Abstract
The Irish Defence Forces Leadership Doctrine emphasises the need for lifelong study and experiential learning, and the Defence Forces have considerable experience in managing oral history projects, including the Bureau of Military History and the Military Archives Oral History Projects. However, Irish doctrine does not outline any formal method to capture these experiences as a leadership development tool or to enhance organisational memory. The aim of this paper is to examine the value of utilising oral history for leadership development and organisational memory. It demonstrates that there is a risk to organisational memory unless a formal methodology is in place to capture the experiences of Defence Forces members and connected personnel. The use of tacit knowledge, which has facilitated the handover of information to date, is not sufficient nor is the written record alone. This paper shows that a combination of multiple primary sources, including the written record and oral history, provides an opportunity to enhance leadership development. It also demonstrates that the use of oral history provides an opportunity to capture the social and human aspect of Defence Forces activities to not only enhance organisational memory but to understand the context within which decisions were made.
Highlights
Official written records can provide detailed accounts of events through the use of unit histories, patrol reports and communications logs, but the ‘how’ and ‘why’ units have adapted to changing circumstances is often missed
The purpose of this article is to evaluate the role of Oral History in enhancing Defence Forces leadership development and organisational memory
The use of an Oral History collection provides a significant opportunity for the Defence Forces to utilise the experiences of others and to enhance organisational memory, drawing on its own experience of managing Oral History projects alongside the facilities and expertise available at the Military Archives
Summary
The introduction above outlined the centrality of the experience of over sixty years of operations overseas in Defence Forces Doctrine, and the Defence Forces’ experience in managing both medium and large-scale Oral History projects. Central to the framework upon which leadership is based is the character and competence of leaders within the Defence Forces, underpinned by six values: respect, loyalty, selflessness, physical courage, moral courage and integrity. It was designed ‘as a single framework for leadership development’ which aims to assist ‘self-development and training establishments [who] can use it to educate’ by way of developing, influencing, achieving and evaluating in order to achieve ‘mission success’(DFLD, 2016, p. Character and competence and a mission command philosophy, the Defence Forces has ‘four essential actions or outcomes in what the leader does in the leadership process: influencing, developing, evaluating and achieving (IDEA)’ The Defence Forces Leadership Doctrine lists a number of sources for leadership development:
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
