Many are well versed in executing tactical applications on the battlefield. However, less are aware of the strategic needs leaders face in all aspects of warfare. This guide will address those strategic needs.
Follow Me!
"Follow Me" is the motto of every leader.
It describes the principle of leadership by example
We do this by: Being, Knowing, Doing.
Authority is the delegated power to:
Judge
Act
Command
This includes: Responsibility, Accountability, Delegation
Responsibility is the duty you have as a leader to: Execute the task/mission given to you.
It affords the authority to direct and take the necessary action to ensure mission success.
Leaders are accountable for their own decisions and for the actions, accomplishments, and failures of their subordinates. Respect and understanding of what makes the unit tick and their needs is what ultimately crafts good leaders.
You can delegate authority but NOT responsibility. That is to say, if you authorize a subordinate to execute an action, you are responsible for the outcome of that task, whether it be good or bad. However, subordinates are held accountable to their leaders for how they use their delegated authority.
Overview of Doctrine
To be an effective leader, one must draw their knowledge from both personal experience and well known tactics. These verified tactics are taken from accepted doctrine. In various applications drawing individuals from a world pool, this can be a challenge. The important fact to take away from this is the need for all the personnel of a group to accept a specific set of doctrine(s).
"Doctrine contains the fundamental principles by which the military forces or elements guide their actions in support of national objectives."
Dilemma versus Problem creation
A Dilemma is: A situation in which two or more bad alternatives are the only plausable course of actions (COA) .
A Problem is: A situation in which the Enemy is presented with only one choice and thus only one COA.
Creative combinations of combined combat power, along with effects of complementary and/or reinforcing effects enable warfighters to create a dilemma for the enemy.
Military leaders should always try to create dilemmas for the enemy, not just problems.
This can be done by using a combination of:
Weapons (small arms)
Weapon systems (crew-served)
Different units (engineer, artillery, close air support, etc)
Tactics (using mortars to fix the Enemy while a force maneuvers to envelope them)
Terrain (using a rock formation as an obstacle to the enemy's ability to maneuver)
Example: If you ambush an Enemy with direct fire only, they face a problem. They might choose to break contact. However, if you are aided with indirect fires, the Enemy now faces a dilemma...stay and get cover from direct fires but get crushed from the indirect fires or break contact to avoid the indirect fires and get hammered by direct fire.
Leaders must combine both complementary and reinforcing effects.
Complementary versus Reinforcing effects
A complementary effect is one that utilizes different types of weapon systems at the same time. Leaders must be knowledgeable in different weapon systems, their capabilities and their limitations, when they arrange elements with different characteristics together.
Example: A leader using indirect fires to augment their direct fire weapons
A reinforcing effect is one that utilizes weapon systems of similar effects.
Example: A team leader adding to the effects of his automatic rifleman with the fires of his other team members
Regardless of which effect is used (complimentary or reinforcing), they can be used in either a
Simultaneousmanner
Sequential manner
Simultaneous employment are those weapons systems that are used at the same time. This causes a shorter but more intense saturation of combat power.
Sequential employment uses each weapon system separately. This will cause a reduced sense of combat power but one that will last longer on the intended target.
It is important that a leader understands different weapons systems and the best way to employ them given the situation.
Actions on Contact
Actions on contact involve a series of combat actions, often conducted simultaneously, taken upon contact with the enemy to develop the situation.
Deploy and Report:
1. Fix the enemy
2. Isolate the enemy
3. Separate the enemy forces from each other by achieving fire superiority
4. Report to higher
5. Begin “fighting” for information—actively pursue and gather it.
Evaluate and Develop the Situation: In order to develop the situation, a leader must try to gain a tactical advantage by maneuvering his force.
During this process, the leader considers the following:
• Mutually supporting enemy positions
• Obstacles
• The size of the enemy force engaging the unit
• A vulnerable flank to the position
• A covered and concealed route to the flank of the position
Choose a COA (Course Of Action):
• COA 1
• COA 2
• COA 3
Execute the COA: Choose and execute the best Course of Action to your situation.
Most combat actions follow the sequence of find, fix, flank, and finish.
Commanders must visualize, describe, direct, and lead operations and training in terms of the warfighting functions.
Decisive, shaping, and sustaining operations combine all the warfighting functions.
At the core of a unit’s ability to fight are three time-tested components of close combat:
(1) Firepower
(2) Mobility
(3) Protection/Security
Master the Basics
A leader must ensure that his subordinates can perform well under fire when the time comes.
Every warfighter must be a master of their basic skills: shoot, move, communicate.
This skill set gives a unit its ability to fight.
When these individual skills are used collectively as part of a larger unit (Squad or Platoon), these skills now become combat power.
Shoot Every warfighter must be trained as a basic rifleman.
Further, each warfighter must be a master of their assigned weapon system (rifle, mortar, machinegun) so that when the different weapon systems are used together the unit's combat power is increased.
Move Movement is comprised of the individual movement techniques (IMT) of:
High Crawl
Low Crawl
3-5 second rush
Unit movement is comprised of:
Formations (staggered, wedge, file, line)
Movement Technique (travelling, travelling overwatch, bounding overwatch)
Maneuvering under fire (fire and movement / fire and maneuver)
Communicate There are three basic aspects of communication:
Having the correct radio (long range versus short range)
Technical means used to communicate (having the right frequency)
Procedures used for reporting and disseminating information (SPOTREP, 9 & 5 liners, close air support requests)
Combined Arms
Once a unit masters their individual skills, their leader uses them together as unit.
The combat power is increased when the unit uses: complementary and reinforcing effects of other weapon systems while using those organic to their own unit.
Example: A unit uses their own ability to have a Support By Fire (SBF) and an Assault force to maneuver on the enemy while employing mortars and close air support to fix them.
Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures
Troop-leading procedures (TLP, BAMCIS, SMEAC) provide leaders a framework for decision making during the plan and prepare phases of an operation.
Infantry doctrine is comprised of: tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP).
When military engagements occur, chaos ensues. TTPs allows leaders to counter chaos with their prior planning of actions and counter actions.
U.S. military doctrine defines tactics as:
The employment of units in combat.
The ordered arrangement and maneuver of units in relation to each other or to the enemy to utilize their full potential.
In essence,tactics are how we fight the enemy during combat.
Techniques are the skills that a unit uses to execute their mission(s) with equipment and troops. These must be established and verified for their effectiveness.
Procedures are standard methods that set a standard on how to execute a task.
Example: If your unit has suffered injuries, who will use the procedure to call for medical evacuation and what is the specific format that they will use?
Every Shooter is a Sensor
A leader must be able to have subordinates perform:
Tactical Questioning Interacting with other characters or questioning detainees/prisoners for information
Site Exploitation Combing through the objective or an area for information (documents, weapons, identify factions, maps, cell phones, computers, documents, photos, tablets, etc)
Debriefing and Reporting Once a contact/mission/task is finished a debriefing must occur where personnel share information. If a debriefing cannot occur, personnel must know how to report in a consistent manner (contact/IED/recon report).
Individual Leadership
To accomplish the mission, leaders must give their subordinates the following:
Purpose - the reason to accomplish the mission. What is the goal of the mission?
Direction - the means to accomplish the mission. Do they have the necessary training and equipment?
Motivation - the will to accomplish the mission. How many casualties are "acceptable"?
Leaders must use command and control (C2) to influence their subordinates to accomplish the mission.
Control is the:
Direction and guidance of subordinates to ensure accomplishment of the mission
There are three core principles that underlie the application of tactical leadership:
1) Leadership by example ("Follow Me!")
2) Authority
3) Mission command
Calm Under Fire
• Recognize that you're a leader. Everyone is a leader. Step up and make a call.
• You have to be constantly and consistently be self-aware. Set the alerts for yourself. Lay out triggers, such as recognizing any type of emotional reaction. Take a step back if anything goes bad.
• Take responsibility for how you train your men. The only way you get good is that you train to the standard that you expect your guys to perform at. Train hard. The training needs to be extremely difficult. If you don't do that, how can you expect your men to maintain situational awareness?
• Don't jump to conclusions.
• Take the time to communicate well.
• If you have a radio, you should keep communications concise and clear.
• Unless your life is completely in danger, move with a purpose.
Combat -- What You Can't Control • Combat occurs at a time and place not of your choosing
• Combat involves an enemy of unknown size and intensity
• During combat, the enemy will almost always maneuver from their initially reported positions
Combat -- What You Can Control • We will always have elements maneuvering for the advantage
• We will always be mutually supporting
• Our leaders are always responsible for coordination and communication with elements and support assets from all service branches, on the ground and in the air simultaneously, while under fire
Decision Making Matrix
Leaders use two decision making methods:
1) Visualize, Describe and Direct Used during planning and preparation phase(s) in TLPs
Visualize Develop battlefield visualization.
Ask yourself:
Where are we now?
Where do we need to be?
How are we going to get there?
What obstacles will impede us?
Describe Leaders must now describe their visualization. Leaders who communicate effectively:
Display good oral, written, and listening skills
Persuade others
Express thoughts and ideas clearly to individuals and groups
Direct Leaders issue orders to direct subordinates. Examples include:
Combat orders and fire commands
Mission profiles and objectives
Intentions and initiatives
Orders can be oral or written.
2)Assess, Decide and Direct Used by leaders for battlefield decision making during operations and provides the logic underlying the action-on-contact decision making process.
Risk Management
1)Define the enemy action
2)Identify friendly combat power shortfall
3)Identify available combat multipliers, if any, to mitigate risk
4) Consider the risks: acceptable or unacceptable?
5)Make a decision: Go or No-Go?
After Action Reviews (AAR)
AARs are how can you learn and/or improve you performance.
It is not meant to judge success or failure.
• It looks at why and how things happened
• It focuses directly on thetasks and goals that were to be accomplished
• It allows feedback that raises important lessons learned
Most or all personnel should be involved so more information can be recalled and more lessons can be learned and shared.
Unseen and Hidden Leadership Principles
All leadership starts with yourself, and if you can't lead yourself, you'll find it hard to lead others
There is a psychological and emotional aspect to leadership that is commonly neglected by those who start leading, as well as those who are already leading that could turn your leadership from being 'okay' to great and the experience from being 'burdensome' to fulfilling.
These principles are not as easily recognised as physical tactics and procedures, however, they are in fact more important from a leadership perspective because they maximise every individuals ability to be cohesively autonomous in a unit and therefore gives you a better experience due to less micro-management, more effective and inspired squad mates and a clarity of purpose and objective.
These principles will allow subordinates to; • Adopt a war-fighter mentality
• Execute anything with robust character and intent
• Respect and follow the element leader
• Grow a sense of autonomy within the element
• Engage with professionalism
Extreme Ownership
Your subordinates will follow you psychologically and emotionally before they follow you physically. And an important part of leadership is to take ownership of all things. The authority you gain from creating a squad and having strangers follow you doesn't come from the creation of the squad. It comes from the responsibility you take on from them thereafter.
When you take ownership of everything, everything becomes your responsibility, and you gain 'power' as a leader within your unit and over the situation through it. Accountability is an important aspect to gaining respect, and the people who notice it will grow in respect for you and apply it for themselves.
As a leader, it's always your responsibility. And once you understand and apply this, people will more readily follow your command.
Setting A Standard
Your subordinates will only be able to potentially perform at the standard you perform at. Nothing higher. You set the ceiling.
Psychologically, the leadership masculine archetype of a 'king' is given to people who've been accepted as leadership. This is intuitively receptive to every individual, everyone has it, but not everyone embodies it. When someone embodies it, everyone recognises it and projects their 'ideal' self onto that leader - 'the king'.
So as a leader, psychologically, your subordinates will follow you enthusiastically if you set a high enough standard within the squad for everyone to follow, whilst also meeting what is expected.
Therefore:
• Their maximum enthusiasm is your minimum enthusiasm
• Their maximum level of professionalism is your minimum level of professionalism
• Their maximum standard of execution is your minimum standard of execution
• Their maximum level of respect is your minimum level to respect them
• Their maximum level of assertiveness is your minimum level of assertiveness
• Their maximum level of communication quality is your minimum level of communication quality
A Person Who Lacks Humility Cannot Be a Good Leader
This may not be 'unseen' but the proper method of execution of 'humility' is unseen.
Humility does not mean being passive, it means being able to accept your limitations and acting accordingly.
You therefore must subdue your own ego, and in turn you'll find a growth in respect from your subordinates when they notice you are also a good follower.
Subordinates also make suggestions, and linking back to setting a standard, if you respect and consider their suggestions they will also respect your commands once they've heard why your way is the best way to go. They don't necessarily need you to listen to them, they just want to feel confident in your thinking
Continuing on, you may come across a more confident, and well performing subordinate that is assertive or direct. This is nothing to be intimidated about or contest and minimise. If you notice they're useful, you acknowledge it by giving them more responsibility and showing them you acknowledge it by trusting them. This will usually lead to a 'NCO' type figure that helps you rally the rest of the subordinates because they now also develop the urgency to fulfil their now shared and respected but subordinate role of responsibility in the element.
However, if they fail to perform and become a detriment to the squad, you minimise the responsibility of course.
There Are No Bad Teams, Only Bad Leaders
Very often leaders wish to project their idealised version of an element onto their subordinates, rather than managing their element as is. This makes them fail as leaders, as they fail to properly handle their subordinates in correct estimation of their strengths and weaknesses.
Whereas if they properly estimated their' strengths and capabilities, they would be a more effective set of for the element.
Don't make them something they are not, make them the best of what they already are.
On an interpersonal level, this means within the 10 minutes, albeit a small amount of time, you will have to quickly take inventory of the personalities within your element.
• Equipment checks
• Role checks
• Find out if anyone is new
• Potentially good leaders
• Who is communicative
• Gauge their behavior
• Who doesn't meet your standard
Once you've collected this type of information you can now start exercising and refining your idea of your elements abilities as you progress. The quicker and more refined your evaluation, the better and earlier you can make your subordinates perform optimally
Structuring Engagements
When composing an element you need to consider two factors: Flexibility and Balance. In other words, what roles and vehicle assets you have to your disposal, your subordinates capabilities in terms of skills and experience and how you combine those individuals with others. Who you team up with who is based on your intended purpose of a fireteam and the situation.
Flexibility Flexibility is your ability to change what you are doing on a moments notice in order to counter the different threats or situations you may encounter from the enemy. You should strive to compose your element (fireteam, squad, platoon, company) to be able to take on as many different threats as possible. Here are some examples of situations you need to be able to handle:
• Targets at long range (Having scoped weapons)
• Targets with armor (Having anti-tank)
• Aerial targets (Having anti-air)
• Targets using superior shooting positions (Using a grenade launcher with smoke grenades or MAAWS smoke)
• Having a lot of wounded (Having a Medic to treat wounds)
• Running out of supplies or ammo (Having a rifleman with an ammobag)
Balance Balance is the relationship between Assault and Support.
Assault: Is your ability to be aggressive and to take out enemies while on the move.
Support: Is the ability to ensure that your Assault element can accomplish their tasks.
You should strive to build your subordinates to have an fairly even balance between the support and assault.
Balance is also how you have distributed your assets in between your subordinates, Have you put all specialty members in one tasking group? By offsetting the balance between your subordinates, your subordinates might not be as flexible as you wish and if that is the case, you need to know your weaknesses and avoid to put them in situations they can't handle while instead place them in situations they can handle.
In any following capacity, followers enjoy taking on their tasks and objectives more when they have structure. As a leader, part of your responsibility is to maintain a good amount of order out of chaos. This sense of order is both mental, and physical.
Firstly, a good way to do this is to plan contingencies where you can. This will inspire confidence and a sense of reliability from your members.
Other ways to also inspire confidence and reliability is not to panic, stay clear, coherent and succinct in communication and feign confidence if you need to during dire situations. e.g.
Furthermore, keep your tactical plans, whether they be offensive or defensive plans, with assertiveness using the simple modified version of the SMEAC acronym:
1. Situation - What is the tactical situation? "Bravo 3 is pinned down by an enemy armor platoon at grid '044 056', we're going to hold their eastern flank while we wait for QRF"
2. Mission - What is the task? "We're going to establish a defensive posture along the defilade at grid '048 052 and create anti-tank fighting positions.'"
3. Execution - How the task will be executed? "We're going to maneuver from the south. There will be two elements, Assault Element will move to capture and hold the fighting position, whilst Support team will be establish an SBF position near the fighting position".
4. Any Questions - "Any Questions?"
5. Check for Understanding - Do all members know the plan? Are additional details necessary? "Team Red is Assault, Team Blue is Support, double check equipment and prep for step off".
Interpersonal Relations At An Arms Reach
This is an important and very often neglected part of management taken from The Dichotomy of Leadership. The attitudes in the element have a subtle balance that seemingly act as a dichotomy.
Where if you are too personally involved with your subordinates, you'll inspire complacency. Whereas if you are too impersonal with your subordinates, you'll lose the ability to organically motivate your subordinates members and lose a grip on managing their morale as there is no rapport/bridge to give it through.
It therefore becomes a careful balancing act where it's important to keep an arms reach from the rest of your members relative to their personal interactions. This is why a common leadership personality tends to be a bit more reserved than the loudest member, or a bit more energetic than the quietest member
Sell the Victory Before They Work For It
Everyone has the mind of a warrior, regardless of platform. We all have it in our minds, it's just a matter of getting it out.
As a leader, emotional and psychological leadership is just as - if not more important than the management and tactics aspect of leading a squad.
As a leader you have to help them get the warrior out of them. If you've ever done any sort of sales, you'll understand how to motivate people to do things.
We make decisions based on emotions, not logic. If something seems like a logic based decision, the logic was used to give us the emotional sense of security to solve an emotionally inducing problem.
A sure-good way to motivate is to maintain the result in mind for your members, this stimulates emotion [ie]:
"[We're going to make this count, and set the example!] We'll do this by..." "[I'm going to put as much effort as I can to make sure you guys make it.]"
"[We're going to hold this position, and hold it well]"
"[AT! Shred that BMP, let's teach them they'll need to send Jesus himself to take this from us!"]
"[Set up security around me, we're going to own this forest until supplies arrive!]"
"[AT! Find that Tank and tell it to fuck off!]
"[Support Team, I want to hear a hail of gunfire on that target. Give it to em]"
"[They'll need to get a binding resolution from the United Nations to take this position, otherwise they can fuck right off]"
"Team, flank right and [ruin their day!]"
It can come across as tacky, but said in the right moment will put your members into the experience and get them performing well autonomously.