Oftentimes, a naval officer's leadership and management experience is entirely with military personnel. But at some point in his or her career, an officer will be faced with leading an organization that includes a sizeable number of civilians. While prior success leading others in uniform lays a strong foundation, civilians are different. And to maximize their contributions to mission success, they must be led and managed differently.
By management, I mean effectively focusing the work of an individual to support accomplishment of an organization's mission. I define leadership as the development and expansion of peoples' capacity to contribute to mission success. In practice, these two tasks are closely interrelated. Almost all naval officers receive formal training and education in the practice of leadership and management at various stages of their careers-but it usually assumes that those being led will be other military personnel.
I offer these five key points to officers who are leading civilians for the first time:
* The nature of the relationship between leader and follower is different for civilians. Military leadership is covenantal. Because both the leader and the led are bound by similar encompassing oaths to duty, military leadership is morally bound to encompass the entirety of a person. This is why division officers worry when their sailors spend themselves into debt or cannot find decent housing for their families. The covenant of service encompasses a military person's entire life. Leading a civilian is organizational. There is no legitimate authority of leadership beyond what is required to accomplish the organization's mission. A leader's uninvited interest in a civilian's time outside work is not sound leadership-it is an invasion of privacy.
* The career motivation of civilians is different from that of military personnel, especially officers. Contrary to popular belief among many military people, most civil servants are motivated to do what they perceive as a good job. But there is no "up or out" for civilians; the lack of promotion does not end a career. Some civilians actively seek promotions and others are content to spend long periods in the same positions. For those who see themselves staying in a job for several years, stability is more important than mobility. Civilians who seek promotion are motivated by the increased responsibility, prestige, and pay that frequent changes in position can bring.
* Civilians are on the clock. This is not because they lack the motivation and initiative to work long hours. Indeed, public law does not permit U.S. government civil servants to work unpaid overtime. Although naval leaders value the time of their sailors, a mind-set usually develops in both the leader and the follower: get the job done. Rather than prioritizing, the military goal tends to be achieving excellence in everything. Thus, naval leaders get good at doing things right, but are less experienced at choosing the right things to do. With a workforce on the clock, resources have to be applied to those tasks that contribute the most to mission accomplishment. The old saying, "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good," should be committed to heart when leading civilians.
* Most civil servants are knowledge workers.' They make their primary contribution to mission accomplishment through the application of some form of specialized knowledge. A key factor in managing knowledge workers is the realization that the manager does not-and usually cannot-have competence in all areas of the knowledge workers they manage. Ship and aircraft squadron commanding officers or executive officers know how to do many of their department heads' jobs because they have done them before. A major program manager, however, has financial and budget, technical, acquisition strategy, and systems integration under his purview. While prior experience may have provided some exposure to these complex areas, it is unlikely the program manager could have achieved expertise in any appreciable majority of them.
The predominant leadership style of most military officers requires some adjustment when leading civilian knowledge workers. Because the typical senior officer knows how to do many of the jobs of his subordinates, the natural style is to lead by teaching-the coaching style of leadership. But knowledge workers generally are not well served by this style. Imagine even the best leader trying to achieve success with a National Basketball Association team by teaching the star forward how to be a better basketball player. Luckily, managing knowledge workers is the subject of many fine works. My favorite model is management expert Peter Drucker's analogy of a conductor and his orchestra. The conductor is able to select the score, provide the right tempo, and know which areas to emphasize at the right time. He does not try to teach the trumpet player how to blow his horn.
* Finally, not all your people will actually work for you. In defense, as in industry, more and more tasks are contracted to outside organizations. This is true today, even on the front lines of combat. As of late February 2003, 11% of the U.S. personnel deployed in theater for the conflict in Iraq were contractors.2 The military, like business and nonbusiness organizations, achieves efficiency by focusing on core competencies and turning over necessary but noncore tasks to contractors who specialize in given fields.1 Anyone whose actions support an organization's ability to fulfill its mission must be led and managed. As with our "orchestra" of knowledge workers, contractors who "set the stage" have to understand the "score" the organization needs to perform.
Conclusions
There is a tendency among military officers to think of leadership as something they do to, and for, the people who report directly to them. In an organization with civilians, the perspective must be broader.
Working with, managing, and leading civilians can be one of the most rewarding experiences of a naval career. If done properly, an officer can ensure the actions of those he or she leads will contribute to the organization's success.
1 Peter F. Drucker, Management Challenges for the 21st Century (New York: Harper Collins, 1999), pp. 142-43.
2 "Contractors Fill Combat Niche," Defense News, 24 February 2003, p. 30.
3 Peter F. Drucker, Managing in tlie Nexl Society (New York: Saint Martin's Press, 2002), pp. 111-22.
Commander Vandroff, a engineering duty officer, recently served in the Aegis shipbuilding program office. He currently is assigned to the staff of the Assistant secretary of the Navy for Resource, Development, and Acquisition.