COMPARISONOF MILITARY LEADERSHIP THROUGHOUT THE AGES

COMPARISONOF MILITARY LEADERSHIP THROUGHOUT THE AGES

No leader should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no leader should fight a battle simply out of pique. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life. Hence the enlightened leader is heedful, and the good leader is full of caution.

- Sun Tzu

Introduction

Tommy Franks, general of the American Army states that soldeirs should have a high competance in their workplace, are caring, direct to their peers and sub-ordinates, hard and tough in all conditions, thoughtful to the people of all and most importantly a leader. He states “You would have to be a coward if you were a commander and you were not afraid for your men”. Understanding that statement leadership is not the same in all levels. Majors and Leuitenant Colenels are not leading a section into battle, but on the flip side you don’t see a lance corporal moving battalions stragecally over the battlefield. This is the fact that leaders of all levels sometimes forget, that everyone in the army is a leader of some respect.

Although there are obviously many inspiring leaders, although the following leaders chosen have different appraoaches to the way that they led their country. These leaders show the way that you can bring a country from strength to strength with leadership skills. These include the up and down life of Sadaam Hussein, Triumph and loss of Adolf Hitler, the coming from nothing to the conquering Napoleon and finally the comparison of the great to the poor leaders.

This essay will enlighten the issues of leadership of well known leaders and compare them with the text leader from the Australian point of veiw. It will also bring current leaders into a perspective to compare them with the leaders of yesteryear and provide an argument where they may have gone wrong.

What is a leader?

Australian Defence force definiton of leadership is; leadership is the continuous influencing and directing of men in tasks which they accomplish their willing obedience, confidence, respect and loyalty in the manner urged by the leader. Qualities of leadership involve leading by example with the use of the following traits; Motivation, Courage – physical and moral, Decisiveness, Responsibility, iniative, integrity, judgement, knowledge, loyalty, selflessness ...

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...e and has no integrity. Saddam did show a lot of initative though, ordering his armies into neighbouring countries and conquering them.

On the other hand Napoleon and Alexander the Great are very similar in their leadership traits. This is because Napolean studied many battles of Alexander and moulded himself to act like the leaders of that era. Alexander was the break through of technology with the long bow and cavalry, where as Napoleon proved

Sun Tzu 1963, The Art of War (translated by S. Griffith), Oxford University Press, London, p.

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Small Unit leadership

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