CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP AND THE RISK FOR MILITARY CULTISM
Posted byAssad Raza August 27, 2021
A common theme among all three leaders is that they possess certain behaviors and charisma that both their bosses and followers valued, which got them to those leadership positions.
Recently, there has been a trend of military leaders being relieved from leadership positions for unethical behaviors. These behaviors ranged from bullying subordinates, partisan views at work to severe criminal offenses like murder. For example, in April 2021, a U.S. Army colonel was relieved from his brigade command for creating a toxic work environment by bullying subordinate commanders and staff officers. The next month, a U.S. Space Force commanding officer was relieved for publicly challenging Secretary of Defense Austin’s stand down to address extremism and DoD’s diversity and inclusion initiative based on his partisan views. A telling story, however, is the Navy SEAL accused of war crimes for targeting Iraqi civilians and murdering a teenage detainee in 2017. Three of his teammates refused to testify against him in court, with one willing to go to jail rather than testifying.
A common theme among all three leaders is that they possess certain behaviors and charisma that both their bosses and followers valued, which got them to those leadership positions. Unfortunately, some of these behaviors and charismatic qualities can influence cultic practices like groupthink, as seen with the Navy SEALs’ refusal to testify against their teammate.
https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/charismatic-leadership/
