Transforming Army Reserve Senior Leadership: A Matter of Cultural Change

"Failure in leadership, sir, from the brigade commander on down. Lack of discipline, no training whatsoever and no supervision." These were the words of Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba to the U.S. Congress, describing the failures of the Army Reserve's 800th Military Police Brigade. What damning words they were.

Perhaps Gen. Taguba's most significant findings were that leaders failed to enforce-or even to meet-the most elementary Army standards. Soldiers failed to wear the uniform properly or to observe basic military courtesy. Field grade officers drank alcohol in theater in violation of general order number one. The brigade command sergeant major was relieved for fraternization with junior soldiers.

Gen. Taguba's investigation did not delve into the causes of these shortcomings, but this statement is telling: "Because of past associations and familiarity of soldiers within the brigade, it appears that friendship often took precedence over appropriate leader and subordinate relationships."

This article is not about the 800th Military Police Brigade. I was not there. From my vantage point after 18 years in the reserve component (RC), however, Gen. Taguba's observations about leadership apply to many other RC units.

I recently spent more than two years at one of the Army's busiest mobilization stations, and I observed hundreds of RC units and tens of thousands of RC soldiers. Like Gen. Taguba, I routinely observed RC units that had substandard leadership, training and discipline.

I regularly saw senior reserve component leaders who were more concerned with their soldiers' creature comforts than with their training, discipline and ability to accomplish their mission on the battlefield and come home alive.

For example, I observed a brigade commander whose major concern was the lack of free time on the training schedule for his soldiers; this commander flatly ignored the pointed advice of a senior active component (AC) general officer concerning techniques he should use to train his brigade for impending combat. I heard an RC general officer express concern to a mobilized commander that his enforcement of Army standards and discipline would negatively affect retention when the unit demobilized. I saw a senior commander sit in the barracks and complain with his soldiers for days while waiting to deploy, ignoring advice to use the time for training. I saw a nonmobilized RC general officer inappropriately insert himself into a disciplinary action for a mobilized soldier (who was thus not in that officer's chain of command) at the behest of the soldier, under the guise of "caring for soldiers."

Some have proposed more leadership training as the solution to RC leadership deficiencies. The problem runs deeper than that. Gen. Taguba's report describes a difference in culture between the AC and the RC. Although by no means universal, this cultural difference is more common than not.

The culture in the AC is focused on mission accomplishment. The prevailing culture in many RC units, for too long, has been focused on keeping soldiers comfortable and contented and avoiding necessary interpersonal and organizational conflict. This focus stems in part from the unmitigated pressure on RC commanders to maintain unit strength and from the misguided notion that enforcing standards and instilling discipline will cause soldiers to leave.

The current mobilization has demonstrated in stark terms that readiness is more than unit strength. Readiness means deployable, trained and disciplined soldiers. A culture of comfort and contentment and conflict avoidance creates a reluctance to impose, or even a fear of imposing, appropriate negative consequences for failing to meet standards, consequences that are essential to upholding the standards of any healthy organization. Such a culture does not facilitate readiness; it obstructs readiness. How can we change this culture? I have two proposals for the Army Reserve.

The first is to reexamine how we assign active duty soldiers, both AC and active Guard/Reserve (AGR), to support the Army Reserve. Currently, Army Reserve AGR soldiers are, for the most part, isolated from the active component. AGR soldiers at the unit level work in reserve centers that are largely deserted during the week.

Although many AGRs serve tours on higher level AC staffs, they do not serve in AC units at the brigade level and below. Neither do AC soldiers serve in tactical RC units, even though AC-RC integration has taken a quantum leap forward with the advent of Training Support XXI. This separate but equal policy perpetuates the distinct AC and RC cultures.

To bridge the culture gap, AC soldiers should fill half of the full-time positions in the Army Reserve now filled by AGRs. The displaced AGRs should serve in AC units at the brigade level and below (to be sure, this would require legislation). AGR officers, whose command opportunities are very limited in the Army Reserve, could command AC companies. AC soldiers would bring their culture to the Army Reserve, as would the AGRs returning to the Reserve from AC assignments. AC soldiers would gain a better understanding of the RC.

Second, the Army Reserve must take a hard look at how it selects its leaders. Officers should not be selected to command the units in which they have "grown up." A commander who has been in the same unit for a decade or more is often blind to the most obvious deficiencies, and, if he does see them, longstanding personal relationships make correcting those deficiencies difficult. A new broom, however, sweeps clean.

Geography limits the Army Reserve's ability to provide diverse operational assignments, a pillar of the Army's leader development paradigm, to its leaders. For example, Army Reserve officers must apply to command a limited number of units and, if selected, they bear the expense of traveling to their units. This system discourages many good officers from applying to command any but the most geographically accessible units, and often results in the selection of the most available rather than the best qualified officers.

The Army Reserve should reimburse key leaders for travel to their units. Paying leaders to travel would allow the Army Reserve to select the best qualified leaders-including general officers-and then slate them to units, as does the AC. Rather than applying to command only a few specific units, officers who do not desire to compete for command should be required to decline consideration. The pool of officers considered by selection boards would be increased, as would, presumably, the quality of that pool. If the geographical constraint is removed by reimbursing key leaders for travel, the Army Reserve will produce better senior leaders.

Finally, the Army Reserve should consider how it judges qualifications to command. Although I saw many units that exhibited in varying degrees the problems Gen. Taguba described, I also saw several that were trained and disciplined. The common denominator among those commanders was diverse operational and significant AC experience, usually including AC company command.

In selecting its leaders, the Army must accord special weight to AC experience. No matter how much we trumpet AC-RC equality, leaders gain more experience in the active component than they do in the reserve component. The fact of the matter is that an AC company commander deals with the challenges inherent in leading 100 soldiers every day; an RC company commander does not.

The Army Reserve leader selection process must also encourage soldiers to serve in diverse units. It is not unusual to find a senior RC leader who has spent the majority-or even all-of his or her career in the same division, or even brigade-sized unit. These leaders are often at a distinct disadvantage when they are mobilized and become part of an unfamiliar AC organization in the "big" Army. Figuratively speaking, they have never been outside of Kansas. The Army Reserve should look for leaders who understand the Army, not just a minute segment of it.

Yes, the problems pointed out by Gen. Taguba boil down to leadership. Those problems cannot be corrected by training alone; rather, a fundamental cultural shift in the Army Reserve is necessary.

The Army Reserve has great soldiers, and its leadership must ensure that they are trained and disciplined. If we do, retention and unit strength will take care of themselves.

By Col. Jeffrey A. Jacobs, USAR

COL. JEFFREY A. JACOBS is the commander of the 354th Civil Affairs Brigade, He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy and holds a juris doctor degree from Georgetown University Law Center and a master's degree in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College.

Copyright Association of the United States Army Mar 2005
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