12:38 GMT, October 7, 2009 ARLINGTON, Va. | The Army's leader development system must fundamentally change to accurately reflect the new operational environment soldiers face today, said Gen. Carter Ham, commanding general of U.S. Army Europe and the Seventh Army.

“I think we need to modify our leader development strategies in many ways, to fundamentally change how we train and educate our future leaders for an uncertain future,” said Ham, speaking at the ROTC Luncheon at the Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting on Oct. 5. “In this era of persistent conflict, what the Army requires of its junior officers today is in many ways markedly different from at any other point in our history.”

Ham said that while the Army has gained a great amount of experience over the last eight years of conflict, it is important to emphasize training and education, as well.

“Our leader development framework is based on three pillars: training, education and experience. Our challenge today in the Army is, how do we get those three efforts, those three pillars, back in balance? Our Army has been riding on hard-fought experience with eight years of combat behind us and persistent conflict ahead of us. I would argue that now is the time to rebalance education and training with experience,” he said.

“The challenge, of course, is how to do that... when the tempo of operations remains so high?” he asked. One way would be to try to more closely replicate the operating environment that soldiers experience today.

“Our junior leaders deployed today have access to capabilities that we cannot currently replicate in the training base: vehicles, equipment, intelligence just to name a few,” he said. “If we are truly to develop leaders for the future security environment, we have to ensure that the training, the scrimmage if you will, is harder than the real game. We have difficulty doing that now with the way we are equipped in our Army. We need to continually adapt our training centers to reflect the expected complexities of future conflict.”

He contrasted his days of training as a junior officer, which were narrowly focused on battle drills, with the more complex operating environment of today. “Junior leaders at all levels need to consolidate tactical and operational opportunities into strategic aims to be able to effectively transition from one form of operations to another quite seamlessly and quite rapidly. Our education system must develop leaders who will thrive in this complex environment,” he said.

Notwithstanding the need to update officer training, many things about leadership remain the same, Ham said. “Although much must change, I would also argue that it's important to remember that there are enduring truths about leadership that don't change over time,” including the importance of character, leading by example and reliance on noncommissioned officers.


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