I think it is necessary!

It is very necessary for an army leader to keep undergoing academic training because, at least, as decision maker he has to update himself by acquiring extra knowledge and develop his skills in making decisions in the areas of logistics, human resource management, etc. As a leader has to develop his skills in motivating his followers.    

This is essential, for all sorts of reasons. Many senior military leaders reject continuing academic development, believing they know all they need to. These are dangerous leaders. Once they stop learning - look for another leader

Professor Andrew

In military career there are several stages as you probably know. Those stages are called promotions. Some promotions need a specific course – like Staff in Chief course or Generals course. Besides that promotions have a personal evaluation in which time counts and also perfection courses can be a 6 month course in logistics, can be one year course in National Defence and many other subjects. These courses doesn’t count for promotions but help to evaluate the capacity and interest of the officer that will be promoted just in the basis of duty and servicing time.

Hope that you understand my reply and please feel free to ask complimentary details.

Best wishes

Artur

%

Hi Andrew,

In the formation and development of Army leadership, there are the dual elements of academic study and professional/functional training.

As Artur has mentioned, for officers to achieve a promotion in rank, they must take and pass a series of courses at different phases of their careers. Junior officers often go to a military academy from where they could graduate with a professional military qualification or an academic qualification in the form of a degree, or a mixture of an academic and functional qualification depending on the country in question. These officers would usually be in the range of candidate officers/midshipman, second lieutenants/ensign and lieutenants/sub-lieutenant (army/navy).

Junior officers must do functional training in the form of corps and other command training before they can command platoons or troops in a battalion or regiment. As officers go up in rank they need to do Junior and Senior Staff Courses which gives them access to the higher ranks - lieutenant colonel/commander and colonel/captain. Different countries have different types of Staff Colleges, War Colleges and Defence Colleges, where senior officers do further study - colonels, brigadier generals, major generals, lieutenant generals. The higher level courses such as Staff Courses involves more academics and less functional training. Many of the Staff Colleges and War Colleges around the world are linked to universities and the miltiary officers that complete these courses also graduate with a higher degree.

In terms of whether officers will go back to study hydraulics or education management, this will be dependent on their specialisation. For combat officers they would most likely not go to study a different qualification than there courses prescribed by the military, unless they have a personal interest in it or were remustering to a service that required those qualifications. Most likely someone that did a qualification in hydraulics would be an engineer or technician who specialises in that field and required the qualification to work in that specific field.

Kind regards,

Tony

One of the unique driving forces in the Military is that education is encouraged at all levels of Rank. Soliders, NCO's and Officers bring individual talents and education either before they join one of the branches of the military or during their service time.

Well, there are two sides to this question. Firstly, to enhance their skills base and to keep abreast of developments in the world, and maybe the increase their earning capacity.But most institutions are biased in what they offer because leadership is and will never be taught in class. What people get in class are the techniques, principles, and ways of being professional manipulators.

"True leadership is about pursuing purpose and not pursuing people to glorify you.It is about, self discovery and being able to serve with passion while in the process empowering followers in order to produce more leaders" Myles Munroe.

Leadership is about mentoring successors so that they could take what you started to the next level. That in itself is a significance of leadership. Going to pursue academic dreams and glory should not be geared towards creating a space to come back and exercise dominance over your followers. If so, that is self defeating and does not augur well for the real purpose why leaders seek greatness.Nelson Mandela once said, "No leader wants to disappear under a clout of shame, rather every leader wants to disappear under a clout of glory".

It's intresting that you mentioned two great individuals. Leadership to me is providing direction, purpose, motovation and improving the orgaization that one is working for in a role of responsibility. Now each one of those words describes an action to take place. I believe that when we look at an individual such as Nelson Mandela, he was able to embody purpose, direction and motovation to improve the conditions in his home country.

Professor Andrew

The academic formation in important for a military leader.

So that, is important to establish the missions and operations that those leaders must accomplish in order to focus what kind of knowledge they must reach as a complement to achieve success.

There are many branches in Armed Forces, so there are many useful learnings for a military leader.

Kind regards

Marcos

Thank you dear colleagues for your insightful opinions. They are so valuable and informative

Yes Prof. Artur Victoria,

I have clearly understood your reply. Much appreciations to you

Kind regards

Yes it's important and need of the hour