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4 Leadership in Complex Contingencies
Leadership at the strategic level has subtle but critical role shifts in modern peace support and complex contingency operations, where greater demands and pressures are placed on political, military and civilian decision makers. At the operational and tactical levels, commanders, humanitarian program managers, and civilian police also face various kinds of challenges unknown in more traditional crises. Background As the anomaly of the Cold War passed and long-standing issues resurfaced, the nature and character of civilian and military leadership that is able to meet the demands of modern complex contingencies has been forced to adapt. Leaders are challenged to know and understand their counterparts across the civilian military spectrum and to operate within a much broader intellectual, strategic and operational landscape. Decisions must take into account the possibility of many possible outcomes and decision makers must be prepared for shifting mandates. Discussion Points
Discussion Summary I. On Leadership Leadership is one of most widely discussed but still one of the most elusive. It is important to maintain mission consensus. The contingent will salute you, but it's not enough to only issue orders: you must earn respect of nations to be effective. You must earn the respect of, and feel the sensitivities of the, various contingents that make up the force. In answer to the question 'Can we pray?' - - if you are rigid you quickly loose all your friends from that part of the world. You can make friends by being accommodating. Leadership is individualistic; there is no one formula. The leader should be astute enough to manifest his leadership. There is type of leadership that comes into play when operating with equals who are not military. There are multiple agencies that are equals, and if you boss them around, you will accomplish nothing. Keep in mind that there are a number of departments working separate chain of commands. The SRSG is expected to work closely with the commanding officer. What is crucial is the mix of personality. Close collaboration between SRSG and commanding officers is essential in getting the job done. Ambassadors have a different way of making decisions, which can certainly be irritating and cause impatience in the military. Personality seems to be a determining factor. Don't dwell on Weaknesses but on strength. Impartiality is not the same thing as neutrality, as the concepts are applied to peace operations. One cannot be neutral about genocides and rape. The force needs to be credible and credibility requires a leader that has the capacity to function well in a crisis. A leader needs to have political sensibility, particularly in a situation involving forces from many nations. These points may be competing. A good leader must also be able to manage a process of change and transformation, and to be able to be opportunistic and take advantage of bad situations and make the most of it, because this is not a static process. Leadership requires a number of approaches. The kind of leadership that is needed will include a good vision, a leader must be able to assess the situation and adopt whatever style of leadership in needed in order to bring everyone together. These skills cannot be acquired in the classroom. It comes with time and graduation in responsibility, managing people at different levels. It requires experience through practical work or through some kind of training that cannot be acquired in the classroom. An interim step between classroom knowledge -- not participating -- and participating is to send observers to missions. Most military are taught different military styles. Transactional leadership refers to the influence as a peer - I do this for you if you do that for me. Transformation leadership moves from A to B. For example, delegate responsibilities to a military subordinate to manage a group, and let him come up with the solution. Force protection can be taken to extremes, which in complex peacekeeping operations can be self-defeating. If they are not seen as helping, if you can't bring yourself close to the people, you will be defeated. II. Practical Considerations The Special Representative to the Secretary General (SRSG) is by nature a political position and that person does not have control over the military. However he/she has overall responsibility for the mission. It is very important to begin the relationship between the SRSG and the Force Commander so that you both are involved in planning and writing the directive. The bond must be formed. Ideally, the SRSG is a career diplomat who knows the UN system inside and out. The SRSG does not know, nor does he/she want to know about, the military. There are many issues that are militarily and politically blurred and so understanding each other and communicating well are very important. In a good relationship a Force Commander may offer the SRSG political advice. In the UN structure, the Force Commander runs the military component. The SRSG has overall authority of the mission but cannot move battalions. A single Chief Administration Officer has power, despite not having the financial authority over a mission. The reality is, very many average bureaucrats are opposed to the use of force. A large part of the peace of the mission is made up a lot of career bureaucrats. For a Force Commander, the system is annoying, but that is the system. Don't fight the system unless things are very bad. For a period of time, you slip backwards instead of forward when you arrive in the country, taking staff from all over the world and trying to form it into a functioning team and leadership staff. There is no mechanism below the Security Council for watching over and maintaining consensus. So, if national interest deviates from mandate, if there is a problem in the course of the mission, some one organization must be there to make the recommendations in order to keep the unity of effort on the ground, and for now that is the Security Council. There is a big growth in the number of NGOs operating and the leader of the mission must work effectively with NGOs. The NGOs are important: they report to head officers and these go to the politicians. What they say has an impact on UN operations. In recent history when the military intervened, often there was already a strong NGO presence. Interface with NGOs depends on the security situation. If things got bad, the NGOs felt they were doing their job but the environment become unsafe. When the military arrives, the NGOs may feel as though they are being pushed aside. Some don't want you around yet still want you to protect them if something happens. If you know why they exist, then you can answer their need. If their need is answered, then they will be supportive of you. But know that you are not dealing with a cohesive group. When arriving in a mission, as a coordination mechanism, talk with the UN organizations for not only military purposes, but also humanitarian. For example, decide to de-mine a playground needed for children for the humanitarian purpose-- here lies potential for you to win hearts and minds. Have a meeting of coordinators of the various activities that must be done. It is better to have them all on board. Cultural differences are a big thing. For example, reporting everything is a western ideal, whereas, in some cultures, you don't report bad news. Language misunderstandings are enormous -- the same word has different meanings in different 'English' languages. The commander has to be aware, to be careful in use of words, to communicate wishes understandably and to be culturally sensitive to different nuances in language. An Asian should be able to command a European, and vice-versa, as long as they are culturally sensitive. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) pose challenges through the expectations they have of you. In some missions they are the most important component but they are always key players, yet they may not want to see you at all. In East Timor, the CIMIC depended on the NGOs for maps. Fully expect NGOs are informed. They will bring biases and interests. They are a complex community where no one is in charge. It is critical to the mission to do the absolute best to provide security for them to operate. Different environments require different leadership skills. For example, when we sent a combat ready force to a peacekeeping mission, we found out that there was no combat situation. Instead, the need was for diplomatic skills -- a catholic priest, a liaison to a UN commissioner -- and also civilian knowledge for determining the best use of supplies, water management, etc. The commander proposed a weekly meeting to include catholic priests, nuns, UN commissioner, local leaders and so on. That's the type of leadership that was necessary. Nations don't like to share intelligence or even information. The mission cannot be successful if we don't do this aspect well. If you're going to cooperate, you have to be willing to share intelligence. Arrangements need to be made so that two or three nations that will cooperate and assist each other. The press will get its story, whether or not you help them. A big problem with many civilians is no experience working with the military. On the other hand, the military are a fighting force, and will have no experience in peace keeping and nation building. Experience is an important teacher, when speaking of the type of leadership needed. My country took this approach. We received good advice from elders and from Vietnam veterans about civilians and military local leaders. III. Selection and Training Selection of the right individual is paramount. Part of the selection criteria is the suitability of the person for a particular job, including temperament. Many people can be trained but training should really focus on developing character skills. One way to success is to appoint based on performance and not set procedures. Managers are interested in doing things the right way. Leaders are interested in doing the right thing. This requires good moral character. The pressures of leadership are far higher in complex solutions than they would be in other situations. You must understand and select people with sufficient level of leadership skills and styles. True, there are various styles of leadership and the situation on the ground determines which one you employ. That is the reason that some people fail, particularly if you are prone to adopting an authoritarian military style, which may not produce the desired results. Therefore, if you only depend on the statutes and on the structure you may not be successful. For some countries, the selection, education and training process is derived from very specific, and sometimes quite traumatic, experiences in the field. This results in improved selection, because the moral conduct of recruits is much more significant. Key issues in leadership include:
Essential qualities for successful command include:
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