Horrid Bosses

The military sometimes promote and appoint leaders who are truly terrible. Sometimes this isn’t their fault, they are not always narcissistic or toxic: sometimes they are just not up to the job. But the issue for staffs is how to handle poor leaders. Professor William Scott Jackson from Oxford University is perhaps the foremost researcher in this field, and he brings with him a wealth of experience and lessons from the private and commercial world – much of it translates into the military world without much imagination. In this episode he talks about succession management, micro solutions for bad leaders, decision-making, the importance of thinking time, differentiated capability theory, and Blue Ocean Strategy. You decide how much of this translates to the Profession of Arms directly.