Strategic Organization and Leadership

Organizational and Strategic Leadership

Compare and Contrast

Steven A. Kieler

21 March 2010

The future of the Army; how we fight, structure, organization, weapons systems and capabilities, budget, health and welfare programs for service members and their families, and much more is the direct responsibility of its strategic and organizational leadership. “The responsibility to determine how our Army fights the next war lies with today’s Army leaders, especially those at the organizational and strategic levels.” The difference in duties, obligations, responsibilities, leadership scope, and political intricacies between these two senior levels of leadership can be vast in contrast but at the same time share many similarities. In the WWII historical fiction “No Less Than Victory” by Jeff Shaara, General Eisenhower in late 1944, then Supreme Allied Commander of forces in Europe and just received his fifth star, stated “I don’t command troops, I command situations.” Essentially, this is truly the mantra of strategic leaders throughout the military and in some aspects applies also to higher level organizational leaders.

As supreme allied commander Eisenhower was responsible for hundreds of thousands of allied troops and hundreds tons of vehicles, equipment and supplies, and strategically he was responsible for the allied victory in WWII. He was a strategic leader. Lieutenant General George Patton in late 1944 commanded the US Third Army (today would probably be considered a strategic leadership position) and was ordered by Eisenhower to maneuver his forces to defend against the massive German offensive in the Ardennes, later to be known as the “Battle of the Bulge.” Like Eisenhower, he also was responsible for hundreds of thousands of troops, vehicles and equipment and although his decisions and actions throughout WWII had significant strategic affect and impact, sometimes negative, he was truly an organizational leader then, sometimes infamously...