A Comparative Study on Effective Leadership in Combat and Noncombat Situation

전투 및 비전투 상황에서의 효율적 리더십에 대한 비교 연구

The current problems with the changing nature of the battlefield of the future point up the serious need for more and better research on the nature of effective military leadership. The purpose of this study was to examine effective leadership traits and behaviors of junior officers in combat situation. During times of peace, leader study battles and imagine themselves in all sorts of combat situations while at the same time, they must cope with numerous challenges and fill a variety of roles that they perceive are not battle related. This illustrates one of the fundamental paradoxes of the peacetime environment. Early studies, showing that combat leadership and noncombat leadership needed different talents, produced some clusters of traits which good combat leader were said to possess. Good combat leaders, for example, were described as possessing courage(e.g., bravery, fearlessness, daring, prowess, gallantry, guts, intrepidity, undaunted courage, fighting spirit, aggressive action), personal integrity(e.g., sincerity, flair, calmness, modesty), adaptability(e.g., flexibility, rapidity in action, speedy decision-making, clarity of thought) and so on. Behaviors found to be important in both combat and noncombat situations bore some relation to role requirements common to both situations. Behaviors important in one situation but not the other could be explained in terms of situational differences in role requirements for effective leadership. In order to achieve this purpose, a number of literature reviews were analysed. These results, though obtained in a somewhat rough and ready fashion, were useful not because they pointed to different leaders in war and in peace, but because they showed leaders the different things that were expected of them in different situations. It was also worth knowing how develop combat leadership. While these findings clearly suggest combat and noncombat differences, they do not necessarily confirm the complete study on effective leadership in combat situation. In conclusion, this study would be useful basis for further improvement on effective combat leadership and some further researches were recommended.