Strategic Leadership Development

The leaders of tomorrow's military will be faced not only with more complex technologically but will function in an environment of joint operations. In this environment members from sister services will be brought together toward the goals of planning and achieving the nation's security, and fighting and winning the nation's wars. The success or failure of these goals rests upon the leadership effectiveness.


Understanding the identification and development of effective leadership skills and attributes maximizes individual leadership effectiveness. The Stratified Systems Theory Model is used to identify skills and attributes for the three leadership domains of Direct, Operation, and Strategic. However, this paper focuses specifically on those affecting the Operation Domain. The Strategic Leadership Development Inventory (SLDI) and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) are used to facilitate an objective self assessment to identify personal skills and attributes that will contribute to or detract from leadership effectiveness within this domain. Finally, Individuation is discussed as a method for improving skills and attribute weaknesses identified from the SLDI and MBTI assessment.