Free Leadership Training the Army Way

I went to school at a "land grant" university that happened to be a Federal Depository Library. One whole floor of the library had just about every scrap of paper you could imagine that the Federal Government had printed (well, some of it was on microfilm, but still). Being something of a book junkie, I spent a good bit of time in the library and I spent some time exploring the repository. As you might expect, a lot of the material there is from the military, including the Army and other military branches. For example, one day I learned how to make spaghetti for 400 people in an Army cookbook.

Some freely available government documents are more practical. The Government Publishing Office makes many documents available for free or at a low cost. The Foreign Service Institute (part of the State Department) has useful language training classes. The Army provides a wealth of training to soldiers and much of that is available to the general public. For example, TM 5-693 explains uninterruptible power supplies and how to employ them which might be useful if you are building a data center.

If there is one thing the Army knows it is people, and perhaps more importantly that hard-to-define skill known as leadership. Most of us probably see leadership the way Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart saw pornography ("I know it when I see it..."). However, the Army has put many man years into understanding, defining, and teaching leadership.

So how does the Army define leadership? FM-22-100 says: "Leadership is influencing people-by providing purpose, direction, and motivation-while operating to accomplish the mission and improving the organization." By that definition, who doesn't want to be a leader? Leadership skills are useful to everyone, not just soldiers!

But a definition is only part of the puzzle. You can influence people in many ways, and not all of them are positive! How many people can you think of in your life that you actively seek not to be like? But FM-22-100 goes on to summarize the Army's leadership strategy as "BE-KNOW-DO." Which means:

The BE reminds you of the importance of character in leadership. Lead others by example of your character.

KNOW represents the knowledge of a leader. This includes knowledge of interpersonal skills as well as job-specific skills.

The DO part of the equation is the action: influencing others, getting the job done, and constant improvement in all areas.

I think the last part of DO is particularly. There is no end point on the road to leadership. Character and knowledge should always be evolving (and hopefully growing). We can always find ways to improve our execution (the DO part of the job). I've rarely seen a content leader. Successful leaders challenge themselves, and thus inspire the people they lead to excel.

Another useful read is FM-101-5 which covers Army Staff Officers. FM-100-5 tells us that a staff officer needs the same leadership traits mentioned in FM-22-100. In addition, it provides this handy list of desirable traits: competence, initiative and judgment, creativity, flexibility, confidence, loyalty, a team player, an effective manager, and an effective communicator.

Sure, that's a great list for a staff officer, but really it is a great list for just about anybody! Don't you want to work with people who exhibit those traits?

So can spend money on books about leadership or you can even take a class on leadership skills. Or you can just browse the government (and the Army's bookshelves) and get a great education in leadership training and development for free.

Because many government publications are public domain, there are lots of outfits on the web that sell these documents (presumably to defray the cost of the CDROM, shipping, or the network bandwidth). But if you snoop around, you can usually find copies on line for free. For example, the language courses I mentioned earlier are available for free at this web site, or you can buy them at several other web sites for hundreds of dollars! The Army makes some material available online to the public. Others are available on several third-party sites. Of course, if you prefer real paper books, you can always check out the GPO bookstore to see what's available courtesy of Uncle Sam.

Everyone can benefit from honing their leadership skills, and who knows more about leadership than the Army? Your tax dollars are paying for these materials, you might as well take advantage!