Disaster-Proofing Senior Leadership

Making good decisions can be hard to do. There are many examples of senior leaders who failed to understand technology or disregarded its relevance to the battlefield. In some cases this was due to conservatism, pride, or even sheer stupidity, but in most cases it was due to an intelligent, well meaning leader inadvertently falling into a decision-making trap. While the concept of decision-making traps is not new, the future environment is introducing an entirely new set of challenges dramatically altering the way decisions are made on the battlefield. In this rapidly changing, technology charged environment, the effects of decision-making failure will be amplified and ramifications far more severe. To prevent failure, leaders must first understand the environment by staying engaged through self study. They must become familiar with terms associated with and the implications of concepts such as nanotechnology, quantum computing, biomimetics, artificial intelligence, and nanobots. Linear thinking must be replaced with intuitive leaps to account for the exponentially changing global environment. They must understand how the new flattened world gives rise to threats and opportunities across the spectrum from state actors to empowered individuals.