text: Chapter 8
  Leadership During Operations
  Success ultimately rests on small things, lots of small things. Leaders have to have a feel
  for small things – a feel for what is going on in the depths of an organization where small
  things reside.
  General Colin Powell
  This chapter describes basic doctrine for combat leadership. It begins with a discussion
  of the art of command, and it describes the impact of a commander’s competence,
  presence, decision making during operations, and risk acceptance. It then describes the
  role of commanders in driving the operations process. The chapter concludes with a
  discussion on how leaders adapt their formations for missions while developing junior
  leaders and teams.
  THE ART OF COMMAND AND THE COMMANDER
  8-1. The commander’s chief responsibilities during operations are to develop effective tactics and to lead
  and direct the unit in executing them. Soldiers want and willingly follow leaders who win. The most important
  quality for commanders or other leaders, however, is competence. Good leaders understand tactics, the
  abilities of their own and enemy units, what is possible in any situation. Combined arms competence is the
  combat commander’s greatest contribution to winning. Effective commanders lead and inspire their
  subordinates to fight and win based upon that competence, while ensuring unity of purpose and unity of
  effort. They do this through a combination of processes, the staffs and subordinate leaders they empower,
  and their personal example and influence. While the commander is the primary leader of a formation, all
  leaders play an important role in carrying out their higher echelon commander’s intent as they provide
  command and control (C2) to their own subordinates during operations.
  8-2. Commanders and their subordinate leaders determine success or failure through the decisions they
  make, the examples they set, the actions they inspire, and their will to win. The commander is the focal point
  for the employment of staff processes that inform the judgment critical for rapid, effective decision making.
  Commanders must possess the confidence and skill to rapidly make difficult decisions, accepting risk to
  create and exploit fleeting opportunities. They conceive and implement sound operational and tactical
  solutions with the speed and force necessary to win. They also seek staff officers and subordinates who are
  proficient at their specialties and use them to make the unit tactically effective.
  8-3. Commanders have a moral responsibility to ensure their units are prepared for combat. They prepare
  them through realistic training that reinforces individual and small-unit task and battle drill proficiency,
  collective proficiency in the execution of mission essential tasks under the most demanding conditions, and
  the development of staffs able to integrate the warfighting functions and joint capabilities in combined arms
  approaches against enemy forces. Commanders resource training and protect subordinates’ training time.
  They establish the command climate within their unit, direct staff and subordinates during operations, and
  continually assess all aspects of their performance. They build trust, develop their subordinates’ competence
  and confidence, encourage subordinate commanders to think critically, and demand that they demonstrate
  initiative within the commander’s intent. Lastly, they prepare subordinates to assume responsibility one and
  two echelons above their current assignment so that they can effectively assume control of the larger
  formation when required to because of casualties or lost communications.
  8-4. Commanders make decisions informed by judgment grounded in their experience, expertise, intuition,
  and self-awareness. Judgment is the single most important leadership attribute applicable to selecting the
  critical time and place to act, assigning missions, prioritizing, managing risk, and allocating resources.