getting that far ahead in the planning process?”

            “Oh, we pencil-whip them,” she said and allowed a thin smile. 

            “What?”

            “Sir, it’s impossible to have the accuracy of information for both us and the enemy far enough in advance to put it all together and send it all the way up to the DCG-O for approval and back in time to execute the mission, so we just pencil-whip it. What other choice do we have?” she said.

            I just loved this young officer. She was completely honest and that is what I needed to hear. The purpose of the risk assessment is to identify risk and mitigate it as much as possible. The final assessment is then sent to a person with enough experience to decide if the risk was worth assuming for the reward. Accuracy was the key to success in this endeavor.

            By elevating the approval levels the general was actually increasing risk, the exact opposite thing he was trying to achieve with the process. And the craziest part of all – he had no idea that it was happening. When this occurs in an organization leaders develop a false sense of self. Even if the pencil-whipping process was accurate given the current information 72-hours prior to mission execution, and approval is given, things still change at the last minute. The fog of war is a very real phenomenon.

            The greater question in this vignette is why did the general raise risk assessment approval levels. Only the general officer himself can answer this question, but I’d like to offer some suggestions based on my own personal experience. I have seen two common themes when raising approval levels: 1) the senior leader / executive is risk averse, or 2) the senior leader / executive does not trust the person they should delegate to.

            For the purposes of this article, I would like to focus on the second as it is very common in both business and the military. When a senior leader does not trust their subordinate leaders, they do not delegate authority to them. As I often tell my clients, Train, Trust, and Empower. If you do not train them, you will not trust them, and if you do not trust them, you will not empower them. So, whose fault was it that authority was removed at the lowest level? The senior leader responsible for ensuring that everyone in the organization is trained and possesses the skills necessary to execute the duties of the office they hold.

            I witnessed this time and time again in combat. Organizations would show up in Afghanistan or Iraq unprepared and make catastrophic mistakes. A cavalry squadron deployed to Afghanistan very early on in the war and crashed several helicopters. Thus, a very senior general officer published a policy that restricted OH-58D helicopter flights to under 6,000’ because they are power limited. I personally flew up to 12,000’. The airplane is perfectly capable of flying and fighting at those altitudes, but one must understand power management and flying at altitude. In this case, the leaders did not train their crews to manage power and fly in the environment they would be operating in. The result was crashing helicopters, policy letters that constrained the force for years afterwards, thus more risk to the soldier on the ground and limited reconnaissance capability.

            It is a leader’s responsibility to train their direct reports. Senior leaders have a moral obligation to place the right subordinate leaders in the right positions, empower them to make decisions, and when things go wrong underwrite their mistakes. It takes intestinal fortitude to lead in this manner. At the end of the day, it comes down to investing in human capital. Talent management is the key to success, and it is a leader responsibility. We must develop talent, train, trust, and empower them to execute. And we must think through the second and third order effects of our decisions.