Leadership with the lights out?

Email provides the advantage to spread the Commanders intent across a large area very quickly however, you cannot replace the effectiveness of face to face communication.

When I worked in the Pentagon, I conducted all my business in person and then sent the email as confirmation and never let the lack of internet stop the work. Now I have to use email as my only souce of communication but my section can continue to work if the network goes down, at least for a day. If it continues too long, we would need to find alternate ways to access our email like work from home or dare I saw set up a wi-if for us all to use. Face to face communication is a skill still needed in the military and some will need to be taught this dying skill.

Very interesting and true. I think from the tactical level that most have going to more leading through electronic media as opposed to face to face comm. This practice has grown so much that we do it at the operational and strategic levels as well. As is stands now if email goes down on a normal day then no one knows what to do, take that to a higher level and what do those with out communication do?

As a leader, and even in my civilian life, I hate email, and use it begrudgingly. Why? Because most people have taken to using their email accounts as a sort of defensive shield, enabling them to avoid contact with the outside and internal social environments. My pet peeve are those who are located with in the same part of the building, on the same floor, or yes, even within the same office or cube farm, and rather than come face-to-face, they send me an email! Ugh!!!!

I get it; having an archived record of a contact, conversation, or transaction makes sense. What I prefer to do is get together and discuss things in person; this way we can answer questions more quickly, clear up confusion instantly, and get a north-south or an east-west if everyone is tracking or if anyone has questions. Quickly cover what's up next and whose task it is, and you break. Following that, I do a follow-up summary email so that a digital record does exist, and if anything needs to be clarified or corrected, the changes can be made and everyone can see them. For those I am working with who are at a different location or a long distance away, I like a conference call. If you can do VTC or Skype, even better.

Exclusively relying on the printed word alone is far too one-dimensional and can often lead to confusion, anger, and frustration. Just look at the number of times people on these threads misinterpret each other, get in a heated argument, blow it all up, only to have someone else point out to them that they are actually trying to say the same thing? I've seen it a few times. It happens.

Great article, TSgt Joshua Copeland; thanks for sharing!

TSgt Joshua Copeland

Interesting article. We are definitely becoming more reliant but at the tactical level I think the commanders are still doing enough critical and creative thinking to operate effectively if their systems go down. May not be the case in a couple more years though.