Air University Review, September-October 1983

Leadership and Management

a balanced model of officership

The simple statement "you manage things, but you lead people" has received much attention among Air Force officers who are studying their profession.¹ The simplicity of the statement conveys an appealing message to people in search of stability and identity in a complex and changing military environment. But as a prescription or model of behavior for Air Force officers, it is reminiscent of the old home remedy, "starve a fever, feed a cold." It may have an element of truth, but it is essentially misleading and, possibly even dangerous.

It is misleading because it promotes the idea that leadership can function without management and vice versa. Even worse, it glorifies leadership and denigrates management. What ambitious young officer, after hearing this homily, would ever seek duty in a management position? Perhaps the real danger in this simplistic solution to the problems of professionalism is that it sidetracks serious discussion about officership and adds another potentially divisive issue to an officer corps already struggling with such divided loyalties as operations versus maintenance, line versus staff, rated versus nonrated, pilot versus navigator, fighter pilot versus multiengine type, etc. Surely, the officer corps can do without creating a division between leaders and managers. Furthermore, the idea that people are led and things are managed in no way clarifies the roles and requirements of officers— it suggests nothing about the nature of officership.

Why, then, is the statement receiving such attention? Is there truly a schism between good leaders and effective managers? Is officership one or the other, or is there a model of Air Force officership that integrates leadership and management in a practical prescription of behavior? These basic questions are addressed in this article. The thesis is that leadership and management are deeply interrelated concepts and that both are vital elements of sound officership. If leadership stems from the heart and management from the mind, then I suggest that mindless leadership is as detrimental as heartless management. In other words, the Air Force must have leaders who can manage (i.e., make decisions and evaluate the cost of human effort) and managers who can lead (i.e., motivate people and understand their needs). Therefore, the Air Force should not seek to separate these concepts or concentrate on one at the expense of the other.

Current Views of
Air Force Leadership

Traditional views of the officer as a gentleman, a leader of men, and a master of the art of war have been well stated in the works of S. L. A. Marshall and Samuel Huntington.² Their views have been shaped largely by the history and traditions of the Army in combat, and they strongly promote such qualities as loyalty, bravery, initiative, and concern for the welfare of the soldier. But, as noted more recently by such analysts as Morris Janowitz, Charles Moskos, Frank Margiotta, and Sam Sarkesian, the combined impact of the technological explosion, the simmering cold war with its political ramifications for the military, and the nation’s changing social values has added new dimensions to the officer’s role. The most important dimension is the need for effective management of the complex military organization.³

Much current interest about the nature of officership focuses on the changing roles of officers and the environment in which they must perform. Traditional views have come under intense questioning by the officer corps itself as concepts of leadership and professionalism become increasingly more difficult to apply in the highly technical, specialized, and centrally controlled modern military establishment. Present conditions demand definitions of officership oriented toward greater reliance on managerial skills and management tools to aid in decision-making.

Air Force General Bennie Davis has defined officership as a blend of leadership, management, and professionalism.⁴ Although this definition recognizes the basic ingredients of officership, it does not clarify the meanings of complex subordinate concepts or provide a guide to establish the proper mix. These are precisely the issues that are questioned and debated by Air Force officers seeking lasting values and strong identities in trying times.

Recently, the search has seemingly taken the form of a crusade to reinstate the traditional view of the officer as first and foremost a leader. Large doses of leadership education are now prescribed for officer precommissioning programs and professional military schools where only a few years ago, leadership emphasis was either implied or developed in blocks of curricula labeled "management."⁵ Senior commanders frequently address gatherings of officers and cadets on the need for more leadership. Certainly, the schools and commanders are correct in stressing military leadership, but in their efforts they have drawn, intentionally or not, clear distinctions between leadership and management.

The line of argument pursued by senior Air Force officers and developed in professional military education polarizes the officer corps into people who lead and people who manage. Such sentiments as "we’re spending too much time being managers and too little time being leaders"⁶ and "you manage things, but lead people" make it clear that the Air Force apparently prefers leaders to managers. One Air Force general refers to management as "a system of bookkeeping that is primarily concerned with statistics."⁷ Another general contends that "the leader evaluates information, makes appropriate decisions, and directs and controls the execution of decisions,"⁸ which to officers trained in management theory strongly hints of effective management. It is as though the word management has been stricken from the officers’ professional glossary. One wonders whether the blend of leadership and management in General Davis’s definition has lost its balance. In any event, the coupling of these loud and clear demands for more leadership and less management with vague definitions of the terms creates confusion and misunderstanding among members of the officer corps who face real problems in the Air Force.

The demands on Air Force officers are perhaps greater today than at any other time in Air Force history. Technology has always been the basic ingredient in the Air Force mission, but the explosive growth of and reliance on scientific breakthroughs in weaponry and support systems in the last twenty years have created new sources of stress on traditional concepts of officership. For one thing, the Air Force now requires technical experts in narrow fields of specialization often far removed from "the management of violence."⁹ The high state of technology and the political ramifications of applying military force in the current international environment make it not only possible but necessary to exercise increasingly centralized control over military operations at all levels. The result has been the growth of scalar organizations with large functional staffs and less direct authority available to line officers at any level. For the officer corps, this has required greater reliance on technical competence, the ability to influence others, and mastery of bureaucratic politicking, all of which run counter to traditional concepts of officership.

Another vexing problem for the Air Force has been the all-volunteer concept, which forces the military to compete in the civilian job market for skilled people and to adopt unique motivational techniques to retain these people. In some instances, the all-volunteer force has raised the specters of "occupationalism" and "careerism" instead of traditional "service to country" as primary motivators for professionalism.¹⁰ For the officer corps, it has certainly meant an often frustrating increase in new "people" problems that do not respond well to traditional military discipline and authoritarian styles of motivation.

Finally, changing social values external to the Air Force have generated a number of problems for its officers. The greatly enlarged roles and numbers of women in the Air Force have placed tremendous administrative and psychological strains on the entire organization. Minority issues generate new demands on the morale, welfare, and personnel support systems. Drug and alcohol abuse problems coupled with critical manpower needs require innovative responses from command authority. And issues of "single parents" and "married members" have compelled the Air Force to reexamine its concepts of combat readiness and personnel assignment policies. All of these issues are alien and threatening to the traditionalist view of the officer, for they not only require officers to exercise greater innovation, flexibility, sensitivity, and self-control, but also undercut traditional beliefs about professional officership. These issues have, in fact, sent officers casting about for new models of officership.

Current definitions of officership in response to the complex problems already outlined stress leadership as the answer and imply that management is part of the problem. Two current models of officership seem to have won general acceptance in the military community. The model reflected in the statement about leading people and managing things holds that officership is leadership and that management is a tool used in dealing with nonhuman resources. If this model accepts the management role of the officer at all, it does so reluctantly and relegates it to a subordinate concern. This model perceives management as a method of obtaining the necessary authorizations of manpower, funds, and supplies for people to use while the officer leads them in accomplishing the mission. In this sense, managing is seen as a dirty job, to be performed by someone else if possible. This model sums up the frustrations of the officer corps in trying to do its professional best in a technologically complex, centrally controlled, bureaucratically organized environment.

Another model accepts management as an aspect of the officer’s role but places management at one end of a spectrum of officer behaviors and leadership at the other end. It is expressed in General Davis’s statement, "We have drifted too far toward management.^"11 This model recognizes that pure leadership is a theoretical extreme for a military organization, but it views management as a pragmatic extreme at the other end of the spectrum. The leadership extreme is overly concerned with people, but the extreme of management is devoid of human concern altogether. Thus, too much leadership is a problem of striving for an unreachable ideal, but too much management reflects a lack of idealism. Somewhere in the middle lies the proper relationship of idealism and pragmatism that an officer must apply if he expects to motivate his subordinates and accomplish the mission.

Is either of these models valid? Do they provide effective guides for officers in developing practical leadership and management roles? I contend that much recent research and theory in both leadership and management contradict these current views of professional officership.

New Views of
Leadership and Management

Theories of leadership and management over the past thirty years suggest a unified concept that makes it increasingly difficult to determine where leadership ends and management begins. The difficulty results from the combination of behavioral research into group dynamics, which has replaced academic assumptions or raw speculation with empirical data on the exercise of leadership, and a systems approach to the analysis of organizations, which focuses on processes and outcomes. Behavioral studies have confirmed the interdependence of the leader, the followers, and the situation in the successful attainment of group goals.¹² Organizational systems theory, on the other hand, has offered the view that management is a process that cuts through every level and subsystem of organized activity and, in essence, provides the glue that holds the organization together.¹³ Side by side, behavioral research into leadership and systems theories of management highlight the overlapping concerns of motivating human endeavor to achieve collective goals.

On the leadership side, behavioral studies have transformed the subject from a mystical set of qualities possessed by select individuals to a recognizable process of group dynamics. Beginning with studies at Ohio State University in the early l950s, researchers have made rapid progress in identifying the major behavioral patterns applied by leaders.¹⁴ By isolating a number of significant variables in the group process, social scientists have determined that leadership is a function of the leader’s behavior, the makeup of the group and the nature of the situation or problem confronting the group. Perhaps the most important finding has been that the two dominant patterns of a leader’s behavior— initiating structure and consideration—depend on the specific task and the group’s motivation/maturity level.¹⁵ In his dual concern for people and mission, the leader must achieve a dynamic balance between situational and interpersonal factors.

For all the research and behavioral analyses, there is still much confusion over the definition of leadership and its practice. Prebehavioral definitions of leadership have been limited by an apparent lack of rules in exercising leadership, and they have generally been reduced to such statements as "the art of influencing people to progress with cooperation and enthusiasm toward the accomplishment of a mission."¹⁶ Although this approach conveys the important idea that leadership is concerned with producing desired objective results and creating positive mental conditions among followers, it is really too broad to offer much practical value. On the other hand, strict behavioral definitions, such as "the initiation of structure in expectation and interaction"¹⁷ may be too narrow. Between these two extremes are definitions that focus on the leadership process. Even though "the process of influencing human behavior so as to accomplish the goals . . ."¹⁸ may appear as fuzzy as the earlier definition of leadership, the importance of this approach is that it identifies leadership as a process that can be observed and analyzed and that effective leadership follows certain rules and procedures.

Leadership as a process that focuses human effort on the accomplishment of organizational objectives is an important distinction for several reasons. First, leadership viewed in this context places emphasis on actions rather than attitudes. As one leadership text states, "your job as a leader is not to change people’s ‘insides’—your job is to influence their observable behavior."¹⁹ Leadership requires understanding of human behavior, judgment regarding environment/situational constraints, and action to motivate people. The value of perceiving leadership as a behavioral process is that the process and the behaviors can be taught.

The second important aspect of the leadership process is the organizational setting in which it takes place. Leadership is a function of the individual interactions within the group and the group’s interaction with its environment. Research and experience have shown that when leadership is out of step with the character of the organization, either failure to achieve organizational goals or a breakdown in the organizational structure will result.²⁰ The leader’s role in this process is to maintain continuous balance between three organizational outputs: the product or goal, the group’s cohesiveness or morale, and its drive or desire to produce.²¹ The value of perceiving leadership as a process of organization is that its effectiveness can be measured in terms of finite results: organizational objectives.

A final characteristic of the leadership process is its multidimensional nature requiring a variety of skills. The basis of the process may be "a personal relationship"²² between the leader and each of his followers, but the leader cannot merely specialize in interpersonal relations. Exclusive concentration in this area would create an imbalance in the relationship of goal, morale, and drive and result in an ineffective, inefficient, or fragmented group. "The business of influencing men to accomplish a mission almost invariably involves the application of a wide range of skills, and that certainly includes the managerial skills . . ."²³ In this sense, leadership is clearly related to management.

This relationship is also reinforced from the management perspective with the development of systems theories of management. In viewing an organization as a system composed of human and nonhuman resources, such men as Peter Drucker, Ralph C. Davis, and Ralph M. Stogdill have shifted the focus from management as an independent set of mechanical functions to management as a pervasive process concerned with linking organizational resources to organizational goals. In systems theories, the management process, like the leadership process described in behavioral research, is concerned with motivating people. "The job of the manager essentially is to make sure the workers have the tools, the information, and the understanding they need to do the job."²⁴

In the systems view, the organization is a complex organism that responds to internal and external stimuli; thus, changes in any environmental condition produce effects throughout the system. Management is the process that analyzes external and internal stimuli and their effects on the organization and takes action to keep the system in balance while it moves toward accomplishment of goals. In practice, the manager is responsible for creating the organizational climate in which people accept and accomplish goals.²⁵ In this respect, "management is an essential activity which arises as individuals seek to satisfy their needs through group action . . ."²⁶ The systems view of management as an organizational process thus closely resembles the behavioral view of the leadership process.

In fact, behavioral analyses and systems theories have blurred any practical distinction between leadership and management. Both leaders and managers are concerned with human motivation in group settings; both deal with people, not things. It is certainly difficult to determine the difference between management as a process of "achieving objectives through others" and leadership as the process of "influencing people to accomplish desired objectives."²⁷ Effective leadership and management rely on identical motivational behaviors and require similar techniques to maintain the proper balance between group morale and the accomplishment of organizational goals.

Any distinctions between leadership and management stem more from emphasis than from category. For example, managers are appointed in the sense that external forces place them in positions of formal authority. On the other hand, leaders are anointed in the sense that they hold positions of informal authority by virtue of internal group dynamics. But the merger of formal and informal authority in the leader/manager is an essential element of effectiveness and stability in a structured organization such as the military. In a practical sense, the health of the organization requires the manager to nurture the informal consensus of the group for his leadership, and the leader must acquire and consolidate formal authority to be effective in promoting organizational goals. In either case, the overlap of management and leadership behaviors is necessary for effective organizations.

From the standpoint of effective military organizations, the new concepts of leadership and management provide a framework for constructing a balanced model of officership along the lines of the Model of Organizational Leadership developed by Paul Bons.²⁸ That conceptual framework is a way of looking at the structure of organizations. Its basic premise is that leadership is the personal relationship established between a unit commander and the subordinates within his immediate personal contact group, and management is the organizational relationship established between the commander and subordinates at all other levels in his command. In this construct, the motivational behaviors exercised by the commander to influence the members of the contact group comprise his leadership role. He exercises both task-directed and people-oriented behavior to promote organizational cohesion (morale). The same behaviors exercised in the form of policies beyond the contact group to and through the larger organization comprise his management role. In effect, this framework recognizes that a commander at any organizational level is a leader/manager. From the leadership point of view, the commander’s role is to promote personal ties with his subordinates; from a management perspective, his role is to use those ties to create organizational effectiveness. In simple terms, the commander as leader/manager seeks a balance between group cohesion and organizational responsibility.

A Balanced Model of Officership

Leadership and management should be corporate concepts in Air Force officership. While some sources view management as "the strong right hand of all leaders" and others perceive leadership as an essential element of management,²⁹ I view leadership and management as two arms of a single body. The body represents the sum of the theoretical knowledge, practical experience, unique institutional values, and the externally imposed environmental conditions that characterize officership. The arms represent the practical behaviors employed by the officer to transform the knowledge, experience, values, and environmental factors into group motivation and mission effectiveness. Both arms must be used in a coordinated and balanced effort to ensure a successful organization.

A balanced model of officership is based on the concept of leadership and management as overlapping organizational processes. The leadership process is immediately concerned with the motivational needs of individual followers, and it evolves in the structure of the leader’s personal contact group. The management process concentrates on the needs of the entire organization, and it functions beyond the manager’s personal contact group. The processes overlap in the areas of developing, maintaining, and directing human effort.

Leadership and management are complementing forces in those areas. The officer’s leadership role is to establish the network of personal relationships required for group cohesion and to motivate the group in achieving organizational objectives. His management role is to instill in people a responsibility to the organization and to determine the best way to use their efforts in accomplishing the mission. The officer exercises leadership through personal efforts to train, discipline, and care for subordinates. He exercises management through analysis of organizational capabilities and costs and by making decisions to accept or reject certain costs in pursuit of the mission. If leadership is "felt" then management is "understood." Management is the mind, and leadership is the heart of officership.

The organization suffers when either arm of the model is out of proportion to the other. Officership that ignores leadership may produce short-term organizational results, but it eventually faces unit disintegration as informal leaders not committed to organizational goals inevitably emerge. This is essentially the situation described by Paul Savage and Richard Gabriel concerning the U.S. Army in Vietnam, where overemphasis on management concerns eroded the leadership position of the field infantry officers and caused a breakdown of authority and discipline at unit level.³⁰ On the other hand, too much reliance on leadership and neglect of management concerns can be equally devastating. Even though leadership may be strongly emphasized, morale will eventually suffer when a unit repeatedly fails to achieve its goals or accomplishes its mission at extremely high costs. The near collapse of the French Army at Verdun in World War I is an excellent example of this situation. The French officers had been indoctrinated with the idea that bold leadership was their only concern. Full of "cran" and "élan" but totally unconcerned with human costs, these officers launched repeated offensives against the entrenched enemy until their exhausted and depleted troops rebelled. Clearly, an imbalance in either direction is detrimental to the military organization.

Military officers must be concerned with both people and mission related through the concept of the organization. After all, the organization is a group of people with a mission to perform. The mission is justification for the organization, and the people are ultimately the only means to carry out the mission. Thus, the officer’s leadership role is to infuse his organization with loyalty, cohesion, and discipline, and his management role is to use wisely the motivated organization to accomplish the mission. He can ignore or overplay either of these roles only at the expense of organizational health.

A balanced model of officership suggests a twofold value for the Air Force officer corps. It defines leadership and management as overlapping functions that contribute positively to organizational effectiveness. It avoids unnecessary divisiveness about the nature of professionalism and channels debate into fruitful discussion in which all officers benefit regardless of rank, position, or area of assignment. It also provides a starting point for examining specific behaviors necessary for organizational success, and it creates a framework for analyzing behavior on the basis of results rather than attitudes or values.

The model is based on strong research evidence and supported by applied systems theories that should put to rest the erroneous idea that officers lead people but manage things or that leadership and management represent opposing influences on officer behavior. I believe that an integrated concept can contribute to healthier views of professionalism. Anyone who has systematically studied leadership and management, officership and professionalism, and the informal opinions of other officers, knows that there is no single answer to all the questions and no general consensus about the terms. Thus, how the terms are defined is perhaps less important than the continuing efforts to define them. In the final analysis, the study, critiques, and debate of the issues must lead to a stronger, more dedicated professional officer corps.

Air Command and Staff College
Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Notes

1. ACSC Readings and Seminars, vol. 1 (Air University, August 1981), p. 42.

2. In particular, see S. L. A. Marshall, The Officer as a Leader (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1966) and Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1957).

3. For an especially good analysis of the problems of military officership in the modern age, see Franklin D. Margiotta, editor, The Changing World of the American Military (Boulder, Colorado, 1978).

4. General Bennie L. Davis, USAF, in a speech to the Arnold Air Society National Conclave in Dallas, Texas, 7 April 1980; text reprinted in Headquarters Air University letter, 25 April 1980.

5. See, for example, ACSC Readings and Seminars, vol. 1, August 1975.

6. Brigadier General William R. Brooksher, USAF, "Leaders Know Their Place," Air Force Policy Letter for Commanders: Supplement, October 1979, p. 34.

7. General Lucius D. Clay, USAF, "Management Is Not Command," Air Force, September 1975, reprinted in ACSC Readings and Seminars, vol. 2, 1977.

8. John C. Toomay, Richard H. Hartke, and Howard L. Elman, "Military Leadership: The Implications of Advanced Technology," in Margiotta, p. 265.

9. Huntington’s categorization of military professionalism in The Soldier and the State.

10. See, for example, Charles C. Moskos, Jr., "The Emergent Military: Calling, Profession, or Occupation," in Margiotta, pp. 199-206.

11. General Bennie L. Davis, ACSC Readings and Seminars, vol. 1, August 1981, p. i.

12. See, for example, R. Tannenbaum, "Developing Effective Leadership," in Robert Stockhouse, Victor Phillips, and Eugene Owens, editors, Frontiers of Leadership: The United States Air Force Academy Program (Arlington, Virginia: Air Force Office of Scientific Research, publication no. AFOSR-TR-7 1-1857, August 1971), pp. 70-71.

13. For a good survey of management theory, see David A. Whitsett, "Making Sense of Management Theories," Personnel, May-June 1975, reprinted in ACSC Readings and Seminars, vol. 2, 1977, pp. 180-88.

14. Ralph M. Stogdill, "Organizational Leadership," in Stockhouse et al., pp. 13-99.

15. See Kenneth H. Blanchard and Paul Hersey, Management of Organizational Behavior; Utilizing Human Resources (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1972).

16. Leadership, Extension Course Institute, Course 5 (Air University, 1958), p. 2.

17. Stogdill, p. 13.

18. Paul M. Bons, "An Organizational Approach to the Study of Leadership," in Office of Military Leadership, United States Military Academy, A Study of Organizational Leadership (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1976), p. 18.

19. ACSC Readings and Seminars, vol. 2, 1977, p. 135.

20. Tannenbaum, p. 73.

21. Stogdill, p. 17.

22. Lieutenant General Lewis H. Brereton, USAF, "The Nature of Leadership," Airman, February 1965, reprinted in ACSC Readings and Seminars, vol. 2, 1977, p. 272.

23. Bons, p. 20.

24. See, for example, the Peter F. Drucker interview in Organizational Dynamics, Spring 1974, pp. 34-53, reprinted in ACSC Readings and Seminars, vol. 1, 1976, or R. C. Davis, The Fundamentals of Top Management (New York, 1951). The quotation is from Drucker, p. 20.

25. David I. Cleland and David C. Dellinger, "Changing Patterns in Management Theory," in Dewey E. Johnson, editor, Concepts of Air Force Leadership (Air University, 1970), p. 194.

26. D. A. Wren, "The Evolution of Management Thought" (New York, 1972), reprinted in ACSC Readings and Seminars, vol. 1, 1976, p. 12.

27. A. R. MacKenzie, "The Management Process in 3D," in ACSC Readings and Seminars, vol. 1, 1976, pp. 48-49.

28. See Bons, p. 21.

29. Claude S. George, Jr., "The Beginning of Management," in Dewey Johnson, p. 174; and MacKenzie, p. 48.

30. See Paul L. Savage and Richard Gabriel, Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the Army (New York, 1978). Also, for good background on the leadership-gone-awry phenomenon of the French Army, see Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August (New York, 1962).

Major James McDermott (USAFA; M.B.A., Florida State University) is Chief, Air Training Command/USAFA Manpower Programs, Directorate of Manpower and Organization, Hq USAF. He has served as a management engineering team chief; as Commandant of Cadets of an AFROTC unit, he taught principles of leadership and served on two MAJCOM staffs. Major McDermott is a Distinguished Graduate of Air Command and Staff College and a graduate of Squadron Officer School.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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