Army Civilian Leadership Development

Abstract

The mission of the Army Management Staff College (AMSC) is to provide leader development educational experiences for Army civilians. To develop as leaders, students must recognize they have a choice to take action that influences their work environment. The authors suggest the learning environment at AMSC is intentionally designed to be paradoxical to the work environment in an effort to promote student leadership self-efficacy beliefs. Faculty use a facilitated student-centric approach to create a learning environment that promotes self-efficacy and learning transfer; however, other factors such as feedback, coaching, and peer and organizational support also affect learning transfer and should be considered in curriculum design and delivery.

Keywords

student self-efficacy learning transfer leader development student-centric choice

“Multiple factors enhance self-efficacy and learning transfer such as education delivery method, classroom environment, student feedback, and organizational support”

Although the Army faces increasing fiscal constraints, manpower reductions, and complex global missions, its enduring focus remains developing leaders. Historically, military personnel received the bulk of leadership development opportunities while hundreds of thousands of Army Civilian Corps (ACC) employees, who provided critical support to those in uniform, sat on the sidelines. In 2006, the Army initiated the Civilian Education System (CES) to transform leadership development opportunities for civilian employees. At the center of this transformative effort is the Army Management Staff College (AMSC), located at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. AMSC is responsible for designing, developing, and implementing Army civilian leadership development courses.

Students attending courses at AMSC enter a learning environment that is unfamiliar, loosely structured, and student-centric. For many students, this learning environment contradicts their workplace, which is typically highly structured and rule bound. Consequently, students initially describe themselves as disoriented and uncertain as they try to make sense of their learning experience. Kegan (1994) described these emotions as “fear, the understandable terror” (p. 280) when faculty ask students to leave behind what they see as familiar and step into the unfamiliar; students are asked to “change the whole way they understand themselves, their world, and the relationship between the two” (p. 275).

The purpose for creating this environment is to immerse students in a transformative leadership development experience that fosters agency. Bandura (1997) defined agency as self-efficacy or the ability to influence desired outcomes. When students practice their leadership skills, they discover their behaviors affect group dynamics and interpersonal relationships. As a result, they realize they can influence their environment. The linkage between agency and leadership development is important because it supports student transfer of learning into the workplace. If students do not believe their actions will change their environment, they are less likely to engage in leadership behavior that can improve their organizations.

The authors suggest that a learning environment paradoxical to the workplace creates tension. Through this experience, students realize they have choices about what they learn and transfer into the work environment. If students believe they possess a personal capacity to choose, they begin to see themselves not as a product of their environment but an active participant in influencing their environment.

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it provides an opportunity to share with the higher education community about leadership development programs available to the approximately 300,000 employees of the ACC. The authors intend to stimulate dialogue with the higher education community about Army civilian workforce leadership development. Second, this article opens the door for increased awareness among Army leaders about opportunities for developing subordinates.

In the text that follows, the authors attempt to develop a hypothesis that suggests multiple factors enhance self-efficacy and learning transfer such as education delivery method, classroom environment, student feedback, and organizational support. A review of the literature provides a theoretical framework to understand how students from the AMSC view and respond to their learning experience.

Literature Review

Social cognitive theory is a useful theoretical framework for understanding how individuals respond to the learning environment at AMSC. Specifically, Bandura’s (1997) concept of self-efficacy considers how individual behaviors, personal factors, and the environment contribute to the choices people make. Self-efficacy plays an important role in student choice to transfer learning.

Recent studies indicate a relationship between leadership development programs and student choices about learning transfer. Literature frequently identified student learning experiences, workplace support, curriculum delivery methods, and organizational environment as significant factors affecting self-efficacy beliefs about learning transfer. For instance, research indicates individuals who possessed high self-efficacy beliefs regarding their ability to acquire new skills before they started leadership development training were more likely to transfer learning to the workplace after completion of training (Ayres, 2005). In another study, Ford, Smith, Weissbein, Gully, and Salas (1998) identified how student mastery and performance experiences affected the development of student learning transfer self-efficacy beliefs during training.

Other sources of self-efficacy, such as peer and faculty feedback, either supported or became a barrier for student self-efficacy and learning transfer (Bicego, 2006; Lord, 2010). Trautmann, Maher, and Motley (2007) found student leadership development experiences during training were significant predictors of learning transfer. Furthermore, they contended frequent inclusion of critical thinking in student-centric learning strategies had a significant positive relationship for transferring leadership skills into the workplace.

Other research identified how learning delivery methods affected self-efficacy beliefs about learning transfer (Ford et al., 1998; Yaghi, 2006). Multiple studies indicated embedding student goal setting in curriculum design positively affected student self-efficacy about learning transfer (Davis, 2004; Johnson, Garrison, Hernez-Broome, Fleenor, & Steed, 2012). Washington (2002) found organizational climate had a significant positive effect on student commitment to carry out self-developed goals during training. Other studies identified a supportive work environment as key factors affecting learning transfer (Casper, 2005; Ward, 2008; Washington, 2002). Yaghi (2006) reported positive work environments motivated employees to apply what they learned, resulting in higher retention of acquired skills. Finally, supervisor support before, during, and after completion of leadership development training was important for on-the-job application of newly acquired leadership skills (Austin, Weisner, Schrandt, Glezos-Bell, & Murtaza, 2006).

The section that follows describes the Army’s model and definition of leadership and the system that provides the institutional education for civilian leadership development. The AMSC course structure explains the progression of leadership development education provided to Army civilians, and the Army Leader Development Model serves to inform the reader of the domains in which development occurs. In addition, the authors examine the learning context and teaching method used to enhance student self-efficacy and promote learning transfer. They offer a model to illustrate how tension in the learning environment affects student choice about learning transfer.

Background

The AMSC’s mission is to provide leadership development experiences for Army civilian employees. Army civilians, like their military counterparts, must possess certain attributes and competencies as defined by the Army Leadership Requirements Model (ALRM). This model, along with the Army’s definition of leadership, provides the basis for the AMSC curriculum (Department of the Army, 2012a).

The ALRM illustrates the attributes of Character, Presence, and Intellect, and the competencies of Leads, Develops, and Achieves, which describe what an Army leader is and what a leader does. The Army leader must be values-based and act in the best interest of the Nation (Department of the Army, 2012a). Furthermore, the Army defines leadership as “the process of influencing others by providing purpose, direction and motivation to accomplish the mission and improve the organization” (Department of the Army, 2012a, p. 1-1). According to the Army’s definition of leadership, a leader must possess an awareness of self, others, and the operating environment to build personal and organizational capacity to influence beyond positional authority. Engaging in behaviors that build such relationships leads to organizational success. Awareness of how one’s behaviors influence others is paramount to leadership and serves as a foundational learning outcome in the courses at AMSC.

The Army civilian leadership development courses at AMSC correspond with employee grade level and responsibility. The Foundation Course acculturates new employees by providing information about Army customs and traditions as well as basic leadership principles. When individuals become supervisors, they attend the Basic Course, which teaches leadership skills to effectively lead small teams. Mid-career employees attend the Intermediate Course, which enhances their ability to lead organizations. Enterprise level leaders attend the Advanced and Continuing Education for Senior Leaders courses to develop skills to extend influence outside the organization, lead change, and manage multiple programs.

The Army defines leader development as a continuous process occurring through three mutually supporting domains: institutional (formal education or training), operational (work experiences), and self-development (Department of the Army 2012b). These domains are not mutually exclusive; they are interconnected and provide opportunities for employee development throughout their careers. Within the institutional domain, AMSC provides individuals with opportunities to share their professional and self-development experiences in a learning environment that is safe, collaborative, and student-centric. Together, they navigate through complex and ambiguous problems that challenge their understanding of leadership. The AMSC classroom environment is deliberately designed to build student confidence in their ability to influence their environment, collaborate with others, and solve difficult problems.

Classroom Environment, Choice, and Learning Transfer

Historically, the Army used an instructor-centric approach for education and training. In recent years, the Army recognized increasing global complexity required Army civilian employees to have the capacity to critically think through ill-structured problems while adapting to changing environments. Furthermore, the Army recognized civilian employees must possess skills that enhance their ability to make decisions and lead others. Therefore, a student-centric teaching approach is more appropriate to set the conditions for students to be actively involved in a collaborative learning process that fosters critical thinking and provides opportunities to practice leadership skills.

The student-centric teaching approach is unfamiliar to most students and creates a disorienting dilemma for them as they seek to navigate the ambiguity of the classroom environment (Kegan, 1994). The AMSC classroom environment is incongruent with their work environment where the organizational structure is hierarchical, lines of authority are clear, mission requirements are non-negotiable, and employees adhere to preset rules and norms of behavior. The juxtaposition of the two environments creates a natural tension for the students.

The tension created by the incongruence between the work environment and the learning environment thrusts students into a disorienting dilemma where they to seek to make meaning between their workplace experiences and the learning environment. This tension highlights the choices students have to influence others. Choice, for purposes of this article, is defined as recognition that the individual can or cannot affect or influence a desired outcome. This definition of choice, derived from Bandura’s (1997) social cognitive theory, emphasizes individual beliefs in personal capacity to affect one’s environment.

Multiple factors mediate student motivation to transfer newly acquired leadership skills to their work environment. Kirwan and Birchall (2006) posited personal capacity for learning transfer (choice) is influenced by faculty, feedback or coaching, pedagogy or teaching methodology such as facilitation, peer support in the learning environment, organizational climate, and supervisor and peer support at work. AMSC intentionally uses the facilitation method to create a student-centric learning environment where coaching and feedback are leveraged to increase student self-efficacy and promote learning transfer. Other factors such as organizational and peer support are currently outside the scope of AMSC’s curriculum. However, they are important mediating factors that affect the development of an individual’s understanding of and capacity to exercise choice in learning transfer that ultimately shapes the work environment (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Army Management Staff College model—environment, choice, and learning transfer.

Work Environment

Students come from highly structured work environments. They support Soldiers in accordance with clear policies, guidance, and procedures. Explicit decision-making boundaries often outweigh implicit encouragement to exercise creativity in solving problems and accomplishing work. Autonomy is tolerated when the risk to the organization is low and resources are not diverted away from mission-essential requirements. Workforce behavior is shaped by organizational boundaries and congruent with accomplishing the mission. The reality of a high operating tempo and a shrinking budget and workforce create a perception of negligible room for exercising personal control over desired effects.

The student’s work environment influences their belief regarding choice (i.e., I can or cannot shape my circumstances), which becomes paramount to guiding their actions and thinking in the classroom. Students who feel powerless in shaping their reality at work bring those expectations to the classroom. Moreover, students exhibit discomfort operating within an ambiguous learning environment where the student determines classroom norms and learning goals. Because the students’ work reality shapes their expectations about their educational experience, they create self-imposed constraints for behaving and thinking in the classroom. These self-imposed constraints challenge students in believing they have choice or agency in influencing changes in their environment and reinforce the belief that they are simply products of it. The learning environment created at AMSC is designed to alter that paradigm.

Learning Environment

Courses at AMSC are designed to create a learning environment where the students have a choice about how they engage in their learning experience. Students learn through small group collaboration as they grapple with complex, ambiguous problems. Students determine their small group purpose, goals, roles, and guidelines for behavior. They struggle to make sense of the problem, the methodology for solving it, and at the same time, learn about interpersonal and group dynamics. Initially, many students fail to see the value or necessity in the exercise. As students engage in dialogue with teammates about how they will treat each other, make decisions, and manage conflict, they become uncertain as to how they will proceed with problem solving. Given the perceived reality of their highly structured work environment, many students are reluctant to empower themselves through their choices about how to influence the group’s behavior and achieve the learning outcomes.

Frequently students feel frustration as they work through the mental demands of difficult problems. Faculty guide students rather than provide them with answers to their questions. Student frustration increases when they are neither given answers to problems nor taught a schoolbook solution. Students are guided toward discovery of answers and encouraged to recognize that influencing is contextual and situational; therefore, no right answer can be universally applied.

Student-Centric Facilitation

Faculty use a facilitative teaching approach that puts the learner center stage, guiding them to take responsibility for their classroom decisions and reflect on their values, beliefs, and behaviors, while making connections to their learning experience. Because facilitation is a dynamic, interactive process intended to create an environment of support and trust, it is an appropriate method for helping students develop their self-efficacy beliefs.

Regmi (2012) used Burrows’s definition of facilitation as “a goal-oriented dynamic process in which participants work together in an atmosphere of genuine mutual respect, in order to learn through critical reflection” (p. 65). This concept fits with the idea that agency requires a recognition by the learner that they have control over the learning and play a role in shaping learning outcomes. Faculty adept at using facilitation as a means to help students achieve such a realization promote student agency.

Faculty comfort and proficiency with using a student-centric approach can have powerful effects on student learning and transfer. Lane (2008) stated teaching competencies for student-centric learning include the ability to create an environment that encourages student participation by developing trust, collaboration, support, and mutual respect. Faculty who facilitate learning must be active listeners, ask open-ended questions, and guide student discovery through reflection and critical thinking. Faculty must also overcome student resistance by using positive feedback and managing the energy level in the classroom. A student-centric facilitation approach is appropriate for learning transfer but requires faculty be comfortable with establishing an interactive learning process that puts the learner center stage.

The AMSC leadership development program exists to educate Army civilians to be leaders in their organizations. Promoting student leadership self-efficacy and learning transfer is paramount to achieving such purpose. Therefore, the multitude of factors that contribute to student self-efficacy and learning transfer should be considered in the design and delivery of education.

Considerations

Factors that enhance student self-efficacy belief to make choices that influence their environment are an important part of leadership curriculum design. Educational institutions that teach leadership development should consider implementing a faculty development program that helps faculty become comfortable with the art of facilitation. Furthermore, the education institution that connects with students prior to and after completion of leadership development courses can positively affect learning transfer. Students who receive support before, during, and after attending a leadership course may gain greater confidence in their capability to transfer learning and influence their environment. Finally, education institutions that offer consultation to organizations challenged with supporting learning transfer may positively mediate the student’s application of learning in the workplace.

Like many of their counterparts in higher education institutions, AMSC faculty find themselves in classroom environments that do not resemble what they may have experienced in the past. Some faculty struggle with facilitating student-centric learning, while others naturally transition. A study conducted by Lekalakala-Mokgele (2006) found faculty who lacked experience in facilitation methods initially had strong negative emotions; however, with preparation and guided learning, they became more comfortable in the facilitator role.

Military and civilian higher education institutions face similar challenges when they implement student-centric learning methodologies. One of the major challenges in higher education is developing faculty self-efficacy and capability to use student-centric teaching methodologies (Leslie & Fishback, 2013). Preparing faculty to facilitate student-centric learning experiences is difficult, but essential, to creating student agency. Postareff, Lindblom-Ylänne, and Nevgi (2008) noted teacher self-efficacy beliefs play an important role in choice of teaching methodology. Those with high self-efficacy tend to incorporate more diversity in their teaching repertoire, while those with low self-efficacy tend not to do so. Therefore, a comprehensive and supportive preparation program can help faculty overcome their fear and apprehension when using facilitation as a teaching method. Developing faculty to acquire self-efficacy in using facilitation requires a long-term commitment by the organization and the faculty.

Enhancing student motivation to transfer learning back into the workplace is an extension of student connections to the education institution. Extending contact with students prior to and after course completion may help prepare students for the resident learning experience and provide the support they need to transfer learning when they return to their organization. Furthermore, AMSC should consider extending its reach to the organizations where students work. Many students who attend courses express concern about their organization’s lack of emphasis on promoting and encouraging employees to apply and practice the concepts covered in the leadership development courses. The AMSC may more effectively serve the Army by providing resources to Army organizations to improve their capacity to support learning transfer.

Summary

The mission of the AMSC is to create an educational experience that contributes to leadership development of Army civilians. If students are to become leaders within their organizations, they must recognize they have a choice to influence their environment by taking actions that improve the organization. The learning environment at AMSC is intentionally designed to be paradoxical to the work environment in an effort to promote student self-efficacy belief in their capacity to lead. Faculty use a facilitated student-centric approach to create a learning environment that promotes student ownership for learning. Some students struggle with this approach; however, others gain awareness that they have a choice to become agents of change by transferring their newly acquired skills into their organization.

The literature suggests factors in the learning environment such as curriculum delivery method, feedback, and coaching serve to enhance learning transfer; however, other factors that reside in the work environment must also be considered. Although these factors may be beyond the scope of the schoolhouse, they are important to student development and, therefore, must be taken into account by organizations that seek to develop employee leadership skills. Adult education literature is rich with research on self-efficacy and learning transfer. The civilian and military education communities have an opportunity to add to the literature by further exploring a student-centric learning approach for fostering self-efficacy and transfer of leadership skill into the workplace. In addition, the topic of how the work environment supports or inhibits learning transfer should be considered for further research. We intend this article to contribute to that dialogue and promote further understanding of this important topic.

Footnotes

Conflict of Interest

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.

Author Biographies

Eileen Godinez, DM, teaches leader development at the Army Management Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. She received her doctorate in management and organizational leadership from the University of Phoenix. She has served in numerous positions with the Department of the Army for more than 16 years.

Barry B. Leslie, EdD, facilitates leadership development at the Army Management Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He received his education doctorate from Kansas State University. He is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel and has taught as an adjunct and full-time faculty member in higher education since 2004.

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