Inexperienced Leaders Research Articles

To Be Experienced or Not? Unpacking the Relationship between Leader Tenure and Counterinsurgency Efforts

ABSTRACT Although countering insurgencies through violence is common yet costly, we occasionally observe governments take this cost by adopting non-violent strategies. Hence, under what circumstances do leaders choose non-violent or violent ones in tackling with insurgencies? We empirically investigate how leader experience in office affects what type of counterinsurgency measures leaders employ, and how domestic political constraints condition the decision-making process. We argue that inexperienced leaders tend to use violence, while experienced ones may adopt conciliatory tactics, as the former are more risk prone to prove their strong leadership immediately. However, we also contend that institutional mechanisms could moderate this effect depending on the level of constraints they impose. Drawing on Asal et al. dataset on governments’ counterinsurgency activities, we find that inexperienced leaders are more likely to resort to violence as a counterinsurgency strategy; whereas experienced ones are more likely to avoid solely violent measures, and adopt non-violent ones, as well. Plus, the effect is conditional on regime type, as experienced leaders’ acts vary depending on if they maintain a sear in a democratic or anocratic regime. Our findings contribute to the conflict studies by opening the door to the examination of leader-level factors on counterinsurgency more explicitly.

CHALLENGES OF FEMALE PRINCIPALS IN MADRASAH LEADERSHIP IN BANDA ACEH: A GENDER ANALYSIS

Women's leadership is gaining more recognition in the public eye, particularly in professional leadership roles within educational institutions. Despite facing challenges such as seniority, local customs, and societal perceptions, these obstacles do not deter women from their leadership roles in educational institutions. In fact, they strive to create better opportunities for future leadership. The challenges faced by female school principals are often influenced by the prevailing patriarchal culture in society and community life. This research employs a qualitative method with a gender analysis approach. The findings reveal that challenges related to seniority and local customs are dominant issues for female school principals in Aceh. Seniority comes into play when younger school principals are perceived as inexperienced leaders by their senior counterparts, even if they possess the necessary competencies for the role. On the other hand, local customs are influenced by the presence of teachers who are local residents in the school. Additionally, dealing with policy dualism in private schools and collaboration with committees presents straightforward challenges for school principals, influenced by the research location, student backgrounds, and school status. The strategies offered by school principals involve continuous engagement, fostering better collaboration, and early consultation with relevant stakeholders. These efforts have helped ease tensions and lead to more effective solutions for overcoming these challenges.

Purging to Transform the Post-Colonial State: Evidence From the 1952 Egyptian Revolution

The post-WWII era saw junior military officers launch revolutionary coups in a number of post-colonial states. How did these events transform colonial-era state elites? We theorize that the inexperienced leaders of revolutionary coups had to choose between purging threats and delivering ambitious projects of state-led transformation, leading to a threat-competence calculation that patterned elite turnover. To illustrate our argument, we trace the careers of 674 high-ranking officials in Egypt following the Free Officers’ seizure of power in July 1952. A multilevel survival analysis shows that officials connected to Egypt’s deposed monarch and very senior officials were most vulnerable to being purged. Experienced bureaucrats and those with university education were more likely to be retained. This threat-competence calculation also informed which ministries experienced more purging. Qualitative triangulation with biographies, memoirs, newspaper reports, and speeches corroborates the mechanism. The findings show why radical state-led change often requires a degree of elite-level continuity.

Far Forward Behavioral Health Service Delivery in Future Combat Environments: A Qualitative Needs Assessment.

It is expected that future multi-domain operational (MDO) combat environments will be characterized by limited capabilities for immediate combat stress control support services for soldiers or immediate evacuation from theater. The operational requirements of the future battlefield make it unlikely that current models for behavioral health (BH) treatment could be implemented without significant adjustments. We conducted a qualitative study with Special Forces medics and operators and soldiers who had deployed to austere conditions in small groups in an effort to inform construction of a BH service delivery model for an MDO environment. The objectives of this study were (1) characterizing stressors and BH issues that were encountered and (2) describing mitigation strategies and resources that were useful or needed in these types of deployments. Six focus groups were conducted at three army installations with 23 active duty soldiers, including three groups of medics using a semi-structured interview guide focused on stressors they encountered during deployments to austere conditions, and the impact of those stressors on mission and focus. Focus group recordings were transcribed, imported into NVivo software (version 12), and independently coded by two researchers. An analysis was then conducted to develop themes across participants. The study was reviewed by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research Human Subjects Protection Board. Behavioral health concerns were commonly cited as a stressor in far forward environments. Other common stressors included ineffective or inexperienced leaders, as well as poor team dynamics (e.g., communication and cohesion). Four primary strategies were mentioned as mitigations for deployment stressors: leadership, morale, resilience training, and strength of the team. When asked about resources or training that would have helped with these types of deployments, participants frequently mentioned the availability of BH providers and development of new and realistic BH skills trainings for non-providers and leaders. Current models for treating BH problems need to be adapted for the future MDO environments in which soldiers will be expected to deploy. Understanding what issues need to be addressed in these environments and how they can best be delivered is an important first step. This study is the first to use qualitative results from those who have already deployed to such environments to describe the stressors and BH issues that were most commonly encountered, the mitigation strategies used, and the resources that were useful or needed.

Immature leadership: Donald Trump and the American presidency

Abstract There has been a renaissance in the study of how the backgrounds of individual leaders affect foreign policy outcomes. Donald Trump's presidency highlights the limits of this approach. Trump's psychology is so unique, and so akin to that of a small child, that studying his background alone is insufficient to explain his decision-making. The evidence for this characterization of Trump's leadership comes not from his political opponents, but his allies, staffers and subordinates. Trump's lack of impulse control, short attention span and frequent temper tantrums have all undercut his effectiveness as president as compared to his predecessors. Nonetheless, the 45th president helps to clarify ongoing debates in American politics about the relative strength of the presidency as an institution. In particular, the powers of the presidency have become so enhanced that even comparatively weak and inexperienced leaders can execute dramatic policy shifts. The formal checks on presidential power, from the legislative, judicial and executive branches have all eroded. Similarly, the informal checks on the presidency had also degraded before Trump's inauguration. This article uses Trump's presidency—and his severe limitations as a decision-maker—to highlight the ways in which even a weak leader can affect change by holding a powerful office.

Soldiers and Leaders With Combat Experience: Unit Health and Climate

Objective: The present study investigated the association between previous deployment experience and somatic symptoms, mental health, unit climate perceptions, anger, and risk taking among junior-enlisted soldiers who were preparing to deploy or who were in garrison, or home duty station. The study also investigated potential differences in these variables based on unit leader deployment history. Method: Soldiers in a combat unit were surveyed either in a predeployment (n = 1,554; one week before deployment) or garrison setting (n = 1,326). Surveys addressed deployment history, health, unit climate, and leader deployment history. Results: Those in the predeployment sample with deployment history had significantly more somatic symptoms, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), sleep problems, and anger reactions, and significantly less favorable unit climate perceptions, compared to those without deployment history. Higher rates of sleep problems, anger reactions, and endorsement of a risk-taking item, along with less favorable unit climate perceptions, were also reported by experienced soldiers in the garrison sample. In both samples, soldiers with experienced leaders endorsed more risk-taking behaviors than those with inexperienced leaders. Predeployment soldiers with experienced leaders also reported higher unit cohesion than those with inexperienced leaders. Conclusions: Previous deployments appear to increase the risk for a range of outcomes reported by soldiers at predeployment and in garrison. Findings suggest the impact of deployment should be considered well beyond the traditional deployment phases. Future research should examine what experienced leaders bring to units, in terms of boosting cohesion and potentially increasing the willingness of unit members to engage in risk-taking behaviors.

Power in Local Russian Communities: Patterns of Interaction Between Legislative and Executive Branches of Local Government

Using data collected in seven local Russian communities in 2011–2015, we discovered several kinds of relationships between legislative and executive branches of local government. In most cases, the executive branches clearly dominate over the legislative ones. The ratio of resources and the politics of federal and regional authorities allow us to consider this pattern of relationship as a norm, while other types of relationships are exceptions. Configurations of power resources and instruments of influence used to exercise control over the legislative bodies significantly vary and provide different variations of local government interactions: “domination based on coercion,” “bargaining from the position of strength,” “domination based on persuasion,” “domination under confrontation.” Alternative forms of relationships (“quasi-domination of local legislature,” “temporary parity under confrontation,” “alliance in the face of ‘external threat’”) occur when the executive bodies are headed by inadequate and/or inexperienced leaders unable to realize the high power potential of their position. This reflects the important role of personalism and the relative weakness of the institutional framework in Russia’s urban politics.

Trauma team leaders' non-verbal communication: video registration during trauma team training.

BackgroundThere is widespread consensus on the importance of safe and secure communication in healthcare, especially in trauma care where time is a limiting factor. Although non-verbal communication has an impact on communication between individuals, there is only limited knowledge of how trauma team leaders communicate. The purpose of this study was to investigate how trauma team members are positioned in the emergency room, and how leaders communicate in terms of gaze direction, vocal nuances, and gestures during trauma team training.MethodsEighteen trauma teams were audio and video recorded during trauma team training in the emergency department of a hospital in northern Sweden. Quantitative content analysis was used to categorize the team members’ positions and the leaders’ non-verbal communication: gaze direction, vocal nuances, and gestures. The quantitative data were interpreted in relation to the specific context. Time sequences of the leaders’ gaze direction, speech time, and gestures were identified separately and registered as time (seconds) and proportions (%) of the total training time.ResultsThe team leaders who gained control over the most important area in the emergency room, the “inner circle”, positioned themselves as heads over the team, using gaze direction, gestures, vocal nuances, and verbal commands that solidified their verbal message. Changes in position required both attention and collaboration. Leaders who spoke in a hesitant voice, or were silent, expressed ambiguity in their non-verbal communication: and other team members took over the leader’s tasks.DiscussionIn teams where the leader had control over the inner circle, the members seemed to have an awareness of each other’s roles and tasks, knowing when in time and where in space these tasks needed to be executed. Deviations in the leaders’ communication increased the ambiguity in the communication, which had consequences for the teamwork. Communication cannot be taken for granted; it needs to be practiced regularly just as technical skills need to be trained. Simulation training provides healthcare professionals the opportunity to put both verbal and non-verbal communication in focus, in order to improve patient safety.ConclusionsNon-verbal communication plays a decisive role in the interaction between the trauma team members, and so both verbal and non-verbal communication should be in focus in trauma team training. This is even more important for inexperienced leaders, since vague non-verbal communication reinforces ambiguity and can lead to errors.

Elections 2.0

The federal election in August 2010 was distinctive for several reasons: following bitter internal spills two relatively inexperienced leaders led the two major parties into the election; the Greens emerged as a major political force on the national stage; and the cliffhanger on election night resulted in the first hung Parliament since 1940. Following Rob Oakeshott's interminable 17 minute speech, Julia Gillard and the Labor Party were able to form government. It was also Australia's first federal election that really did play out on the internet. Indeed, in some ways the commentary on blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter became the Fifth Estate, in that it kept a critical eye on both the politicians as well as the establishment media of the Fourth Estate.

Five years on: leadership challenges of an experienced CEO

Experienced leaders face challenges that demand different leadership approaches to those of inexperienced leaders. The purposes of this article are to: (1) explore the leadership initiatives prominent for experienced leaders compared with inexperienced leaders; (2) examine the relationship between transformational leadership and these initiatives; and (3) enhance the transformational model by examining it in terms of instructional leadership and the three meta dimensions of mission-centred, performance-centred, and culture-centred leadership in relation to the key initiatives. The contributions of principal leadership to innovative workplace outcomes and the implications of these findings for research and practice are also examined.

Attracting Trouble

Otherwise powerful, formidable democracies are tempting targets for international violence because they have leaders who, on average, have been in office for shorter periods of time than leaders of autocracies. Domestic incentives may make resistance more costly than offering concessions for inexperienced leaders of both democratic and authoritarian states. Over time, however, resistance may become domestically less costly, causing experienced leaders to be more likely to prefer resistance. Anticipating this response, potential challengers may be more likely to target inexperienced leaders. Because democracies generally have high rates of leadership turnover, they are tempting targets for international violence. Statistical analysis of crisis initiation between 1918 and 1992 confirms the perception that democracies are more likely to be targets of militarized challenges. Results are also consistent with the proposition that the relatively short tenure in office served by democratic leaders helps to account for the observed pattern of democratic attraction of foreign challenges.

Effects of social facilitation for locating feeding sites by cattle in an eight-arm radial maze

A study was conducted in an eight-arm radial maze to determine if cattle with various foraging experiences could facilitate location of feeding sites by other cattle. Heifers assigned as “followers” ( n=24) were initially trained to expect straw at the end of each arm. Initial training of heifers assigned as “leaders” ( n=12) differed based on the three following treatments:(1) no-experience, (2) barley in the same two arms, and (3) barley in two arms but locations changed daily. During training, leaders with barley in fixed locations foraged more efficiently by traveling to fewer ( P<0.05) arm ends to find barley than leaders in the variable treatment. After training, two followers were placed in the maze with a leader, and barley was available in two arms. Leaders facilitated the location of barley by followers. In 61% of the occasions that followers first found barley, leaders were at the feeding site. Eighty-one percent of followers later located barley without leaders in the maze. Followers with experienced leaders did not find barley consistently more often than heifers with inexperienced leaders. Cattle can apparently learn feeding site locations from other animals, but additional research is needed to evaluate the behavioral mechanisms that influence social facilitation during foraging.

A Test of Situational Engineering for Training Leaders

A leadership development program was conducted with a sample of 96 leaders to investigate the contributions of the Contingency Model's assumptions in determining leadership effectiveness. Subjects received one of three treatments: A training program based on the Contingency Model (i.e., the Leader Match program of Fiedler, Chemers, and Mahar), a training program similar to Leader Match but omitting any discussion of leadership style, and a no-training control group. Leaders receiving Leader Match showed evidence of using its Situational Engineering techniques for making changes in the leadership context, but no significant improvement in performance ratings was found. It is suggested that Situational Engineering techniques be considered only for those trainees who have the opportunity to best make use of them and that new or inexperienced leaders may benefit the most from this type of training.

Inspector General Sylvester Churchill's Efforts to Produce a New Army Drill Manual, 1850-1862

An ARMY without FIELD MANUALS, bulletins, and circulars is almost unthinkable to those of us in die twentieth century with some form of military experience. These publications are die sources ofthe doctrineand the guidance necessary to train quickly the officers and soldiers ofany new or growing force. The magnitude of the problem faced by the federal government at the opening ofdie Civil War is made even more acute when it is realized that no such doctrinal base was available in 1861. Quantities of literature concerning the battles and personalities of the American Civil War have been produced with the result that few Americans have not heard of Shiloh and Gettysburg or Lee and Grant. The impression rendered is that diese vast forces somehow miraculously materialized when the need for them arose. Little reference has been made to the problems encountered in making them a viable force. These problems were particularly serious in the area of training. There was no standardized doctrine with accompanying official publications available to assist the inexperienced leaders as they tried to organize and drill their gathering hordes of enthusiastic volunteers. There were several semiofficial manuals, printed by private firms, such as those written by Winfield Scott or William J. Hardee.1 These were frequently out ofdate and often fundamentally different when prescribing critical moves. Furthermore, there was no requirement tiiat a commanding officer adopt their use ifhe felt he knew of a better drill. The potential for chaos in drill, and, consequently, on the battlefield is obvious.