Many junior Army leaders describe the art of command and the science of control as if they lay diametrically opposed along a single axis. Mission Command is the Army’s command and control doctrine that emphasizes decentralized execution based upon mutual trust. In dynamic and uncertain environments, many leaders rationalize that eliminating as much control as possible is necessary to facilitate independent action.
This line of thinking supposes that the skillful commander achieves Mission Command by eliminating controls in order to accomplish the mission. The antithesis of this, the risk-averse leader, bureaucratically manages operations through a series of constraining checks and edicts. In this false dichotomy, the presence and implementation of controls are in opposition to artful and skilled leadership.
Army Doctrine Publication 6-0: Mission Command: Command and Control of Army Forces, states, “Control, as contrasted with command, is more science than art. … The science of control supports the art of command.” The proper implementation of the art of command and the science of control requires leader recognition that command and control are not diametrically opposed, but rather, both lay along a separate axis.
Control, if applied and enforced properly, can lead to greater shared understanding, enhanced mutual trust and junior leaders and subordinates who are more ready and comfortable with taking disciplined initiative in volatile and uncertain environments. Improperly leveraged controls—or absence of certain controls—could lead to confusion, cynicism and ethical fading.
Freedom of Action
Properly implemented control fosters freedom of action, decision-making, ingenuity and communication during operations. Commanders tailor their use of controls to meet the higher-echelon commander’s intent while ensuring to not undermine subordinates’ decision-making authority. To effectively employ controls requires commanders and staff to understand the purpose and ramifications of controls, including the limitations they may impose on subordinates. The intent of control is to “foster coordination and cooperation between forces without unnecessarily restricting freedom of action,” according to ADP 6-0.
Each control measure should have a purpose as defined by ADP 6-0. Instead of hampering subordinates’ decision-making, properly implemented controls should aid subordinates by providing left and right limits while eliminating decision-making obstacles. This allows subordinates to focus their efforts on decisions they can influence or make while not overexerting energy on ones they cannot. While it is easy to perceive controls as risk averse or a symptom of mistrust, the reality is when controls are properly conceived and thoughtfully implemented, they enhance subordinates’ trust in leaders and mitigate risk.
Mission success or failure hinges on the way leaders implement the art of command and the science of control in operations. A controlling and bureaucratic leader could deter all creativity and stifle disciplined initiative within their unit, while a laissez-faire leader may create confusion or fail to mitigate or understand risk. Even worse, a leader who neither leverages controls nor adeptly leads without them risks creating a leadership vacuum.
Mission Command maximizes the utility of carefully selected and properly implemented controls while fostering decentralized execution and disciplined initiative of those executing operations. Being cognizant that the art of command and the science of control lay along two axes, leaders should diligently leverage controls while artfully leading soldiers to mission success.
Creativity Needed
In bureaucracies, leadership governs by edicts and policy letters. Innovative leaders are more likely to be punished for straying outside the bureaucracy than they are to be rewarded for their creativity. Incentives in these units align with following the orthodoxy to avoid getting reprimanded. Controls often are implemented without consultation and thus degrade mutual trust.
ADP 6-0 states that the art of command “requires judgment and … the creative and skillful exercise of authority.” However, a bureaucratic leader exercises authority through preplanned and ordained processes that require no creative or skillful leadership to function.
Leaders in bureaucracies are risk averse, relying on procedural execution to provide prescriptive control measures outlining left and right limits. This leadership style leads to a lack of shared understanding or trust between echelons. Leaders at all levels will implement blanket solutions to complex problems that most closely resemble the “approved solution,” lest they risk going against the grain of the bureaucratic leader’s controlled process. In these units, nonstandard missions often are accomplished only with great difficulty and, even then, only accomplished to the minimum standard.
Meanwhile, routine procedures are sometimes accomplished efficiently while exerting only minimal resources. The reason bureaucratic leaders lead their units to failure is not the presence of a high amount of control within their operations. It is that these controls are arbitrarily implemented and fill voids where leadership and disciplined initiative are needed.
Communicating Intent
Operating in a laissez-faire leadership environment leads to mission failure along several fronts. Laissez-faire leaders fail to recognize that simple controls communicate intent and answer subordinates’ unasked questions. Shared understanding in these environments is low. Risk is amplified because operations are neither deconflicted nor synchronized. As outlined in ADP 6-0, control requires an appreciation of the physical capabilities and factors of organizations and systems that must be understood and managed. The control measures that account for these operational constants are not an act of mistrust but rather a demonstration of competence.
Laissez-faire leaders often poorly understand these factors or outright reject their role in managing them and thus adopt a leadership style that makes decisions without regard to them.
Leaders may believe they are fostering trust by allowing subordinates an inordinate amount of latitude by eliminating controls. They incorrectly assume that all controls hinder—as opposed to enable—leaders. Ethical dilemmas and professional infractions are more likely to occur in this environment, because junior leaders are often left operating with little guidance or oversight when they are untrained or unprepared.
Falling Short
Leaders may manage to achieve success in these units through high-touch processes such as frequent and ill-organized impromptu meetings, or operations that produce excessive fragmentary orders, additions or changes to an initially weak plan. Competent leaders may be able to make a large number of decisions and issue guidance on the fly, but this often still falls short of Mission Command, where mission orders are issued and subordinates who are trusted can execute within a detailed but nonrestrictive framework.
These units lack the processes and control measures to manage operations, and they also seem to lack the competent leaders to skillfully manage them in uncertainty. Within a leadership vacuum, negative aspects of both laissez-faire leaders and bureaucratic leaders are present. Within a leadership vacuum, neither the art of command nor the science of control is utilized.
Unlike in a bureaucracy, where at a minimum, junior soldiers benefit from a rigid structure and shared understanding of procedures, there is no awareness within a leadership vacuum. Leaders fail to publish mission orders or convey intent for subordinates to act upon. A clear path to achieving mission success is not charted with an expanded purpose, nor is it managed with control measures issued by leaders.
Along this same vein, and dissimilar to a laissez-faire leadership environment, operations in a leadership vacuum do not allow leaders to exercise authority or take responsibility during operations. Although laissez-faire leaders are ill-equipped to manage and synchronize operations they set into motion, they are present and exercise decision-making authority.
Successful Mission Command
Mission Command is achieved when leaders implement seven principles: competence, mutual trust, shared understanding, risk acceptance, mission orders, disciplined initiative and commander’s intent. Successful Mission Command also hinges on leaders understanding the proper relationship between command and control. If a leader falsely attributes control, as the antithesis to command, then they misunderstand and misapply both.
Leaders and units that do understand the utility of control and its enabling relationship to command recognize that mission orders produced to support subordinate decision-making require controls. ADP 6-0 states, “Effective command is impossible without control. Control is inherent in command.”
Effective leaders also understand that controls not only are developed by leaders to manage operations and subordinates, but also should be created and adapted from subordinate input and feedback. ADP 6-0 states: “In application, command and control is multidirectional, with feedback from lower echelons, from higher echelons, laterally, and from sources outside the chain of command. It includes the reciprocal flow of information between commanders, staff, subordinates … as they work to achieve shared understanding and adjust to continuously changing circumstances in an operational environment.”
While many may believe that high-performing teams utilize a more laissez-faire leadership style that simply eliminates controls and excels because of it, this is rarely accurate. Good leaders and elite units master the science of control by implementing acutely crafted control measures and processes in all their operational environments. By carefully curating the type and implementation, a skilled leader in any high-performing unit has the ability and freedom to fill control gaps with mutual trust, commander’s intent and shared understanding.
Recognizing that the art of command and the science of control fall along two axes is simply the first step in being able to apply their uses in practice, the more difficult step is determining what the application looks like.
Understanding the ability to skillfully apply controls while adeptly leveraging leadership can take a career to master. Early identification of the tools at a junior leader’s disposal can help shape how they choose to leverage these tools in the future.
Maj. Ryan Crayne teaches the superintendent’s capstone course on Officership at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York. Previously, he served with the 82nd Airborne Division, 75th Ranger Regiment and 1st Infantry Division. He deployed twice to Afghanistan.
Maj. Cole Cannon teaches the superintendent’s capstone course on Officership at West Point. Previously, he served as an expeditionary signal battalion company commander in the 2nd Theater Signal Brigade. He also served as a battalion information officer in the 18th Military Police Brigade and the 3rd Infantry Division. He deployed to Qatar during Operation Enduring Freedom.