Strategic Leadership Education
Air Commodore Peter W Gray
1
&
Jonathan Harvey
2
Defence Leadership and Management Centre
Defence Academy of the United Kingdom
‘Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth’
3
.
Despite the plethora of works published on leadership, the truth behind Burns’ statement
remains extant today. Trying to grasp the basics, let alone the subtleties, of leadership is
made all the more complex by virtue of everyone having a view on the subject. The more
senior the officer – or civil servant – the more convinced they are that their perceptions are
the most authoritative. Strategic Leadership education is further bedevilled by the
reluctance of many to accept that leadership education is a lifelong journey through which
we all can learn. The well known precept that leadership can be learned – but not taught –
should be taken as a given in this process. In the ideal world, officers, warrant officers,
senior non-commissioned officers and the troops would embark on a coherent thread of
leadership development that would see them through their careers. If anything, this
perfect process is actually impeded by initiatives and well-meaning bright ideas.
The challenge is made all the greater as the single-Services remain, very properly,
determined to mould their young officers and new recruits and instil them with the ethos of
their profession. The appropriate level at which a joint, or purple, organisation can be
allowed to work on the attitudes, values and beliefs of service personnel and officials is
problematic to say the least. All that said, the traditional approach to leadership education
and development across the three Services in the United Kingdom shows more in
common than any radical diversions.
Leadership Development in an Historical Context
A historical review of leadership development is inevitably plagued by the difficulty of
knowing when to start! It is also challenging to apply contemporary notions of leadership
education in an earlier context where the common vocabulary differed markedly; this is
often compounded by a reluctance to commit views to the files that would end up in
archives. One can accept a general progression from the Ancients with glib quotations
from Plato into manifestations of Great Man Theory from Alexander the Great onwards
4
. It
would, however, be more meaningful from a British perspective, but controversially from a
Commonwealth view point, to start at the beginning of the 20
th
Century and the experience
of the Great War.
1
Air Commodore Gray is the Director of the Defence Leadership and Management Centre – part of the
Defence Academy of the United Kingdom.
2
Jonathan Harvey is the Senior Research Analyst within the Defence Leadership and Management Centre.
3
James MacGregor Burns, Leadership, Harper, New York, 1979, page 2.
4
See for example, Manfred Kets de Vries, ‘Doing an Alexander: Lessons on Leadership by a Master
Conqueror’, European Management Journal, Vol 21, No 3, June 2003, pp 370-375.
