Topic 3:
Leadership/Management in Peace Support Operations

Background

During the 1990s most nations have put considerable effort into the national process of ensuring individuals earmarked for employment as individual UN military observers or as staff officers and units being deployed were adequately prepared for assigned peace support operations. The UN itself has also done considerable work to ensure that appropriate training standards are established and that training assistance/advice is available when needed. Most of the effort has been focused at the tactical level of peace support operations. Little effort has been put into preparing senior military leaders or staff officers for the operational level challenges of the post-Cold War era.

The post-Cold War era has severely challenged military leaders of all peace support organizations and their civilian counterparts. Senior military staff officers and their counterparts, those responsible to their leaders for ensuring that the international efforts of putting a nation back on its feet are optimized, have also been severely challenged. The individuals selected as military leaders or senior staff officers for peace support operations in this era were undoubtedly effective in their own national service environments. However, in retrospect, many of these officers were not particularly effective working at the operational level in this demanding ever-changing environment. A number of questions arise from this situation:

• How do we properly prepare leaders and senior staff officers for tomorrow’s strategic/operational level challenges?
• How do we address the issue of preparing leaders and senior staff officers to work effectively in the international environment? Work within military structures? Work with their UN counterparts? Work with CIVPOL? Work other civilian agencies? Work with the Host Nation? Will current Civil-Military concepts be effective? 
• Is/are there specific education or/and training requirements? Should it left to nations to decide? Should the UN play a key role in this process of education, e.g., selected personnel being sent on a program set up in an on-going mission?
• Are there specific selection criteria that must be met?
• Are there any prerequisites that those selected for senior command positions must meet? Command at a lower level in a previous peace support operation?

Task

Examine the current environment for international intervention and ascertain the key challenges to providing effective leadership / management in future peace support operations. Explain how you would foresee dealing with these new/evolved challenges to commanders and their senior staff. Within this discussion topic highlight any specific issues related to “intelligence”, communications, or training/education/selection.

Topic 3 Results

I. Key challenges to effective leadership and management

• Lack of a clear or realistic mandate.

• Inadequate resources for the tasks.

• Impact of the media, including its speed and bias.

• Increasingly inflated contract system.

• Politicization of aid.

• Social reintegration.

• Culture, ethnic, religious and gender prejudice.

• Future peace support operations will be conducted within a multinational coalition context, with implications for multiple challenges, including:
• Interoperability of the national contingents and their equipment,
• Different cultures and individuals on the force HQ staff and national contingents,
• Different levels of training, doctrine, standard operating procedure and professional standards,
• Differing interpretations of the Rules of Engagement,
• Multinational command and control, and
• Interference by national governments.

• Conflict resolution will be a highly complex process, and the challenge will be to include all of the required military, political and humanitarian components.

• The number of stakeholders (e.g., local factions, NGOs, regional powers, troop contributing nations, international organizations, donor nations, Permanent Five/Security Council) will produce challenges to communication, coordination and cooperation, but will also result in competition among, as each group vies for limited resources and advocates different outcomes.

• There will be an elevation in personal danger due to the absence of law and order, a harsh humanitarian environment, the changing nature and complexity of threats, and the opportunities for and subsequent effects of corruption.

• As missions are prolonged they will be negatively impacted by the breaks in continuity caused by rotation of personnel.

• Increasing levels of complexity will require more and varied skills from senior leaders and managers.

• Personality will continue to play a role in the successful outcome of missions, including its affect on personal perceptions of events and as pressures of a changing mission are exerted on leaders, managers and commanders.

II. How commanders and senior staff can address these challenges

• Improve communication.
• Leaders must have effective communication skills.
• Ensure interoperability of equipment.

• Improve coordination and cooperation.
• Jointly train.

• Enforce common mission language among all levels of leaders/managers.
• Minimize use of regional colloquialisms.

• Conduct mission training on effective communication skills that cuts across cultures and across organizations.

• Use common management models (UN).

• Use inter-organizational communications standards (UN).

• Increase the number and quality of translators and interpreters.

• Increase face-to-face interaction between leaders of difference agencies.

• Develop common Standard Operating Procedures.

• Conduct early identification and selection of appropriate personnel based on:
• Educational background, including general and military-specific.
• Effective leadership skills, including the ability to be firm and principled.
• Administrative skills, particularly for principal staff.
• Effective communication and interpersonal skills.
• Effectiveness at diplomacy, consensus building and negotiating.
• Effectiveness at decision-making and implementation.
• Vision, i.e., the ability to articulate and convey a long-term goal.
• Capacity to motivate.
• Compassion and concern for the welfare of his/her troops, civilian colleagues, and local populace.
• Interpersonal and communication skills.
• Upright character and personality.
• Understanding of roles of various actors, e.g., NGOs, international community, local authorities and leaders.
• Previous peace operations experience.
• Experience with different elements of the mission – humanitarian, military, political, rule of law, etc.
• Language skills and ability to use interpreters.
• Positive personality traits.
• Leading ‘from the front’ and being proactive.
• Capacity to work with the parties to the conflict.

• To combat corruption:
• Adopt a standard of transparency in all transactions,
• Establish a mission oversight committee,
• Implement effective punishment,
• Set personal example,
• Have accountability procedure in place.

• To work through the diversity of organizations involved:
• Standardize procedures.
• Promote understanding of different cultures and cross culture education.
• Conduct joint and common training, training, training.
• Integrate planning.
• Promote transparency,
• Increase interactions prior to and during missions.

• To manage changing nature and complexity of threats:
• Conduct continual assessment of the threats,
• Evolve contingency planning,
• Improve the speed of strategic responses,
• Enhance information and intelligence sharing,
• Recognize the need for political will to react quickly to operational demands.

• To influence the media:
• Recognize that the free media cannot be managed,
• Understand the positive and negative role of the media,
• Understand the differences in different kinds of media (broadcast, print, radio, web, etc.) and their differences in impact/audiences,
• Conduct media training at all levels,
• Proactively use the media when possible by feeding information to it.

• To fill the need for varied skills of commanders and senior staff:
• Follow guidelines for selection (UN),
• Determine the level of political acumen of potential leaders.

III. How troop-contributing nations can address these challenges specifically through education and training

• Conduct organized and standardized training package and pre-deployment orientation for mission commanders and staff as a group.
• Modify packages based on mission requirements.
• Include cultural and social orientation (e.g., gender issues, local customs).
• Awareness of political sensitivities.
• Awareness of humanitarian situation (refugees, IDPs, human rights).

• National preparation and training is preferably coordinated with UN DPKO Training and Evaluation Service.

• Conduct specialized education and training of senior leaders.
• National trends for educating and training of senior military leaders appears to have this taking place after selection, however, many multinational exercises are now based on peace operations scenarios.
• Preparation of senior leaders is first and foremost a national responsibility.
• Education and training outside of the leader’s area of expertise (humanitarian, diplomatic, military, rule of law, political) is essential.
• Training specific to the culture, language, history, and geography of the host nation and the nature of the conflict is critical.
• Expanded “on-mission” induction training of leaders and staff officers should be explored.
• Conduct continuous ‘on-mission’ training to ensure currency of leaders and staffs.

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