Abstract
Less research has examined the extent to which external contexts and factors that influence an organizational member’s life choices also influence their career trajectories within the military, and particularly among those who advance to leadership positions at the General Officer/Flag Officer level. Interviews were conducted with 20 select General Officer/Flag Officers in the Canadian Armed Forces. As part of a secondary analysis of an exploratory qualitative study, we applied a Life Course Theory lens to better understand the intersections between the sociohistorical and cultural context of senior leader development, and the individual choices that the participants made that led to their ascent to their rank. This study provides insight into how the historical time and place, the timing in their lives, the linked lives they share with family, and the degree of agency they maintained over their life choices led participants to “lean in” rather than “take a knee.”
Keywords
Stewarding the profession of arms in Canada is the responsibility of its most senior leaders, including and particularly those occupying the executive leadership ranks of General Officer/Flag Officer (GO/FO). In order to prepare Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members to take on this responsibility, the institution requires future GO/FOs to navigate an extremely demanding, career-long professional development system. While the focus tends to be on the formal educational and training requirements and operational experience needed to ascend to the executive leadership ranks, little empirical research exists that explores the lived experiences of this group of military members as they make this ascent.
Scholarly work on military leadership development (Dabkowski et al., 2011; Kirchner & Akdere, 2017; Mumford et al., 2017; Nazri & Rudi, 2019) often emphasizes processes of skill acquisition and talent management within the military organizational structure and context. In a similar vein, work on organizational commitment, social identities, and newcomer socialization (Meyer et al., 2006; Saks et al., 2007), and among military populations specifically (O’Shea et al., 2009), again tend to focus on the military organizational structures and contexts in which these identities and commitments are formed, expressed, and linked to organizational outcomes, such as job satisfaction, role conflict, or work performance. While these works provide a wealth of empirical evidence regarding organizational socialization, commitment, leader development, and the psychosocial mechanisms underlying them (both broadly and in a military context specifically), less work has been done to examine the extent to which external contexts and factors that impact an organizational member’s life choices also influence their career trajectories within the organization, and particularly among those who advance to positions of executive leadership.
Investigating the intersections between personal and public spheres is not new in social science (e.g., Mills, 1959). More recent examples of scholarship that consider this intersection include examinations of the career trajectories of women in organizational leadership roles. In a study of the career trajectories of women executives and senior leaders in New Zealand, for example, Kuntz and Livingston (2020) found that organizational culture and external factors, such as perceived work-family tensions, were key barriers to leadership advancement of the study participants (Kuntz & Livingston, 2020). Similar work in the context of the US education system investigated why some women were successful in pursuing senior administrative and leadership positions, such as superintendency, while others appeared to opt-out (Hill et al., 2020). To approach this research question, Hill et al. apply Life Course Theory which was developed by Glen Elder in the 1960s when exploring the life trajectories and development of children and families from the Great Depression (Elder, 1998; Hill et al., 2020). Hill and colleagues explain, “Life Course Theory embraces the simple idea that external context shapes life choices and life trajectories. It connects macro-level sociohistorical dynamics of the historical moment with individual-level decision making (Hill et al., 2020, p. 190).”
In a paper revisiting the development of Life Course Theory, Elder (1998) provides a useful overview of the theory’s main principles. The first principle, which he refers to as historical time and place, states that “…the life course of individuals is embedded in and shaped by the historical times and places they experience over their lifetime (Elder, 1998, p. 3).” Akin to Karl Marx’s view that “men make their own history, but…they do not make it under self-selected circumstances (Marx, 1951),” this principle holds that, while individuals have agency to make decisions in their lives, those choices are constrained by the historical circumstances in which they live (Hill et al., 2020).
The second principle of Life Course Theory, timing in lives, states that “the developmental impact of a succession of life transitions or events is contingent on when they occur in a person’s life (Elder, 1998, p. 3).” Elder’s notion of “life transitions” here speaks to stages in a person’s life, such as marriage, or advancing into a leadership position. He suggests that the timing of these milestone events makes a difference in how likely a person is to encounter cumulative advantages or disadvantages due to a given transition (Elder, 1998). Similarly, Hill et al. (2020) noted that women in their study spoke to the timing of having children, how starting a family early in their career creates additional challenges, and possible disadvantages, with respect to advancing into leadership positions (Hill et al., 2020).
Elder referred to the third principle of Life Course Theory as linked lives, which states that: “lives are lived interdependently, and social and historical influences are expressed through this network of shared relationships (Elder, 1998, p. 4).” For Elder, the emphasis was particularly on the family unit and the extent to which experiences and circumstances (e.g., successes or hardships) are shared among its members. Hill et al. discuss this principle more broadly, suggesting that “the degree to which we remain relationally connected to others is, in part, driven by our social contexts (Hill et al., 2020, p. 192).”
The fourth and final principle of Life Course Theory is human agency: “…[I]ndividuals construct their own life course through the choices and actions they take within the opportunities and constraints of history and social circumstances (Elder, 1998, p. 4).” This final principle speaks to the fact that while the range of possible choice is bound by circumstance and history, the choices and actions people take are not pre-determined. They can adapt to challenging circumstances or seize and take advantage of opportunities where others may not (Hill et al., 2020).
We agree with Hill et al. that Life Course Theory is a useful framework when considering the career trajectories of those who become senior leaders in organizational settings, as it reorients the analytic approach to account for the impact of the full range of lived experiences of these individuals, both inside and outside of the organizational context. This is also true of CAF members and the question of why some advance to GO/FO ranks while others do not. By conducting a more in-depth, secondary analysis that builds upon an initial exploratory qualitative study that investigated the lived experiences of GO/FOs in the CAF and situates it within the theoretical framework of Life Course Theory, this article provides original insight into how the historical time and place, the timing in their lives, the linked lives they share with family and the degree of agency they maintained over their life choices led these military members to “lean in” rather than “take a knee,” and thus advance to the GO/FO ranks.
Method
Overview of Initial Exploratory Qualitative Study
From January to April 2018, semi-structured, in-person interviews were conducted by the lead author with select, non-specialist Brigadier-Generals/Commodores and Major-Generals/Rear Admirals within the National Capital Region of Canada to gather data for this applied research study. The original study was designed around exploring the following research questions: (1) What makes a GO/FO? How is being an executive leader different in a military institution? (2) How does the shape of the institution influence the career trajectory of an executive leader? and (3) What factors have to be navigated in order to attain career/rank success? The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed, and the data was analyzed with the qualitative software program MAXQDA. In total, interviews were conducted with 20 GO/FO participants, including members from the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Canadian Army, and the Royal Canadian Navy, representing around one-fifth of the overall GO/FO national population and approximately one-third of the regional population from which the sample was drawn.
Information about the study was distributed by a Department of National Defence email to the potential study participants outlining the purpose and nature of the research study, and data collection methods. With the exclusion of those who would fall under the specialist stream (e.g., medical, judicial), the CAF executive leaders were invited to follow up directly with the research team and indicate their potential interest so that an interview could be scheduled. Ethical approval for the study was given by the Social Science Research Review Board, as per protocol. Prior to the interview, all participants were asked to read and sign a consent form, and to give authorization to audio-record the interview. The audio-recordings of the interviews were transcribed verbatim, and any identifying information was removed from the original transcripts to help maintain the confidentiality of research participants.
An inductive thematic analysis was conducted in which each transcript was reviewed and examined several times to identify and code emerging patterns of responses. This approach was selected due to its inherent flexibility, whereby the researchers are able to determine themes as well as prevalence (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Through this initial phase of immersive data familiarization, the lead researcher identified and developed the overall coding scheme, with all interview data coded into major themes and several sub-categories included under each broader theme based on emerging patterns of responses. This process continued until no new themes emerged (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Guest et al., 2012; Hill et al., 2005) concluding the analysis of the original qualitative study.
Secondary Analysis Through the Lens of Life Course Theory
Several key insights were gained through the initial exploratory study and reported back internally to the CAF, including an identification of potential organizational barriers and facilitators that may influence the career trajectory along the GO/FO path. Based on the emergent themes that were identified, we returned to the data to conduct a secondary analysis in an effort to make better sense of the participants’ lived experiences and to gain a more nuanced understanding of the results. In particular, we aimed to better understand how the participants’ lived experiences outside of the organizational context, such as their personal and family lives, also contributed to their career trajectories. This subsequent analysis consisted of a second round of coding, in which both authors actively engaged in the identification of themes, independently. The authors then compared codes to ensure congruence through extensive consensus-building discussions. During this immersive process, it was determined that the codes emerging from the secondary analysis appeared to be well-aligned to the Life Course Theory framework. Adopting this framework as our analytical working hypothesis (Casula et al., 2021), we then re-organized and re-interpreted the data through this lens.
Results
Study participants were predominantly male, Caucasian, had 30 or more years of service, and were generally in their early to mid-fifties. Due to the rather homogeneous nature of the GO/FO population in terms of gender and racial or ethnic background, we are limited in providing additional characteristics out of concern that doing so would identify participants.
Five major themes emerged from the secondary analysis, including: (1) time-in-rank considerations; (2) being in the right time and in the right place; (3) total commitment to the organization; (4) always saying yes; and (5) future leadership development. The following section explores each of these themes in more detail, using Life Course Theory as an organizing framework.
Time-in-Rank Considerations: “Runway Length”
In discussing their career trajectories and the main factors that shape them, the issue of “time-in-rank” was one of the most prominent themes that emerged. Given CAF regulations on compulsory retirement age, the period during which one can serve in the military comes with a pre-determined time limitation.
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Viewed through a Life Course Theory lens, this unique, institutional structural factor of military service resonates with the historical time and place principle, given that it sets the contextual boundaries for the possible career trajectory of a member and constrains their agency. The participants’ discussion of this factor also speaks to the Life Course Theory principle of timing in lives, since successfully advancing to the GO/FO ranks requires key milestones be met at the right career points. In employing an Air Force analogy, one participant equated it to being on an airplane runway, whereby the entry points for an individual may vary in terms of age and education, but the length of time they have to make it to the end (i.e., achieve rank success) comes with a fixed end state: The irony is it’s not to do with age because, of course, that would be illegal under the Constitution. It’s all about – to use an Air Force analogy – runway length. You [can’t] start with a shorter runway because they’re looking for this sort-of five plus years as a General Officer, minimum, to get this employment. For some reason we’re not thinking, “it’s okay, he’s a one-star at 56”…. The military is running on an outdated HR model design….we’re still running on a 1950s design.
Perspectives such as the above illustrated how a military member’s ability to rise up to the GO/FO ranks before reaching that age-defined end point is limited by the time along the path they have left to serve. Accepted amongst all participants was the notion that only those who make it to the higher rank levels with sufficient time left before “aging out” are consequently eligible for promotion both to, and within, the GO/FO levels. Operating within these structural circumstances, participants emphasized the importance of timing in lives to their career success: If you take so long to get to a certain point, you don’t have enough time to actually then be used beyond that so your potential becomes more limited….I progressed early, very fast early, and it allowed me to do things later because I still had lots of time left.
Consistent with Life Course Theory, the importance of military members attaining key “life transitions,” in this case promotion through the ranks, as early as possible creates a cumulative advantage in that they have sufficient time in rank or “runway length” left to be considered for service at the GO/FO ranks. The issue of time left extended to how far they can advance among the GO/FO rank levels as well. One participant stated that the likelihood that he will be able to successfully attain a promotion to the next rank level of Major-General is low; rather, his expectation was that he will be unable to progress any higher in his career. This was considered to be largely irrespective of his future performance or potential achievements in his current position (i.e., his human agency), and was instead attributed to his current age and that he has too few years remaining to have enough time to serve in the CAF at higher GO/FO ranks: For a Brigadier-General, I’ve actually lost a couple of years. I’m running out of space…I haven’t got enough years left [before 55] theoretically to make it to that….because there were a couple of points for different reasons that I couldn’t [do what was required] earlier on.
Within the sociohistorical boundaries of the military institution, the ability of a military member to rise up through the ranks can only be done by passing the same stages and accomplishing the same key milestones that enable progression up the next rank level (e.g., command experience, second official language proficiency, specific educational training within the Executive Development Program). Contrary to what may occur within a civilian organization, there can be no skipping ranks; all personnel must follow the same trajectory of rising through the ranks within the set hierarchical lines. The need for this was also strongly emphasized, given what can be at stake when executive military leaders make decisions that put military members in harm’s way. The issue of ensuring that leaders are prepared for the realities of balancing mission success with force protection and member well-being (Canada, 2007) further resonates with the Life Course Theory principle of historical time and place. For the CAF, the historical lessons learned through World War I and II, the Korean War, and the mission in Afghanistan, for example, serve to reinforce the persistence of the current model of professional development and GO/FO production that gives primacy to military operations and foreign deployments.
Overall, you’ve got to take those steps. It’s interesting that you see that in the civilian world, the new CEO of a company could be a 28 year-old person. But in the military, you’ve got to do A, B, C, D, E, F, and G to make it to the end. If you don’t do them, there’s no way in hell you’re going to get there. As the CEO of one company, you could get promoted after A, F, N, and I, and make it there. But when you lead people to their death, potentially, you’ve got to make sure failure is not an option. That you have the right skills. [We have to grow within the ranks], you need to understand, because, again, failure comes with a pretty high price.
Right Time, Right Place: “Luck Management”
Another key theme that emerged in the analysis was the notion that successful career progression can often be a virtue of being in the “right time, right place.” Resonating again with the Life Course Theory principle of timing in lives, study participants frequently emphasized their perspective that it was the right confluence of timing and opportunity that was an important contributor in providing them with the ability to achieve the GO/FO rank level.
There is a small factor of having been at the right time, right place...this whole succession planning thing is a great concept but there’s a certain amount of….randomness, right? There has to be a pool of people who are available to pluck from, and then somebody has to rise to the top at the right time. So it was an opportunity I didn’t manage, it just occurred and what was I going to say, no? So I did say yes. I didn’t put any restrictions. And went there [deployment], got promoted. So to me that occurred because there was a need in the service and I was the perfect person. I must have been like number three, the three people they asked before me said no and I’m the only dummy, yet again, who said yes. Which was one of the best moves I ever made.
The comments from participants illustrated how progression to GO/FO is contingent on encountering the right opportunities (e.g., timing in lives). They also illustrate that the participants had to take advantage of those opportunities to succeed (e.g., human agency). Perhaps counterintuitively, their comments demonstrate that by deciding to “lean in” to these opportunities to advance, they were also giving up a significant amount of their agency (e.g., “I didn’t put any restrictions”). Thus, the ability to take advantage of career opportunities at the right time also meant constraining their own agency by deciding to put the needs of the institution ahead of their own.
While access to career advancement opportunities were often referred to or attributed as being a virtue of “luck” by participants, it would also be somewhat disingenuous to only frame it in such a way and discount individual performance, as well as their skills and capability. A more appropriate approach may be to describe it the way one participant did, as “luck management,” whereby they were able to maximize the opportunities that were presented to them by demonstrating their skills and abilities, receiving recognition that was both earned and deserved, and which subsequently lead them toward promotion to executive leadership. The notion of “luck management” again illustrates the intersection between Life Course Theory principles of timing in lives and human agency.
The Air Force – if I look at my career – always provided me the opportunity to make a difference and to shine…I took those opportunities, and just progressed further and further. So my career was very streamlined but in the Air Force path of success. I never asked to do anything a little bit outside that world, or taken a path that would have been a detour. I kind of really streamlined my career by some of my actions, but also from some of the positions they offered. I was lucky enough that I always did well and they just kept pushing. So all of these opportunities led me to be more competitive at each rank. And each rank, I had more opportunities like this but, in themselves, they were just opportunities. What you do with them is the thing that matters.
Total Commitment to the Institution: “Leaning In”
In discussing their career trajectories, participants identified a number of individual traits and characteristics as internal mechanisms that propelled them forward and contributed to their successful career progression. Consistent with existing research on organizational commitment and performance (Meyer et al., 2006; O’Shea et al., 2009), participants’ comments generally reflected a strong commitment to serve, along with high levels of dedication and determination. Also evident was pronounced goal-driven behavior, ambition, and a solid work ethic. These internal mechanisms were found to help drive them forward to seek and achieve career success within a military framework. From a Life Course Theory perspective, discussion of individual traits and characteristics reflect the participants’ human agency and, in particular, how these personal attributes enhanced or inhibited the extent of their own influence and control.
I started looking forward because I still had over 15 years of service left and thought, well what do I want to do now? I love being in the Air Force and I didn’t have any plans to get out, so what did I see myself doing in five years, ten years, and what would the challenges be? So I made the decision at that point that I would do what I could to work hard…I think I’ve always had a healthy sense of ambition because I’ve always equated being recognized through promotion with the sense that people appreciate the contribution and you’re doing well at your job and maybe you’ve got more left in you to give.
While internal factors or characteristics such as dedication, determination and commitment to serve are not unique to the GO/FO cadre relative to the broader CAF population, the study participants were found to exhibit very high levels of them across the board. Further, the heightened degree to which these traits and characteristics were evident among participants suggests that these internal drivers serve as another contributor to a faster rise through the ranks as compared to their peers, thereby also increasing their ability and likelihood of reaching the rank level of GO/FO. While having these characteristics was described by participants as a key factor in their career progression, participants also noted that embracing them to the extent required to make it to the GO/FO ranks also typically required sacrifice in their personal lives, often at the expense of family and social relationships. For example, some participants reflected on how the military career path may contribute to marital strain, divorce, time away from their children or extended social networks, while others who did not face personal or family sacrifice maintain greater capacity to take on more work and institutional demands. The impact on social and family life illustrates the Life Course Theory principle of linked lives, which states that our lives are lived interdependently and that social and historical influences manifest, and are expressed, through these shared relationships (Elder, 1998). For example: What would set me out from my peers…dedication. Amount of time being put into things, which is not the same as being good, right? It just means you’re hard-working….and by the time I got to the top, it was – hey, this guy’s got a lot of stuff done. Because I was able to put twice as much time in as other people. Having shed all my hobbies, interests, family; that gives you a lot of time. Dedication to the point of a bit of ridiculous self-sacrifice. Everyone has seen Officers here, who are divorced or on their second marriage…it makes it harder to maintain a family and that kind of stuff.
Closely connected to this aspect of the participants’ experience was the underlying perception that the ability to achieve higher rank levels is contingent upon making the decision at some point in a career to fully self-select into the institution, “lean in,” and “give your all.” Examined through Life Course Theory and the principle of linked lives, the comments from participants about what it is like to put the institution ahead of everything else also illustrated how they come to see themselves as removed from many of their peers, colleagues, and fellow CAF members.
So I am in my 31st year and have not taken a sick day. I’ve never missed a day of work. Well, yeah I was sick earlier in the week; I had the flu but I came in. I was sick over the holidays. But I never missed a day of work. Yeah, so always show up. That’s another thing, an intangible thing – you’re always there. You have to have done a demanding staff job or you wouldn’t get enough recognition that you could [do] it because you don’t get to go off and do something easy…no, some jobs are actually easy. There are people that leave this building at 1530. I don’t see any Generals doing that, or Colonels who think they’re going to be Generals, or the Lieutenants that make Colonel. Most of us come in at 7am and leave at 7pm…that’s another factor with being a General, you have to be able to get by on less than four hours of sleep a night all the time.
Always Saying “Yes”: No “Taking a Knee”
Participants further made the connection between how attaining minimum time-in-rank can be inter-related with the readiness to accept all opportunities offered, irrespective of the demands or of any subsequent potential impacts on their personal and/or family life.
You asked about the factors – I think dedication and willingness to sacrifice for the organization…Any of the jobs that you are going to do that are going to prove yourself – the ones where you gain credibility and recognition – are all extremely demanding. If you want to be a General, you’re not going to be able to do that if you’ve gone geographically restricted for five years and then decided you won’t deploy for five years; you don’t have enough time to do all the things that other people not taking those breaks have done to put them much farther ahead of you because they’ve done the hard jobs.
Participants reflected that not needing to “take a knee” (i.e., taking a break from the demands of the GO/FO career trajectory) at any point throughout a career, and being able and willing to do all that is asked and/or required, better enables a military member to fully and completely “lean in” to being on the GO/FO track.
If you’re offered these opportunities, and if you take them, then you have a reasonable chance of success. So, yes, I had those opportunities. They were presented to me and I took them. A lot of people didn’t take them…I wouldn’t say you can’t step off because I think people can step off for periods of time and then step back on, take a pause, but it has to be at the right time. It can’t be at the wrong time. It can’t be so long that your potential years of – service remaining – missing out on opportunities, those kinds of things could stack up and affect your chances of getting promoted.
Although exceptions were noted, it was frequently commented that saying “no” or having to request to step away from military demands and requirements can and/or will result in less opportunity to advance, and decrease the ability to meet the GO/FO selection criteria in the time permitted. It’s a hard system. And that does not just apply to leaders, it applies to all. Now the problem, leaders can rarely say no [to an] opportunity. You would be surprised….So you do the math…we have so many levels that you don’t have time, you cannot waste any time, if I may say that. If you have any kind of ambition…if you’re ever going to make it, if destiny makes a General Officer one day, there’s not a lot of time to try stuff. So therefore saying no to an opportunity because of family is a killer because you just killed two years out of those four to be promoted. So you see? And that’s a pressure that, you don’t actually do it consciously, you do understand there is not a lot of flexibility.
Participants remarked that a lack of positive work-family balance may have implications for the ability a CAF member has to seek and achieve levels of executive leadership. The presence of such family conflicts or demands (e.g., inflexible family arrangement or a lack of family/spousal support) may decrease the ability to prioritize what is necessary for career progression, thereby posing a significant challenge in pushing ahead and doing everything required in order to make it to the GO/FO rank level.
But the other intangibles don’t limit me like they limit some other people; some folks will have aging parents they have to take care of, there will be spousal issues, divorce, spousal employment. So these things impact folks and in essence would….you don’t want to say slow them down, but they do. They have to make decisions for other reasons that are going to allow them not to necessarily proceed. And it can happen at the junior ranks, it can happen mid-rank, it can happen even with Flag Officers…You know, is anything different about me getting here than anybody else? Because I look back at some of my counterparts, guys I did training with, and I got a few certainly equally as capable, smarter but made decisions that they’re three or four ranks behind me now. Had they not made those decisions or there were some family issues, they would be the same rank as me now.
Conversely, participants acknowledged that having either no family and/or a supportive family capable of adapting and responding to the demands of the military can be a critical piece, enabling career success. It can allow one to seek out and “lean in” to all the opportunities and experiences that can increase the likelihood of rank progression to the GO/FO level.
I’m very lucky. I’ve been very fortunate throughout my career and progressed very quickly to my rank. A lot of it is because I’ve been able to progress through those gates because I had a great support network at home. I wasn’t restricted by my family or anything like that.
From a Life Course Theory perspective, this participant’s comment illustrates that a CAF member’s experience of timing in lives and linked lives can be aligned. The implication here is that this requires supportive family and personal social networks, meaning their family also “leans in” to the demands of the military institution. Another consideration noted by study participants was the challenge presented by having self-imposed geographic restrictions at any point in a career, such as an unwillingness or inability to relocate to another post either domestically or internationally. This can be connected to work-family conflict, although it can also be a factor for an individual that is independent of any family considerations. So, yeah, you can’t take a knee, you can’t say no. I have never said no…I’ve always said yes, I’ll do whatever you want. As a result, we’ve had some horrific moves, we’ve moved 15 times in 25 years of marriage. We’ve lost a bunch of folks with professional working spouses and that was the more frustrating part because we were so rigid and not accepting of that. I’ve got a great friend, smart guy, should have been the Captain of a ship; should be doing my job today. His wife has a [career], she couldn’t move, she made way more than he did. So you’re not going to move…that also hurts. The self-selecting really comes, one is regionally and one is spousal employment. I think those are the two biggest things hitting us right now and I don’t know how we get around it.
Also referenced was the critical importance of accepting all opportunities that come; declining an offer was perceived to run the risk that future opportunities would no longer be presented and constitute a subsequent removal from the GO/FO succession planning track where one is identified as a potential candidate for senior leadership development.
The unofficial contract we have with someone who is succession planned is – if I say to you that you’re succession planned, we need to move you for your professional benefit to get to a certain experience from point A to point B, we expect you to say yes. Now you have the option to say no and here’s why, you always have the option to say you don’t want to be succession planned anymore.
Participants also discussed, however, how the current structure of the system makes it unlikely that those within it, who made it to the top rank levels, will challenge it or push towards change, as they are less likely to have been those who have pushed for more work-life balance along the way. They suggest that this creates the conditions for the status quo of executive leadership development to persist. So sometimes people are choosing to purposely go on the shelf…and if family-wise it’s becoming too difficult to manage, I mean it’s either you’ve got to leave the Army or you’ll leave your family. I guess it’s a personal question: what does matter to you in life? We all know some great guys, Colonels, Brigadiers who could have been 2, 3, 4-stars who made personal choices not to go high in rank because they wanted to protect what was most important to them. I do have a lot of admiration for those people because they remained honest and true to themselves. And I prefer to have bosses like that than people willing to move their career at any cost. Because if some people are moving their career at any cost, are [they] willing to impose all of that on their family? They’ll do the same thing to soldiers. See what I mean? Is that philosophical? But if you cannot show that you care about your family, how can you show that you’ll be caring about the men and women under your command?
While participants generally spoke positively about their experiences and career within the military, some underlying discontent was observed stemming from a perceived institutional lack of flexibility. Despite having achieved the highest levels of leadership within the military, the inability to “take a knee” or pause in their career, and the relentless pressure to always push forward, appeared to erode some of the trust in and connection to the institution as a whole. I was told I was to go to [posting] for a couple of years and that’s the first time in my career that I said to the Army, “I can’t do that. I cannot go there…I’m putting my knee down, I cannot do that.” So when it came back, “okay well your promotion needs to be reconsidered…we’ll look at other people for promotion”…maybe a little bit of fracture between [you] and the institution you have served for 30 years or so, right?
Looking Ahead: Future Leadership Development
Having neared the end of their career trajectories, participants reflected upon the implications for the future of the institution as younger generations rise up through the ranks and are developed into positions of senior and executive leadership. Concern was frequently expressed over high-quality mid-career members continuing to be at risk of opting to self-select out from the career tracks that would enable them to become a GO/FO, as a result of the constraints and demands of the current organizational structure. Viewed through Life Course Theory, these concerns reflect the recognition of a shift in the historical time and place that the CAF will occupy going forward, which changes the expectations of those whose life choices are defined by that new sociohistorical and cultural reality.
I’d be talking to my subordinates, and some of them would go, “Sir, the job you’re doing seems like a lot of fun and I really think I could do that in five years but I don’t think I’m willing enough. I don’t think I want to put my family through that” and they’re going “but you’re here at 5am and here until 10pm, six days a week. I’m not doing that, I’ve got a family. You don’t.” And if that becomes the belief that a number of very competent mid-career people, then there’s a risk that we are causing them to self-select out of the track that would make the Generals….and which means that the group we are selecting from has self-selected to be people who are willing to put that in, then they are the ones creating policies…where it’s “well then you’re not dedicated enough [to make sacrifices for your career].” It’s a huge risk that we are repeating patterns of behavior.
In addition to concerns identified around retention, there was recognition that the military will need to find ways to adapt and evolve in order to be able to attract and increase recruitment of members from younger generations, who they regard as placing much more emphasis on work-life balance and maintaining social relationships and personal agency. Institutionally, it’s so difficult to implement the kind of approach that millennials would be open to…you know, anecdotally, I’ll ask my [child in early 20s] and friends, “hey, how would feel you about being in the military?” You might as well ask them if they want to go on a trip to Mars – joining the military? They have no interest; no inclination whatsoever. So, we can say we want to grow that but if they don’t want to join and if we’re not willing to make changes institutionally that support more flexible career paths….
The challenge of shifting the military to find the right balance between individual and family well-being and the needs and demands of the institution was further acknowledged. Although there was support expressed toward the military becoming more flexible, family-oriented, and responsive to the individual, participants also expressed difficulty in conceiving how this will be achieved based on their experience with the current structure of the organization and their perceptions of what the next generation expect.
The new generation is different than our generation. So we have to adjust, we can’t expect the same results from a generation that is looking at something different than our generation…we can’t judge success based on our generation when looking at the future generation. And I think that’s where we have difficulty because we still judge what is abnormal based on what we think is normal and we haven’t made the switch to what is normal for them. So our success is based on flawed parameters to start…we have to be careful that we don’t babysit them…at the end of the day, being a General Officer is not about you, it’s about the rest of the organization but there’s got to be a balance and I don’t know if I have the answer because there is a lot of self-sacrifice that needs to get done…for General Officers in 20 years, they will, I believe, have to make the same self-sacrifices that we’ve had to do so they cannot expect an easy way…the organization, the CAF, needs something special from those ranks.
In acknowledging that they are themselves the result of the military system of career progression, participants further highlighted the potential repercussions of maintaining the status quo when developing future executive leaders. They pointed out the risk in perpetuating the cycle if only those who are willing to sacrifice and dedicate themselves fully to do whatever is necessary are able to achieve career success within this very narrow trajectory. Everybody who has reached the top has self-selected by their choices. At some point, you had a choice, and you had to do something that was hard and you did it; I think that’s fairly universal. You had to go, yeah it’s my daughters music recital but I’ve got to get this report done by tomorrow – you do the report. I think the people who are going to make those policy changes are the ones who did all that…if I can do that, why can’t you? And I think we have a big risk there in how we develop our future General Officers.
Participants further emphasized the risk that confining the career trajectory to a particular set of experiences and along a fairly restricted path of development will result in continuing to produce a largely homogenous cadre of executive leaders with minimal deviation in thought and approach. When you think about it, when you try to be objective, we all think alike. Because we go through the same….so eventually, as you go through those filters of life and selection, when you become a General Officer – okay, some are Black, some are Chinese, some are white, some are Muslim, but we’re kind of all the same. We went through the same filters. So at the end of the day you can only imagine we’re a bunch of think-alikes. And that is a dangerous thought. Now, I don’t see it, to be honest. You know, only the same kind, the strongest survive kind of thing, but what happens, you all look the same because of the same criteria…when you’re in it, you don’t know you all think alike. You don’t know that. You need to be from the outside…it takes this external view.
This was further connected to the requirement for minimum time-in-rank and the age limitation through which a GO/FO can serve in the CAF. The finite amount of time that one has to make it to the higher rank levels further hinders the opportunity to explore or follow an alternate or non-traditional path in one’s career, which would allow for more varied experiences and diversity of thought to develop within the senior leadership cadre. They ask the right questions but they’re not thinking about the right problems. And one way to fix that would be to prize more diversity – and by that, I only mean diversity of thought, not diversity of physical characteristics but diversity within the General Officer corps. We are approaching problems and someone says “that’s dumb” and everyone else goes “yeah”; not because they are being “Yes men” but because that’s what they believe too because we all grew up in the same system. I don’t think we can….we should [not] accept lateral entry where people come in as Colonels for the first time in the Forces, that’s ridiculous. But prizing things like stepping off the Command job staff, to a one year attachment to an academic institute as an academic fellow…right now, that takes you off the track; you’re done, you’re not going to be a General. You can be a smart Colonel, buy lots of books, get a good job afterwards but that’s not the same thing, right?
Discussion
The present study was exploratory and intended to build upon an initial examination of the lived experiences of CAF members who were able to advance to the GO/FO ranks by engaging in a more in-depth secondary analysis and incorporating an appropriate theoretical framework. In discussing their career trajectories, a number of personal, social, and organizational factors were identified as critical to creating the conditions for career success. These included career progression with minimum time in rank; having access to, and taking advantage of, career progression opportunities early in one’s career; always putting the needs of the institution first, often at the expense of personal and family life; and the right mix of skill, talent, competency, ambition, and drive to stay on track.
In examining this study’s findings, we applied a Life Course Theory lens to better understand the intersections between the sociohistorical and cultural context of senior and executive leader development in the CAF, and the individual choices that the study participants made that led to their ascent to the GO/FO ranks. Their lived experiences reinforced the organizational constraints of CAF executive leader development, including an adherence to the historical lessons gleaned from past and present military operations, in order to ensure that military leaders are prepared for the realities of balancing mission success with force protection and member well-being. Because of the potential to make decisions that may have life and death consequences, the participants described the hierarchical, highly structured nature of the overall military career progression system as fundamental. Their experience also suggested, however, that this system has not been modernized 2 in some time, and in their forward-looking reflections as stewards of the profession on the development of the next generation of executive CAF leaders, they questioned whether this system is too far out of sync with today’s historical time and place (e.g., increased emphasis on work-life balance among the new generation of military members). Their reflections on the system also suggested that it tends to reproduce GO/FOs with similar experiences and mindsets, since those who are unwilling to accept the realities of military service, or place the needs of the institution ahead of their own agency or linked lives, are less likely to achieve the highest ranks. While they regarded the system as highly successful in producing executive leaders with the skills and knowledge to meet the operational challenges of military command, they also noted that this creates a potential lack of diversity in perspective and experience, which further challenges the institution’s ability to adapt to new sociohistorical pressures.
Applying the principles of Life Course Theory, we found that reaching the GO/FO ranks required them to make choices (e.g., human agency) early in their career and family lives, that allowed them to “lean in” to early opportunities placed in front of them (e.g., timing in lives) and to capitalize on those opportunities through a mix of talent and dedication. Doing so was seen to create a cumulative advantage, but was also often framed in terms of significant self-sacrifice, or doing whatever was asked of them and not “taking a knee” along the way, regardless of the impact on their personal and family lives (e.g., linked lives). For some, this resulted in hardship, such as marital strain, divorce, and time away from their children or extended social networks. For others, hardship was avoided if they did not have a family, either by choice or circumstance, which allowed them to more fully commit to the institution. For others, having a supportive family allowed their career progression and linked lives to remain aligned, which they regarded as a substantial advantage in making it to the GO/FO ranks. For those who benefited from supportive family, examining their lived experience through Life Course Theory showed that family members themselves should be regarded as active institutional participants whose human agency, timing in lives, and linked lives are equally constrained by the sociohistorical realities of the military. Sociological scholarship on the social relations and expectations between the institutions of the military and the family are also not new (e.g., Segal, 1986). Much work has examined the impact of military service on family life, or the extent to which family support improves the well-being and desirable organizational outcomes among military personnel (King et al., 2020; Segal et al., 2015; Wadsworth & Southwell, 2011). Applying Life Course Theory to these results suggests that military family members should be regarded as active participants, whose experience of human agency, timing in lives, and linked lives are equally constrained by the sociohistorical structures and demands of the military institution.
This intersection between linked lives, timing in lives, and human agency was especially prominent across the career and life trajectories of the study participants. In particular, their decision to “lean in” and completely commit to the institution was found, ironically, to result in a substantial sacrifice of their human agency. While they always had a choice to “take a knee” at any point in this demanding career trajectory, doing so was seen as almost certainly leading to an end of any chance to make it to the GO/FO ranks.
Limitations and Future Research
The present study was exploratory and limited to a small cadre of non-specialist GO/FOs at the rank of Brigadier-Generals/Commodores or Major-Generals/Rear Admirals, who were serving at National Defence Headquarters. The selection of participants who are specialists (e.g., medical, judicial), who are at the Lieutenant-General/Vice-Admiral rank, and who are serving outside of the National Capital Region setting would provide a more complete picture of the lived experiences of GO/FOs in the CAF. Similarly, while this study did include both men and women, few women are currently serving in the GO/FO ranks, and fewer still participated in this study. We therefore could not explore gender-specific experiences without potentially identifying study participants, nor could we denote whether any participants were part of a minority group. Including more women as well as ethnic minority groups in the study would allow for a deeper intersectional analysis of the career trajectories of CAF members who reach executive leadership ranks. The issue of placing institutional needs ahead of family, for example, may be experienced quite differently by men, who may be less encumbered by family considerations and therefore remain more available to agree to all career demands, as compared to women. In contrast, there may be greater implications for women that impact their availability and access to opportunities, such as pregnancy and maternity leave, or in taking on the traditional role of primary caregiver. Similarly, this may also be the case for those with different cultural or ethnic family norms, traditions, and structures. The extent to which ethnic minority military members have equitable access to the early career opportunities needed to advance to senior and executive ranks may be considered. Since women and ethnic minority members are not well represented among the GO/FO ranks, however, another option would be to expand the sample to lower rank groups (i.e., Colonel, Lieutenant-Colonel) to capture the experiences of those who may be at or near the promotion point to GO/FO. Similar to the approach taken by Hill et al. (2020), including those who are “mid-pipeline” may yield important insights from those who have opted out of the GO/FO career path, or may be encountering other challenges or barriers that this study has not identified. Lastly, while the integration of Life Course Theory provides a valuable framework that helps to make better sense of the lived experiences of participants and creates a useful narrative from which we can interpret the results of the study, we acknowledge that it was applied post-study as part of a secondary analysis. Future research that incorporates Life Course Theory into the initial design of the study would be a worthy avenue to explore that could build upon these findings, undoubtedly generating significant insights. Despite limitations, this study affords a new look at how current rigid structures impact career trajectories and representation at the GO/FO level, as well as leadership considerations to enable more diverse leadership paths and representation.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the participants of the study who volunteered their time and offered critical insights by providing their perspective and sharing their personal experiences. The authors also thank Dr. Patricia Shields, along with the anonymous reviewers who provided their valuable input during the review process.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
