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Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good evening to all of you. It is my pleasure and above all a real honour for me to address such an audience today. A few weeks ago, when Stanislas van Wassenhove kindly invited me to contribute to this seminar as a guest speaker, I was truly and sincerely pleased by the invitation. But after a second thought, I must admit quite frankly that I was equally surprised by the proposal. Why am I surprised? Actually, in my position as an officer, a former commanding officer of an airborne commando unit, having served in several operations in Africa, in the Balkan region and more recently Afghanistan, having gained combat experience in the field, the reason for me to be surprised is simple: if it is not uncommon for an officer to talk about leadership in front of a military audience, it is indeed rather uncommon to address the same topic in front of an audience like today, given the subject of this seminar and the profile of the participants, both being rather business oriented. In my career, I’ve had the opportunity to work with many government agencies, international organizations or even NGO’s, in Belgium or abroad, at tactical, operational and even strategic

Christophe CLOSSET, An experience brief on military leadership, LA HULPE, 3rd of July, 2012.

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level. But I’ve cooperated very seldom with the corporate business sector, and it’s probably an understatement to put it that way. However, it goes without saying that I wholeheartedly accepted the invitation. So please do believe me, I’m happy to enjoy this experience in your company. After this short personal introduction and even if what I’m going to say can sound a bit challenging at this early stage of my presentation, I would like to highlight a few characteristics, specific to a military organization, which make it totally different from corporate business. To start with, the armed forces are a non-profit organization, responsible for the global security of the Nation and of its citizens, in a national or multinational context. Secondly, I am a public servant, officially accountable not to shareholders but to the Government and to the Nation. In the third place, should it become necessary in given circumstances, I can be responsible for the life and death of my personnel, for the life and death of the civilian population in a war environment, or for that of some opposing forces during the accomplishment of my mission. I had to face that challenge when I was a commander in the field in Afghanistan in 2010, or sooner in some other countries, like Somalia or in the Great Lakes region. When confronted to that reality, when you have to tackle such a

Christophe CLOSSET, An experience brief on military leadership, LA HULPE, 3rd of July, 2012.

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challenge, selfless service is paramount, as you might be required to give your life or that of others to accomplish the mission. Finally, even if modern armed forces are, to some extent, learning organizations, most are still built on a very strong pyramidal structure, with a very formal and very visible hierarchy. It is no doubt that those fundamental characteristics drastically and definitely shape and influence the nature of leadership as well as its implementation in the military life. To mention this could sound at first glance like kicking in open doors, but it’s not, and I think we are all conscious of that. Having said this, even if there are probably some differences between your business and mine, your job and mine, it goes without saying that good leaders, be they military or civilian, be they public service or corporate business, more often than not share many values and traits of character in common. My purpose today is then twofold. First, I will address and explain the facets of military leadership and illustrate them by some personal examples. Secondly, I’d like provide you with some food for thought in your own approach of leadership, and by doing so I’ like to help building bridges between our worlds, and see how we can improve our own practices by learning from each other.

Christophe CLOSSET, An experience brief on military leadership, LA HULPE, 3rd of July, 2012.

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But let’s focus on military leadership, now. During history, military cultures, especially in war situations, have highly articulated roles and codes of conduct in terms of leadership. Let’s just remember what the Duke of Wellington said about Napoleon: “I considered Napoleon’s presence in the field equal to forty thousand men in the balance”. If the conduct of war has changed a lot since the Greek warriors up to now, however, the role of the military leader has always been central and prominent to set the conditions for success, or sometimes for failure. However, it is probably an understatement to say that modern military leaders need to deal with a much more complex environment, requiring from them to encompass and embrace many more skills and competences than a few centuries ago. As you all know, the issue today is not only to win battles or wars, which is, after all, rather easy, all things being equal. In my opinion as a professional soldier, and Iraq an Afghanistan are probably two living examples of this, the real issue today lies more in winning the peace than in winning a victory on the battlefield, even if the latter is a prerequisite to set the conditions for peace. A modern military leader needs to deal with things like security matters, terrorism, peace keeping operations (sounds as a paradigm, doesn’t it?), information operations, security sector Christophe CLOSSET, An experience brief on military leadership, LA HULPE, 3rd of July, 2012.

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reform, reconstruction, omnipresence of media and their real time impact on the course of actions, ethnical and religious tensions, nation building process, organization of elections, social and economic development, good governance, establishing democracy and defending human rights, civil-military cooperation, etc etc, you name it… Cherry on the cake: all this takes place in the middle of a lasting economic crisis. Rather challenging, to say the least, isn’t it? Well, what does it take to be a good military leader? For sure, dreams of glory, guts and courage are not enough… To start with, let’s have a look at the concept itself. What is leadership? For us military, leadership is the process of influencing people to do what is necessary to accomplish a mission by providing purpose, direction, and motivation. On the tone of humour, of course, an American General said once that leadership consisted in getting people to do something they didn’t want to accomplish and after all, make them like it. More seriously, leadership is a cornerstone of the military institution. It is considered as one of the four basic functions to be used by any organization, to start with the armed forces, to achieve its vision and its goals.

Christophe CLOSSET, An experience brief on military leadership, LA HULPE, 3rd of July, 2012.

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Those four functions are: command, control, leadership and management. Words like command and control sound very much military, don’t they? What is the command function? Command is the authority a person lawfully exercises over subordinates by virtue of his rank, his assignment and/or his position. Command is not to be confused with leadership. The most fundamental organizational tool used by military to support an implement the command function, is the chain of command, or, in other words, the sequence of commanders in the organization responsible at their level for accomplishing the assigned mission. Let’s now have a look at the environment and the actors of the leadership process. To put it simply, we do have the leader on the one hand and the follower on the other hand. Both interact and communicate in a given structure in a given situation, with a certain degree of complexity, more often than not in a time sensitive situation and under influence of internal and external forces. To simplify our perspective on this complex interaction process, I do propose you to focus on the leader. In any army, in any time, the purpose of leadership has always been and still is to get the job done. Competent military leaders Christophe CLOSSET, An experience brief on military leadership, LA HULPE, 3rd of July, 2012.

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develop trust, focus effort, clarify objectives, inspire respect and confidence, build teams, set the example, keep hope alive and rationalize sacrifice. For this century or the next, there is little mystery about requisite leader competencies and behaviours. Desirable qualities and skills may probably vary a bit, but the basic values and formula for leader success have changed rather little in the last decades or even in the last centuries. We do identify four key values for a military leader: - Courage, be it moral or physical, allowing the leader to overcome his fears while doing what ought to be done; - Candour, by being frank, honest, sincere with his soldiers, his seniors an his peers; - Competence, or his proficiency with the required level of knowledge, skills and judgment; - Commitment or his full dedication to the mission. More in details, a good military leader must also nurture some specific traits of character, or qualities. Just to name a few, and I’m sure the list is non-exhaustive : bearing, confidence, loyalty, integrity, decisiveness, sense of justice, endurance, inter-personal tact, sense of initiative, coolness (especially under pressure of time, danger, superiors, peers,

Christophe CLOSSET, An experience brief on military leadership, LA HULPE, 3rd of July, 2012.

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subordinates, external factors or self interest…), maturity, sense of improvement,

will,

assertiveness,

inspiring,

fair-minded,

straightforward, sense of humour (not the least !), competence, responsibility, commitment, creativity, imaginative, self-discipline, humility, flexibility, empathy, unselfishness, resilient, sound military judgment, talented communicator, availability for duty and people … When I look at all those qualities, my first reaction is : Wow, what a list ! A military leader must also have some presence. He must be inspiring. He must be a role model for his subordinates, a source of inspiration, a reference. It is also required from him to be not only mentally fit, but also physically fit (example of Belgian commando’s in Afghanistan). He must also have the required intellectual capacity, with a high level of mental agility to be able to cope with changing situations in a complex human and technical environment. All those traits and qualities together in one single man or woman could make us think that a military leader is a new breed of super hero, a new human species, in one word, the new superman. It is indeed … not the case. At the end of the day, what is expected from a military leader?

Christophe CLOSSET, An experience brief on military leadership, LA HULPE, 3rd of July, 2012.

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A leader must be. He must be demonstrating his moral qualities. By being an example of individual values as a person and as a leader. He must be broad-minded as well, and accept diversity as a potential enrichment instead of an obstacle. Diversity implies to be open to other cultures as well. More often than not, it is a key to success during military operations, as we do operate in the middle of the population, and we have to adapt our behaviour to the local human environment to fill the cultural gap. Beside that aspect, we also work more and more with local forces, shoulder to shoulder with them, even in combat situations like in Afghanistan (example : opening address during first contact with the Afghan officers) A leader must know. He must be proficient in all the skills and tasks related to his position, allowing him to make a correct use of all resources available to him. He must know his organization an all the required TTPs and SOPs. In a nutshell, he must know his job. He must also know human nature, starting with himself, his strengths and his weaknesses. He must know human needs and emotions, and how people react to stress (example : home front, families) A leader must do, by providing direction, including setting goals, by providing purpose and motivation to the team, by using proper Christophe CLOSSET, An experience brief on military leadership, LA HULPE, 3rd of July, 2012.

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planning process and decision making process, by solving problems, and by supervising and evaluating the results. He must seek for improvement. It goes without saying that the military leader cannot be a monolithic leader, with the same behaviour in all circumstances, in order to deal with all the situations in the same way. Depending on the level of his responsibilities and those of his team, his subordinates or collaborators, the military leader needs indeed to adapt his style of leadership to the situation, to the problem to be solved or the issue to be addressed, to the environment, to the people. He will avoid being autocratic, certainly too autocratic if the situation does not require it, or on the contrary he will avoid to be too delegative. He will always try to get his team involved in a sound participative and well balanced leadership. Depending on the pressure by the environment, maybe he will not have the choice at all. Maybe he will have to make a very quick decision, even if the life of the men and women under him, or his own, are at stake. The key issue is to determine when and how the leadership style needs to be adapted. It is not unrealistic to say that a same person

Christophe CLOSSET, An experience brief on military leadership, LA HULPE, 3rd of July, 2012.

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could adopt all three styles of leadership, driven by a specific situation. The higher in the chain of command, the less you need to be a direct leader, as there is probably no need to be too much “gung ho” or “tally ho” at that level. Quite obviously, a senior leader in a strategic position must not lead his staff, his collaborators, his advisors, his heads of branches … like a young platoon commander leads a combat patrol in the field. It is to be noted that the contrary is also true. Let me illustrate this by an example. Until two years ago, I was the commanding officer of approximately five hundred green berets, committed to their task as a professional elite force. Together, we spent the majority of our time training or in operations. After that, my new (and still current…) assignment is to be the head of bilateral relations for the Belgian Defence, with a limited team of collaborators, each one of them being responsible for a continent, what makes me more a diplomat in uniform. It goes without saying that I had to adapt my leadership to this new situation, even if the essence of my leadership or the values supporting it, remained exactly the same. What is the driving force that makes a leader a good leader, making the soldier to follow? Well, a military leader must know his soldiers and look out fort their welfare. He must keep them informed. That is extremely important (example Afghanistan). He

Christophe CLOSSET, An experience brief on military leadership, LA HULPE, 3rd of July, 2012.

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must set the example (example Afghanistan). One always says that the best example of leadership is the leadership by example. That is a golden rule. He must also ensure the tasks given to his subordinates are clearly understood, with no misunderstanding and no confusion in the way the action is planned and prepared. He must provide guidance. Guidance does not mean that the leader systematically needs to explain the “how it needs to be one”. More often than not, it is a better option to promote what we call “mission command”, by providing the objective, the purpose, the timeframe and some possible constraints and restraints. The leader must also supervise and control. Just to ensure that the execution of a course of action is on tracks as planned, and if not to readapt the solution. He must seek and take responsibility of his actions and develop a sense of responsibility in his subordinates. He must make sound and timely decisions to conduct a realistic course of action. He must reward what is positive, and appraise good performance. He must dare correcting or even punishing if need be, if norms have been transgressed. He must inspire confidence and respect. He must train his people as a team, and develop morale and esprit de corps in his unit. He must encourage initiative in his subordinates. He must also Christophe CLOSSET, An experience brief on military leadership, LA HULPE, 3rd of July, 2012.

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encourage self-discipline, the same way he might have enforce military discipline and regulations by the book when the situation so requires. He must know the human being behind the uniform. He must set conditions for personal development within the unit, by making the needs of individuals coincide with those of the unit, its tasks and its mission. Which is not always possible. The leader must create a climate that encourages subordinates active participation to accomplish the mission. Key ingredients to develop this are: mutual trust, respect, confidence. In one word, he just cannot be only a boss. Not only a staff member. Not only a military manager. Not only a man or woman with power. Not only a person bearing stars or stripes on his shoulders. He must be a military leader and lead from the front. Within means and capabilities, a military leader must also set the necessary conditions for the transfer of experience within his team. I o consider it as an investment in the future. To achieve this, the leader must be a coach, a mentor for his personnel under him. A modern military leader also lives in the real world, where budget cuts, restructuring and transformation are more often than not the game. As such, he must take all necessary actions and optimize the processes to achieve his objectives with a maximum of effectiveness and, above all, with a maximum of efficiency. Even if Christophe CLOSSET, An experience brief on military leadership, LA HULPE, 3rd of July, 2012.

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it sounds very much “management”, it takes the qualities of a good leader to ensure that the team adheres to the process. One could also open a debate about natural or nurtured leadership. I personally think it’s not the real key issue about it. I do not believeindeed in the natural born leader, which I do consider a myth. I do believe on the contrary that the key to success in becoming a good leader is to try to get the best out of the interaction between natural traits of character and the environment. In other words, a balanced mix of natural traits and above all , positive experience. One can always train to become a leader, given some prerequisite are met and all required conditions are set. But I’m not here to lecture you. I’m sure you are already familiar with all that. Even if our cultures can differ, if our codes can be different from one company to another, if our tasks and missions are probably not the same, if our uniforms are different, be it a jacket and tie or a camouflage battle dress, I’m convinced that, at the end of the day, the values are for a great part the same. There are for sure more convergences than differences. Leadership is not a recipe, even if there are here and there some tips and tricks. No, it’s not that simple. All situations are different. In my opinion, in the deepest of my heart as an officer, leadership is a way of life. Christophe CLOSSET, An experience brief on military leadership, LA HULPE, 3rd of July, 2012.

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As a conclusion, I would simply like to quote André Maurois, the famous French writer. He said once: “The most important quality in a leader is that of being acknowledged as one”. I couldn’t agree more with that statement. No one can indeed impose himself as a leader. To be one, you need to be credible, you need to be commonly accepted as such, and above all, trusted. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. Otherwise, you will not be followed. That completes my short speech about military leadership. I wish you good success in this seminar, and I wish you all the best in your professional life as a leader. Thank you very much for your attention.

Christophe CLOSSET, An experience brief on military leadership, LA HULPE, 3rd of July, 2012.