Occupations, Cultures, and Leadership in the Army and Air Force

Abstract

Most discussions of culture in the military services concern the relationship between military and civilian culture. Comparatively less interest has been shown in the cultural differences among the military services themselves, although there is considerable informal and anecdotal (often humorous) discussion of such differences within the services. In his 1989 book, The Masks of War, Carl Builder focused on personality differences among the services, and discussed the implications of those differences for defense policy. (1) C. Kenneth Allard offered an insightful look at service culture in his thorough analysis of the past and future of jointness in our defense establishment. (2) In the United States, the relatively recent separation of the Air Force from the Army, coupled with the rapid rise of the Air Force as a powerful, independent institution since World War II, offers a unique opportunity to explore the organizational cultures of these two services, and to better understand the implications of culture on leadership styles in each of the services. Institutional and Occupational Orientations One important dimension on which organizational cultures may be differentiated is the extent to which they are characterized by an institutional as opposed to an occupational orientation. The institutional orientation is conceptualized as rooted in a calling to serve higher ideals represented by a shared vision of an organization, rather than in individual self-interest. The individual with an occupational orientation, on the other hand, approaches his or her work as a job, to be retained or abandoned based largely (though perhaps not solely) on a calculus of self-interest. Charles Moskos warned many years ago that the then-imminent advent of the all-volunteer force brought with it the potential for a shift from an institutional to an occupational model in the military services. (3) Nearly 40 years later, many of the institutional features of military service described by Moskos, including such basic features as the compensation structure and paternalistic culture, would seem to be largely intact. Trade unions have made no inroads into the military in America (as they have elsewhere), and reliance on civilian contractors has continued, perhaps grown, with no apparent erosion of the traditional institutional character of the military services. There is, nevertheless, a growing conviction among some that military service is less likely to be conceptualized as a calling today than has been the case in the past, though Andrew Abbott argues that this trend is apparent in all professions. (4) This discussion of institutional and occupational tendencies within military cultures has struck an especially resonant chord in the Air Force. James Smith, Mike Thirtle, and William Thomas each see occupationalism as contributing to centrifugal forces within the Air Force that potentially threaten cultural identity, individual commitment, unity, and cohesion by fostering identification with specialized occupation-oriented sub-groups, rather than with a shared vision of Air Force identity and values. (5) This occupational orientation may be a significant factor in differentiating Air Force culture from that of the other services. Occupations Affect More than Commitment Another dimension of service culture influenced by occupational orientation was suggested to me recently by a senior staff officer from the military establishment of a European country with whom I was working. He was describing the challenges inherent in joint staff work. An Army officer himself, he observed that senior Air Force officers on joint staffs, who are almost exclusively pilots, seemed to him to manage and absorb information in ways that reflected their occupational training as pilots. In dealing with complex information from different sources, evaluating and balancing conflicting information, some Air Force officers in staff assignments, he thought, tend to discount inputs not easily and readily assimilated into a pre-existing or rapidly developing schema. …