The U.S. Army is empowering its soldiers with mission command: by requiring and rewarding initiative, trust and loyalty is engendered, just as it is in organizations practicing Total Quality Management (TQM) (Goetsch & Davis, 2021, p. 52). Obviously, bureaucracy is still present and it is now clear how initiative and bureaucracy can coexist.
It is interesting to compare this organizational culture with other military cultures that result in two diametrically opposed leadership styles: centralized control and Auftragstaktik, which is practiced by the German military as well as various self-defense forces.
Russia still clings to rigid, a top-down command style rooted in centralized control. As explained in (Bowen, 2024), "the Russian military continues to operate with a Soviet-style centralized command. This command style at the tactical level often has contributed to the types of inflexible operations that contributed to previous failures and casualties."
Former USSR satellites such as Ukraine maintain a similar approach. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the current Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has a "preference for a tightly controlled leadership structure that favors loyalty and personal closeness over purely professional criteria" (n.a., 2024).
The consequences of this centralized command were demonstrated in Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014: interviews (VICE News, March 22, 2014) with Ukrainian sailors (VICE News, March 16, 2014) showed them to be demoralized and directionless when one of their commanders defected to Russia and the government in Ukraine was in disarray.
The opposite of this is mission command or what the Germans call Auftragstaktik (Widder, 2002). These two styles of command are not the same, but in both, the commander specifies the mission and timeframe, and the way to accomplish this is left to the individual troop's initiative. Vandergriff (2018) gives a more comprehensive description of Auftragstaktik – instead of focusing on command and control, he describes it primarily as a form of professionalism and cultural philosophy expected of all members of the German Army: “subordinates could be trusted to take the action he thought appropriate, rather than stopping and waiting until contact could be re-established. This aggressive attitude allowed units to take advantage of fleeting opportunities and local successes.”
Vandergriff (2018) goes on to identify three virtues that German officers required: “knowledge, independence, and the joy of taking responsibility.” These virtues are expressed in Innere Führung, which the German Major General Werner Widder (2002) describes as leadership and civic education and is the foundation of the relationship between the individual soldier and society.
Thus, Vandergriff’s virtues not only describe the character of German officers but makes Auftragstaktik a natural corollary instead of a forced doctrine: German professionalism implies mission command, but not necessarily the reverse.
Self-defense forces have adopted Auftragstaktik out of necessity: their members are not professional warfighters, and they sometimes operate out of contact with their leaders for extended periods of time. In the absence of orders, the individual knows what to do: locate, close with, and destroy the enemy, and break his stuff. This is the exact opposite of what the Ukrainian sailors were doing.
The relation of culture and supporting leadership style in corporations parallels that in military or semi-military organizations: cultures of trust imply certain types of leadership styles, and when there is no trust, another leadership style is needed. The major difference between the corporations and the military organizations is the price for getting the culture and consequent leadership style wrong, and the speed at which that price is paid.
References
Bowen, A. (2024). "Russian Military Performance and Outlook." Congressional Research Service. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12606
Goetsch, D. L. & Davis, S. B. (2021). Quality management for organizational excellence: Introduction to total quality (9th ed.). Pearson.
n.a. (2024). "Oleksandr Syrskyi shifts Ukrainian military leadership to vertical approach." New Voice of Ukraine. https://english.nv.ua/nation/new-ukraine-s-armed-forces-chief-changed-the-command-process-of-the-army-50431480.html
Vandergriff, D. E. (21 June 2018). “How the Germans defined Auftragstaktik: What mission command is – and – is not” Small Wars Journal. https://archive.smallwarsjournal.com/index.php/jrnl/art/how-germans-defined-auftragstaktik-what-mission-command-and-not
VICE News. (2014, March 16). Ukrainian Troops Speak Out: Russian Roulette in Ukraine [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH3HGvZlhhk
VICE News. (2014, March 22). Taking over a Ukrainian Base: Russian Roulette in Ukraine [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBLs_AsBtjg
Widder, W. (2002). “Auftragstaktik and Innere Führung: Trademarks of German leadership” Military Review, September-October 2002. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/Hot-Spots/docs/MC/MR-Sep-Oct-2002-Widder.pdf
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