The Armed Forces Officer: Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2United States. Department of Defense
History
The Armed Forces Officer: Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2
United States. Department of Defense
United States -- Armed Forces -- Officers' handbooks
The Army's "Brief on Practical Concepts of Leaderships," published 1
January 1950, well points out the desirability of leaders realizing it
is vain to expect that training can bring men forward uniformly. The
better men advance rapidly; the men of average attainments remain
average; the below-average lose additional ground to the competition.
In consequence, the chance for balance in the organizational structure
depends upon the leader progressing in such close knowledge of his men
that those who are strong in various aspects of the team's general
requirements compensate for the weaknesses of others, irrespective of
MOS numbers. It is not less essential that the followers know each
other and prepare themselves to complement each other. Obviously,
this cannot be done when personnel changes are so frequent that those
concerned have no chance to see deeper than the surface.
Even when to do any labor meant sapping the small store of energy
deriving from a few ounces of food each day, Greeley's men kept alive
the spark of morale and mutual support by maintaining a work schedule,
until the day came when there was no longer a man who could stand. To
fight off despondency, they held to a nightly schedule of lectures and
discussions in their rude shelters, until speech became an agony
because of throats poisoned by eating of caterpillars, lichens and
saxifrage blossoms. In their worst extremity, Private Fredericks,
unlettered but a man of great common sense and moral power, became the
doctor, cook and forager for the party.
Men do not achieve a great solidarity, or preserve it, simply by
_being_ together. Their mutual bonds are forged only by _doing_
together that which they have been made convinced is constructive.
Their view of its importance is usually contingent upon what others
tell them, and upon a continuing emphasis thereof. _Unity is all at
one time a consequence of, and a cause and condition for great
accomplishment._ Toward that end, it is neither vital nor desirable
that all members of the group coincide in their motives, ideas and
methods of expression. What is important is that each man should know,
and to a reasonable extent incorporate into his own life the thoughts,
desires and interests of the others. Such sentiments, fixed by
repetition, remain as a habit during the life of the group, and
provide the base for disciplined action. But when men are not thus
drawn together and the cord of sympathy remains unstrung, there is no
basis for control, nor any element of contact by which the group may
identify itself with some larger entity and profit by transfusion of
its moral strength.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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