Leadership and Ethics in 2040

Introduction

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) ethos is derived from that of our broader society. And in turn, Australians define something at the core of national identity through the ADF. Australians are proud of the ADF and the ADF’s history. They need and want the ADF to represent the best of Australian values. And Australians will be direct in telling the ADF if we have let them down.[i]

The year is 2040 and Australia is again at war. Corporal or Lieutenant Smith, an every-person-leader known as Smith, is deployed on their first operation. Serving since 2035, Smith, as a Joint Professional Soldier, has trained, educated, tested, practised, rehearsed, learned, failed and tested again. Tomorrow, Smith leads their first combat patrol. As the commander, they are anxious, apprehensive and not quite satisfied with their preparations. Continuously assessing risk, Smith knows that in war, against an enemy violently competing to achieve advantage over our forces, information is incomplete, inaccurate, and contradictory.[ii]

Despite Smith’s pre-patrol anxiety and personal humility, they draw confidence from their own and their team’s planning, rehearsals, battle procedure and risk assessment. These actions are globally enabled through the Australian Joint Multi-Domain Force’s intimate capabilities, combined with over-the-horizon and remote assets. Enhancing Smith’s confidence, their training, education and experience includes frequent collaboration, cooperation, interoperability and integration with joint, interagency, regional, coalition and multi-sector partners. Multi-sector partners include organisations demonstrating leadership, ethics and innovation in communities, technology, commerce, finance, industry, training, education and research.[iii]

Through training, education and experience Smith understands that ‘Soldiers are not in the Army. Soldiers are the Army’.4 Smith’s service is culturally framed through leadership, accountability, humility, ethics, professional curiosity, and values.5 Their people and their teams are ready for an operating environment experiencing accelerated change. Smith’s five years of service and preparation in the Australian Army includes experience in three environmental dimensions—human, physical and information—integrated into five warfighting domains: maritime, land, air, cyber and space. Smith’s and their team’s skills are practised, tested and rehearsed through the full spectrum of cooperation, competition and conflict.[vi]

Smith’s understanding of leadership and ethics is developed through discussion, case studies, critical thinking, education and training and, in their workplaces, by the Australian Defence Force (ADF) concept of Double Trust. [vii] For Smith, their peers and their teams, Double Trust obligates them to defend Australia’s values and interests by force, while continuously upholding those values in their organisational leadership, behaviours, culture and conduct. [viii]

For Smith, their peers and their teams, leadership is defined as empowering people to share their talents with the world through enabling inclusive teams to ethically achieve their personal, professional and cultural potential. Ethics are defined as ‘good habits of behaviour … cultivated through practice’[ix] that ‘limit suffering and destruction caused by war’, based on the five Defence Values of service, courage, respect, integrity and excellence.[x] For Smith, the ‘ethical decision is the military decision’, where leadership and ethical behaviours are ‘part of the decision making process, tempered by training, experience, and observations’.[xi]

Unifying leadership and ethics with humility, Smith strives to serve and command ‘as the best-behaved person in their organisation’ and through that behaviour Smith aims to become ‘the difference in their organisation’ between success and failure.[xiii]