how do you view a leader who prioritizes the welfare of his or her soldiers prior to battle,is unconcerned with their loss in combat?

"Unconcerned" meaning that they are not hesitant to order their soldiers on missions that may lead to their deaths? I remember a quote from the movie "Gettysburg" where Martin Sheen playing Robert E Lee stated "To be a good soldier you must love the army. To be a good commander you must be able to order the death of the thing you love." I do not see a disparity between being concerned with the welfare of your soldiers, but knowing full and well that you may have to put them in a situation that may lead to their deaths later if it means completing the mission. What I would be concerned about is if a commander needlessly squandered the lives of his men.

As a PSG during OIF, from Kuwait to Baghdad, I had to worry about accomplishing the missions that we were directed to do, I had to push any and all personal fears for myself and my Soldiers aside lest I constantly worry about decisions that myself and the PL would make and how it would impact our performance of the missions. I knew, always, that there was the possibility of the loss of one or more of our Soldiers as we were actively fighting an enemy who was determined to prevent us from overthrowing the government in place at the time. But, the knowledge that this might occur had to be set aside in order for us to function properly and to do what we had been trained to do. I think the honesty with which myself and the PL talked with our platoon about combat and all the possibilities that could occur prior to us crossing the berm allowed us as a platoon to effectively fight and defeat the enemy we faced. Fortunately not a single member of my platoon was even slightly injured during the 2-week push to Baghdad or the subsequent 4 moths of SASO that we conducted prior to coming home, so this was never an issue. But as leaders, from us at the platoon level up through the division and corps levels, the concern was always there, it just had to be set aside to do what needed to be done. This never meant that we didn't care about our Soldiers, we always did, and from the leadership I "see" on this site, we always will!

MSG Martin C. , I'm not sure I fully understand your question. If a leader is concerned with the welfare of soldiers in peacetime, then why wouldn't they be in combat?

If instead of saying "unconcerned with the death of ..." you substitute "does not have their decision making capabilities paralyzed by the death of ..." then I would say yes.

The principle role of leaders is to make decisions in the best interests of the organization. Many factors affect that decision making process and the loss of life (or potential loss of life) is one of the most influencing factors on that process.

In order to remain effective, the leader must be able to retain their ability to make tough decisions despite stressful influences.