External Influencers on the Organization

 

Analyze the SGM/CSM role in American civil-military relations identifying and addressing external influencers on the organization and ways in which you would address this dynamic. Analyze at a minimum two of the three standards.

 

Analysis includes:

1. Examining the Constitutional basis for civil-military relations;
2. Comparing and contrasting the civil-military relations theories;
3. Interpreting military professionalism;
4. Discussing the role of Sergeants Major in civil-military relations; and,
5. Examining tensions that occur in civil-military relations during times of conflict.

 

Analyze the Sergeants Major role in developing resilient organizations.

 

Analysis includes:

1. The combat and operational stress reaction Identification, Prevention, Management and Control; and,
2. Command leadership actions and combat and operational stress control programs.

 

Analyze how irregular warfare influences the organization and leader engagement.

 

Analysis includes:

1. Defining and understanding irregular warfare;
2. Defining operations and activities of irregular warfare; and
3. Defining organizational stressors during irregular warfare.

 

 

 

 

External Influences on the Organization

External Influences on the Organization

Introduction

Every service member, whether in the line of duty or a deployed status, is bound to experience certain levels of stress. It is, therefore, critical to maintain clear strategies on ways to control external stressors to enhance resilience and readiness in the organization.

Identification, prevention, and control of stress reactions

Sergeants are responsible for safeguarding the psychological wellbeing of soldiers just as much as they are responsible for preserving their physical health. This responsibility triples down to all levels in the chain of command from the Private First Class, Army Specialist, and Corporals. Chaplains and Medical specialists can assist with this task, but only sergeants can balance combat and operational stress reaction triggers.

To reduce stress reactions from the soldiers in the army, leaders must foster resilience, identify stress triggers, prevent stressors, and control the causes of stress internally or externally. The decision about whether to deploy a soldier experiencing stress problems or retain him/her in deployed status lies solely on the operational commander. However, line commanders can facilitate mentorship and recovery of soldiers with psychological issues.

Command Leadership Action

Sergeants should convene meetings with working soldiers, medical specialists, and religious leaders to discuss methods of identifying, preventing, and controlling chronic stressors within the organizations. Using the findings, they are responsible for devising an interdisciplinary stress continuum model that focuses on preservation, wellness, resilience, objectives of the unit leader, and consistent with the soldiers’ ethos within the organization. If well adopted, this model forms the basis for all the army’s credo, training, surveillance, and intervention. The stress continuum model should provide a clear visualization of the various stressors, stress reactions, and stress outcomes and outline them from mild distress to severe mental disorders (Southwick, 2011). It is the primary responsibility of unit leaders to observe and track the stress continuum model of their soldiers. However, every soldier and his/her family members should take part in managing and monitoring the stress continuum model for themselves, their friends, troop mates, and their children and spouses.

Irregular Warfare

Irregular warfare, as defined in the U.S common creed is a conflict between state and non-state actors for acquisition and dominance over the relevant population (Olson, 2010). It involves war between two irregular elements, well-regulated forces of a central government or an international intervention force. Most of the time, irregular warfare arises due to political instability. Therefore, organizations are deployed to restore government systems and protect the population

Irregular Warfare Operations and Activities

Irregular warfare operations vary from conventional operations in regards to political and environmental risks, design of employment, and reliability on detailed intelligence and independence on primeval skills and assets. Moreover, the core activities of irregular welfare are antiterrorism, counterinsurgency, foreign internal defense, stability operations, and unconventional warfare. These activities are set out to reinforce or erode the support of the legitimacy of an external government influences in a country’s population or some portion thereof.

 

 

Organizational Stressors

Military organizations are forced to restructure their doctrines, training, and rules of engagement to combat arising complex irregular warfare. One of the major stressors for the organization is the uncertainty of the mission; irregular conflicts operate in a non-conventional way. These challenges organizations as they lack basic knowledge and understanding of how to counter attack, leaving them vulnerable to more significant risks. Exposure to different ethnic and religious doctrines, especially extremists who pervert religious beliefs to cause chaos and instability, weigh heavily on an organization. Irregular conflicts based on religion portray factors that external forces, including intelligence analysts, fail to perceive. Therefore, organizations are deployed with little understanding of how their culture, religion, and ethnicity are intertwined with irregular warfare.

Certainly, a lack of overall awareness can lead to serious setbacks and intractable conflicts such as the capture of U.S. soldiers in Lebanon due to a failure to identify their enemies and also the inception and maintenance of a bloody and violent regime conflict in the Post Saddam in Iraq (Mathew, 2009).

References

Mathew, L. (2009). Religion and Resistance: Examining the Role of Religion in Irregular Warfare. 26.

Olson, E. (2010). U.S. Special Operations: Context and Capabilities in Irregular Warfare. 8.

Southwick, B. .. (2011). The stress continuum model: a military organizational approach to resilience. Resilience and mental health: Challenges across the lifespan. Cambridge University Press,.