Strategic Leadership Competencies

Abstract

Abstract : The strategic leadership literature in both the academic and military contexts is replete with long lists of the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed by strategic leaders of the future. Unfortunately, long comprehensive lists are problematic. At the individual level, it is difficult to assess one s leadership ability when the lists suggest that a strategic leader must Be, Know, and Do just about everything. At the institutional level, the long lists make it difficult to focus an institution s attention and resources on leader development when the desired endstate is so broad. Hence, the task of identifying the competencies of future strategic leaders becomes one of reducing the lists to a few metacompetencies that will prove useful in: a) directing leader development efforts in the process of producing leaders with strategic leader capability, and b) facilitating self-assessment by officers of their strategic leader capability. Looking across the existing literature on strategic leadership, the current lists of Army strategic leader competencies, and the future environment of the Objective Force, six metacompetencies can be derived: identity, mental agility, cross-cultural savvy, interpersonal maturity, world-class warrior, and professional astuteness. These metacompetencies describe the strategic leadership necessary for the future Army.