Military Culture Today

Does it affect the morality of our leaders?

In some unremarkable classroom in an unassuming brick-and-mortar building on a blustery autumn day in Collegetown, USA, a small and wiry cadet fresh from his first and only summer at Warrior Forge sits in the front row. His hand curls into his cheek, and his eyelids droop, heavy as a consequence of two all-nighters and his local Starbucks being “under construction” for the semester. The instructor wears the same uniform as the cadet, a loose suit that his uninitiated college friends call his “combat pajamas.” Today’s lesson, a review on the Army Values. Tomorrow, a midterm. The cadet stifles a yawn, lazily jotting down notes that he will never read again. That I’ll never need again, a confident voice echoes in his head.

​As an Officer in the United States Army, I’d be remiss to claim that I have never been this cadet. There are many lessons I’ve learned, both on and off the military spectrum, that once tested, float out of my mind and into the void. We find ourselves in a society of instantaneous gratification and unlimited search engines. The art of remembering is then no longer a necessary skill, but rather a fancy trick one might show off at parties. Reliance on something other than your own memory might suffice when trying to remember the first names of the boys in One Direction, or when looking up the old family recipe that your second cousin thrice removed loaded onto her WordPress. That same reliance transforms into something injurious when it begins to affect someone’s character and their impact on others in their company.

A steep uptick in suicide rates between 2001 and 2008, several documented cases of sexual assault, high-profile adultery cases ending in divorce and public disgrace, and Soldier misconduct against unarmed civilians overseas — the seriousness of these issues make the case for isolated incidents seem not only naïve, but also downright laughable.

​The United States Army has been under constant scrutiny over the past few years. A steep uptick in suicide rates between 2001 and 2008, several documented cases of sexual assault, high-profile adultery cases ending in divorce and public disgrace, and Soldier misconduct against unarmed civilians overseas — the seriousness of these issues make the case for isolated incidents seem not only naïve, but also downright laughable. We’ve all completed enough land navigation courses to recognize a handrail when we see one. In response to these recent disgraces, General Martin Dempsey, current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, conducted a personal review of the “ethical standards in the senior ranks.” What he discovered unnerved him to such an extent, he created a “panel on professional ethics,” a group of military and academic subject-matter-experts whose “first order of business should be to consider whether the ‘moral injury’ that so obviously afflicts the rank and file has spread to the military’s sop echelon, and to the institution writ large.” (1)

​This handrail of public embarrassment and scandal leads to one question: From where does this moral corrosion stem? Art Padilla, Robert Hogan, and Robert Kaiser of North Carolina State University have mapped out their own answer to the Army’s current conundrum in their 2007 Leadership Quarterly article: the negative consequences of destructive leadership, courtesy of the Toxic Triangle.

​The Toxic Triangle is made up of three separate elements: 1) Destructive leaders, characterized by charisma-fueled narcissism; 2) susceptible followers who are quite happy being either the sharecropping shepherd or the lamb being led to slaughter; and 3) conducive environments. The authors use Fidel Castro, Cuban Dictator, as a prime example illustrating the dangers of the Triangle:

“As a young man, Castro was seen as bright, charismatic, idealistic, courageous, bold, ruthless, skilled at self-promotion, and able to attract a band of capable and equally ruthless and bloody-minded supporters. His charisma is apparent in newsreel clippings. His personalized use of power is seen in the way he enriched himself, and in his lifestyle compared to his citizens.” (2)

Castro wanted more for himself than for those whose blind faith won him power. If the concept of the Triangle holds true, then toxic leadership is born from a combination of ruthless ambition and disregard for all others than oneself. A simple rendering of this lesson would be to suggest that the Army need simply turn its leadership into selfless do-gooders — a sect of persons living only for those whom they lead. And in the theoretical description of leadership our sleepy cadet read in his first-year military science textbook, that is the goal. But goals are rarely easy. They require dedication, and constant attention.

Aristotle is quoted as saying, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” We, as Leaders, enforce excellence every day when we enforce standards. After witnessing the standards degradation of a former unit turn into a national scandal, CPT Michael Taylor, Bravo Company commander for the 1–87 Infantry Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, spoke to young officers about the importance of enforcing standards within the unit:

It all boiled down to a failure to enforce standards in the first place. If you want to risk it, go ahead. Maybe you don’t have a psychopath in your unit. I’m not willing to chance it, so I’ll enforce standards and ensure that my NCOs are doing so as well. (3)

Adherence to Army standards demonstrates adherence to the Army Values, from whence all standards are born. Lieutenants, especially, are under a unique form of scrutiny, eyes on them from both the top and bottom of the rank ladder, and as such, have a duty not only to their chain of command, but also to their Soldiers, to apply these Army Values to every aspect of their lives.

​Today’s first and second lieutenants are seeing their futures in the Army continually dimmed by the previously mentioned scandals and ever-imposing budget cuts as we trudge our way forward into a post-OIF/OEF world. As the road to promotion grows narrower with each passing year-group, it’s not surprising to sense a growing undercurrent of competition and maliciousness between lieutenants of the same commissioning year and branch. Company and Battalion commanders, busy as they are, see only the brightest and shiniest of their units’ newest additions. The result is an environment that rewards the outspoken, charismatic, self-serving leader, one who crafts an OER support form laden with indulgent phrasing and self-proclaiming greatness. Is that causing déjà-vu? If so, go back to the Toxic Triangle’s destructive leader. That caricature would fare well in the Army, at least until he made it to field grade.

​Yes, eventually his selfishness and disregard for his subordinates and comrades would catch up to him (we hope). But by that time, some of his harder-working, more modest colleagues will have been edged out, gone to seek solace in a civilian job that pays twice as much while offering a far more pleasant work environment.