Publication Date

2025

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Aaron Hughey, Martha Sales, Cres'Sena Thomas, Diane Owsley

Degree Program

Department of Educational Administration, Leadership and Research

Degree Type

Doctor of Education

Abstract

Nations around the world view the United States military as the personification of leadership in both military and societal populations. The United States Army has revolutionized its command selection process by expanding upon the current Officer Evaluation Report (OER) and the Non- Commissioned Officer Report (NCOER) for some senior ranks at the battalion and brigade levels. Rooted in doctrine, and with a budget of $14.8 million, the Army spends an average of approximately $7,400 per assessed leader to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the leader’s knowledge, skills, and behaviors on an individual level. The Army does this through its Army Command Assessment Program. At its initiation, the program inserted psychometric testing, various observer-rated assessments, and peer and subordinate feedback as data points to holistically identify strengths, weaknesses, and potential counterproductive and ineffective leadership traits that could cause risk to the Army.

This study, utilizing archival qualitative data of more than 1,100 peer and subordinate feedback comments, investigated the probable disconnect between how the Army directs leaders to lead based on Army doctrine and what peer and subordinates are requesting of their leaders. This research utilized the attributes and competencies described in the Army Leadership.

Requirements Model within Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 6-22 Army Leadership, as well as comments received from randomly selected peers and subordinate data provided by the Command Assessment Program. The results indicated that there is a plausible case for two additional attributes and one competency to be identified in the Army Leadership Requirements Model. This study also explored whether peers and subordinates are in a consensus reflecting on which current attributes and competencies leaders have that must be sustained and which attributes and competencies leaders have that must be improved. The findings identified, although not originally sought after was the likeliness from a statistical standpoint are peers and subordinates (if selected at random) would potentially provide positive or negative feedback. Finally, this study also identifies recommendations for future research, if the Command Assessment Program or United States military leadership deem it appropriate to do so.

Disciplines

Leadership Studies | Military and Veterans Studies | Military History | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Social and Behavioral Sciences

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