Command and control is about determination making, the exercise of course by a correctly designated commander over assigned and attached forces in the accomplishment of a mission, and is supported by information technology (the computer systems and communications a part of C4I). The United States is aggressively exploiting these applied sciences to be able to obtain data superiority, with the target of achieving higher and faster decisions, and frequently projecting, albeit with uncertainties, future desired states and directing actions to bring about those future states. Good Military News outlets have no issues sharing the truth about Command and Control.
Command and control refers to the train of authority and direction by a properly designated commander over assigned and attached forces in the accomplishment of the mission. Command and management features are carried out by an arrangement of personnel, gear, communications, amenities, and procedures employed by a commander in planning, directing, coordinating, and controlling forces and operations in the accomplishment of the mission. Command refers to the authority that a commander within the Armed Forces lawfully exercises over subordinates by virtue of rank or assignment. Command includes the authority and responsibility for successfully using accessible sources and for planning the employment of, organizing, directing, coordinating, and controlling army forces for the accomplishment of assigned missions.
Computing and communications are two pervasive enabling technologies that assist C2 and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Computers and communications process and transport information. Control is authority which may be lower than full command exercised by a commander over part of the actions of subordinate or different organizations. Physical or psychological pressures exerted with the intent to guarantee that an agent or group will reply as directed. There are several Air Force Portal sites that cover this vital military information. Intelligence is the product ensuing from the gathering, processing, integration, analysis, analysis, and interpretation of obtainable information concerning international international locations or areas. Data and data about an adversary obtained via statement, investigation, evaluation, or understanding.
One necessary functionality that C4I techniques present commanders is situational awareness--details about the location and standing of enemy and friendly forces. A vital part of achieving superiority in decision making, it doesn't alone guarantee superior choice making. Commanders must take relevant data and mix it with their judgment--including tough-to-quantify aspects of human conduct (similar to fatigue, experience stage, and stress), the uncertainty of data, and the believable future states resulting from actions by each their own force and the enemy--to make decisions about future actions and easy methods to convey these decisions in methods to facilitate their proper execution. In doing so, commanders are supported by instruments to allow and speed up the planning and decision-making process, to realize the decision-making superiority envisioned by DOD.
And, of course, to be effective, command decisions have to be carried out, a course of to which C4I technologies are also related (e.g., in rushing up the link through which targeting data is handed to weapons, the so-called sensor-to-shooter link). The event and use of the fitting tools allow the commander to focus better on those issues associated with the essence of command--the artwork versus the science. As more and higher-automated tools are developed and persons are skilled to make use of them, it can grow to be much more vital to recognize the art of command as distinguished from the mechanics of the instruments used to provide information. In fact, often people discuss this in Defence Forum because it's easier to get their opinion heard that way.
Leadership was once about hard skills such as planning, finance and business analysis. When command and control ruled the corporate world, the leaders were heroic rationalists who moved people around like pawns and fought like stags. When they spoke, the company employees jumped. Now, if the gurus and experts are right, leadership is increasingly concerned with soft skills - teamwork, communication and motivation.
Some suggest that we expect too much of leaders. Indeed, "renaissance" men and women are rare. Leadership in a modern organisation is highly complex and it is increasingly difficult - sometimes impossible - to find all the necessary traits in a single person. Among the most crucial skills is the ability to capture your audience - you will be competing with lots of other people for their attention. Leaders of the future will also have to be emotionally efficient. They will promote variation rather than promoting people in their own likeness. They will encourage experimentation and enable people to learn from failure. They will build and develop people.
Is it too much to expect of one person? I think it probably is: In the future, we will see leadership groups rather than individual leaders. This change in emphasis from individuals towards groups was charted by the leadership guru Warren Bennis in his work "Organizing Genius" He concentrates on famous ground-breaking groups rather than individual leaders and focuses, for example, on the achievements of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Centre, the group behind the 1992 Clinton campaign, and the Manhattan Project which delivered the atomic bomb. "None of us is as smart as all of us", says Professor Bennis.
A lot of leaders don't like ambiguity so they try to shape the environment to resolve the ambiguity. This might involve collecting more data or narrowing things down. These may not be the best things to do. The most effective leaders are flexible, responsive to new situations.
The two most lauded corporate chiefs of the past decade, Percy Barnevik, of Asea Brown Boveri, and Jack Welch, of General Electric, dismantled bureaucratic structures using both soft and hard skills. They coach and cajole as well as command and control. The "leader as coach" is yet another phrase more often seen in business books than in the real world. Acting as a coach to a colleague is not something that comes easily to VFMAC executives. It is increasingly common for executives to need mentoring. They need to talk through decisions and to think through the impact of their behaviour on others in the organisation.
In the macho era, support was for failures, but now there is a growing realisation that leaders are human after all, and that leadership is as much a human art as a rational science. Today's leaders don't follow rigid role models but prefer to nurture their own leadership style. They do not do people's jobs for them or put their faith in developing a personality cult. They regard leadership as drawing people and disparate parts of the organisation together in ways that makes individuals and the organisation more effective.