Page 16 - Signal Summer 2019

| LEADERSHIP: COMMAND AND STAFF | & Staff School Perspective
Leadership: A Command
Commandant Niall O’Hara, Instructor with the Defence Forces Command and Staff School, writes for SIGNAL on the structure of the Joint Command & Staff Course and the nature of leadership learning in the Defence Forces.
Comdt Niall O’Hara
Writing on leadership is not an easy nor comfortable task; particularly when the readership are leaders by design and profession. As we all know, leadership competencies evolve and emerge uniquely for each individual. However, leaders in the Defence Forces (DF) are lucky. We have our core baseline values, doctrine, regulations, instructions, rich and diverse experiences and for some, mentors; to guide and shape what our subordinates rightfully expect us to deliver. The authority vested within DF commanders is unique and hence one’s leadership; underpinned by our organisational values must also have an ethical foundation for astute decision making, irrespective of its focus. A focus that can transcend the tactical and operational command of troops, training and education, staff work or leading in the strategic civil military environment.
Leadership Education
When officers rise to the senior ranks of our organisation, be it as service, formation or DFHQ Branch Chief, or a member of the General Staff; expectations to deliver change and lead through the turmoil that change management always brings, is quite unforgiving; particularly given the challenges that the Irish Defence resource envelope presents.
Our profession, as an arm of government policy is laden with steep learning curves; it is simply the nature of the environments we operate in; be it foreign or domestic deployments, policy and capability development or structural reorganisation. In these environments, the DF needs experienced, intelligent, authentic, agile, and humble leaders. Leaders that can communicate, negotiate and leverage externally to influence effectively on behalf of the DF for the good of the state. However, more importantly, leaders that can communicate even more effectively to our internal audience through motivation, empathy and where necessary sympathy.
In anticipation of this, the DF’s professional military education strives to ensure that leadership development is a career long process that can peak when officers find themselves as the senior stewards of our profession. The Command and Staff
School plays an important role in delivering on the DF capability development primarily through the moral and conceptual pillars. The school’s purpose is no different to any other DF school, it is quite simply: to enhance organisational capability through its most valuable resource, our personnel.
We seek to deliver a senior officer product that can critically and creatively think, analyse, evaluate and communicate to meet the demands of our fore mentioned operating environments far better than they could have a year prior. Some graduates recognise this and benefit from it immediately, some require time and further experiential learning to complement the learning achieved in Dunne Hall and multiple whiteboard etchings. Of course, like all other DF courses, we have the cynics who live well among us, and may never reflect upon the training or even if they had ... they would never admit to it. However, the DF and a 9 and half month long Joint Command & Staff Course (JCSC) needs cynics and dissenters too. They test leadership,
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