Strategic Thinking for a Complex World: A Middle East Perspective of Required Skills

Strategic Thinking for a Complex World:

A Middle East Perspective of Required Skills

By Daniel H. McCauley

Over the past few decades, the conduct of war has changed significantly. Non-military means are now far more effective than traditional military means in achieving enduring national security objectives. The increased use of information, social, humanitarian, political, economic and other non-military means have dramatically accelerated the real and potential change resident in today’s security environment. As a result, most strategic civilian and military leaders have not yet adjusted their thinking to enable their nation or organization to adjust to this rapidly evolving global security reality. In short, they are failing to think and act strategically in pursuit of their preferred future.

Strategic thinking, however, is not just a challenge for the national security community. The same trends in the global security environment present a challenge across government and private industry alike.  For example, a 2018 survey states that the most valued skill in strategic leaders is strategic thinking, yet only 23 percent of executives are strong in strategic thinking. In another survey of 10,000 senior leaders, 97 percent of them said that being strategic was the leadership behavior most important to their organization’s success. Yet in another study, a full 96 percent of the leaders surveyed said they lacked the time for strategic thinking.[1]

Strategic thinking is described as being intent-focused, future oriented, and involving an enterprise-wide, integrated perspective; it is ultimately about obtaining a sustained, competitive advantage for a nation or an organization.[2] National strategic leaders understand that to maintain or improve their position in the world, they must simultaneously think locally and globally, understand short-term and long-term implications and trade-offs, be ever-vigilant in examining trends and their associated challenges and opportunities, and create an organizational mindset focused on constant innovation. To do this successfully, current and future strategic leaders must develop a broad range of thinking competencies to support sound judgment, inform critical decision-making, and develop cognitive agility and adaptability.

For years “strategic thinking” has been reserved for commanders or the strategic leadership team as part of an organization’s strategy development process. Those leaders and teams relied upon a traditional linear solution-finding approach characterized by experience-based rules and linear cause-effect predictability.[3] In today’s new security environment, however, the long-established diplomatic and military methods that rely upon these predictable paradigms for influencing, coercing, or leading change are no longer the primary tools of change for nation-states or organizations. With current security concepts such as multi-domain operations, hybrid warfare, and the grey zone as well as enduring concepts, traditional thinking methods can no longer effectively compete against competitors and adversaries who are actively employing alternative nonlinear thinking and decision-making tools to achieve their security objectives.

This new security era requires strategic leaders to leverage military and non-military means in a much more thoughtful, nuanced, and integrated approach that leverages broad expertise-based intuition, imagination, and creativity.[4] With these new demands in mind, military educational institutions around the world are endeavoring to integrate strategic thinking into their curriculum to provide their future strategic leaders with the skills necessary for sustained success.

So, what are the skills or competencies necessary for today’s militaries and their educational institutions to develop better strategic thinkers? Using two previously published articles and a new survey, this essay discusses the differences specific professions and regions may have on the required skills. First, the survey results are analyzed and discussed. Next, the survey results are compared to the two previously published articles. Finally, recommendations for military personnel systems and military educational institutions are offered.    

To provide an initial frame of reference for the survey, two sets of skills are presented--one from the business world and one from the U.S. professional military education community. The first set of skills are from an article in Entrepreneur Middle East (one of the very few essays focused on the Middle East) in which it identified nine traits every twenty-first century leader needs: emotional intelligence, creativity, empathy, confidence, collective leadership, communication skills, inspiring, inclusiveness, and decision-making skills.[5] The second set of skills are from a Joint Force Quarterly article in which it identified seven strategic thinking competencies vital for strategic leaders: critical thinking, creative thinking, contextual thinking, conceptual thinking, cultural thinking, collaborative thinking, and communicative thinking.[6]^,[7]

As the basis for this article, a strategic thinking skills survey was developed to solicit feedback on required strategic thinking skills from senior and field grade military officers from the Middle East.

The Survey:

In early 2022, over 160 senior[8] and field grade officers[9] were surveyed on strategic thinking skills or competencies. Twenty-two skills with definitions were provided to the officers from which they were asked to select up to six that they believed were the most important for strategic thinking. Officers were also given the opportunity to provide a skill or competency not listed.[10] Once both groups’ responses were tabulated, their collective responses were combined to determine an overall group response. As the field grade officer group was far larger than the senior officer group (142 versus 21), each groups’ response percentages were averaged for the overall average response.

The Results:

In Figure 1 below, the top eleven skills identified by the senior officers are shown. There was strong consensus for the top five skills with each selected by over fifty percent by the officers. The next six skills, however, were significantly lower ranging from one-third to one-quarter selected. It is interesting to note that Systems Thinking, often associated with Critical Thinking, and Visionary, often associated with Creative Thinking, were selected by only twenty-five percent of the officers.[11] This low selection rate may be the result of some officers intellectually linking these skills and, as a result, selecting a different skill. In addition, it was equally interesting to see that ethical thinking was identified by only one-quarter of the respondents.

Figure 1. Senior Officer Top Ten Strategic Thinking Skills.

The table in Figure 2 shows the top ten skills identified by the field grade officers. There was strong consensus of over fifty percent by the field grade officers for three skills: Creative Thinking, Collaborative Thinking (Teamwork), and Intellectually Agile. Life-Long Learner, Visionary, and Flexible were selected by forty to forty-five percent of the officers. Slightly over one-third of the officers selected Critical Thinking as a necessary skill, and slightly over twenty-five percent of officers thought being Open-Minded and a Communicative Thinker were necessary skills for strategic thinkers. It is noteworthy that given the range of issues that strategic thinkers must address that Broadly Educated was identified by only twenty-four percent of the officers as a necessary skill.     

                            Figure 2. Field Grade Officer Top Ten  Strategic Thinking Skills.

In Figure 3, the combined average top ten strategic thinking skills identified by the senior and field grade officers are shown. When averaging both groups together, the top five skills selected by almost fifty percent or more officers are: Creative Thinking, Collaborative Thinking (Teamwork), Critical Thinking, Intellectually Agile, and Life-Long Learner. Skills six through ten were selected by a third or fewer officers.

Figure 3. Senior and Field Grade Officer

Combined Average Top Ten Strategic Thinking Skills

The table in Figure 4 shows the skills with a percentage differential of ten percent or greater between the senior officers and the field grade officers. The differences between the two officer bodies regarding Critical Thinking, Broadly Educated, and Visionary are noteworthy. Specifically, the forty-six percent differential for Critical Thinking requires additional research to discern why the field grade officers selected it at such a low rate. One immediate thought is that strategic leaders may be viewed by younger officers as being consumed by the need for creativity, collaboration, and decision-making, and therefore staffs perform the commander’s critical thinking through staff papers and studies. The senior officers, on average eight years senior to the field grade officers, likely have additional professional and personal experiences and insights that leverage information of which the staff is unaware, and therefore selected it at a much higher rate.     

Figure 4. Senior and Field Grade Officer Strategic Thinking

Skills with 10% or Greater Differential

The table in Figure 5 below compares and contrasts the results from the tables in Figures 1 and 2 as well as the two surveys previously mentioned as references. At least four differences are noteworthy between the military and business surveys.

First, Emotional Intelligence and Empathy are strategic leadership skills identified for the business community. In this survey, however, for both groups of military officers, the skills of Empathy and Emotionally-Regulated did not make either group’s top ten. This outcome may essentially be the difference between unity of command and unity of effort. It may be that the concept of command, which is specific to the military profession, de-emphasizes the soft skills necessary for effective leadership in civilian organizations. In military organizations, most officers traditionally spend the vast majority of their careers exercising unity of command, which carries unique authorities for commanders. Unity of effort becomes a far more important skill for the senior military ranks when those unique authorities are absent. Whereas within the business community, unity of effort is the only command and control concept available and necessarily requires those people-oriented soft skills.     

Figure 5. Comparison of Skills or Competencies Identified by Field Grade Officers, Senior Officers, Entrepreneur Middle East, and Joint Force Quarterly. 

Second, Ethical Thinking scored low in the military surveys and was not one of the top skills identified on the civilian list. In many Western militaries, there is a need to integrate members from various parts of civil society who have different social, cultural, and religious backgrounds, which requires a common set of values and ethics necessary for a cohesive fighting organization. Therefore, to reinforce the Services’ desired values and ethics, a members’ behavior is constantly reinforced, rewarded or punished as necessary.  In addition, many modern definitions of leadership in Western military publications include ethical leadership. As such, Ethical Thinking in Western militaries may be seen as an inherent component of leadership itself.

For some Middle Eastern armed forces, leadership skills and a prescribed set of military values and ethics are found in the Hadith and the Qur’an and are expected to be applied in one’s professional duties.[12] The generally monocultural aspects of the Middle East armed forces allows the application of religious principles without the legal or social issues inherent in Western militaries.[13]  

The lack of Ethical Thinking or values-based thinking skills necessary for strategic thinking in the Entrepreneur article requires additional research. Ethics and values may be inherent in a way that are not apparent such as in the military. Conversely, a common set of ethics may not be a consistent consideration given the acceptable range of values and ethics throughout the business world.       

Third, the Entrepreneur article highlighted the demand for effective strategic leadership. Confidence, Inspiring, and Decision-Making are identified as necessary skills for the strategic leader in the business community. Clearly, at the higher levels of a business organization one’s individual specific competency, such as economist, analyst, or program manager, for example, is a very narrow skill set focused on “doing” as opposed to “leading.” Once the member attains the middle echelons of the business organization, however, these specialized skills are inadequate for leadership positions and must therefore be expanded upon. Specific skill competency or expertise becomes less relevant within the context of broader organizational responsibilities. Leadership, along with confidence, inspiring, inclusiveness, and decision-making, are indeed necessary skills for organizational and individual success.

In contrast, military officers are trained as leaders from the very beginning of their careers. In fact, leadership is actually their profession. While officers, and non-commissioned officers, do have initial career specialties and expertise, as they progress through their careers, they are often expected to lead organizations for which they have little or no specific education or expertise. To lead effectively, the military officer learns to leverage the skills and expertise of subordinates. Successful military leaders are, by necessity, inclusive, confident and decisive. The shortfall in military strategic leadership, and strategic thinking, is that given the range of expertise and knowledge required for decision-making at strategic levels, many military leaders lack the time required to grasp the depth, breadth, and nuances of the issues before they are moved on to other positions or retire. Therefore, the focus on “how to think” or the need to continually learn is necessary for a successful strategic military leader.        

Finally, the business community’s specific need for Collective Leadership skills mirror those desires listed above for leadership. In general, members of the business community spend years becoming experts but have fewer opportunities or incentives for career broadening, especially in the leadership realm. Therefore, learning how to integrate disparate organizational divisions or communities can be challenging especially if the culture, values, and decision-making processes are significantly different. Conversely, Collective Leadership is not a demand for military strategic leaders and thinkers as the very concepts of combined arms, jointness, and interagency integration have forced the military to become better at this skill. Rather, the military strategic leaders’ challenges are with the related concepts of Teamwork and Collaboration. At the tactical level, teamwork and collaboration are a necessity in life-or-death situations and, therefore, generally not an issue. At the strategic level, however, teamwork and collaboration are less evident, especially as budgetary decisions are spread across multiple governmental executive decision-makers as opposed to residing with a single chief executive officer or chief financial officer. 

Recommendations:

As these articles and survey illustrate, there are many different types of strategic thinking skills. The specific required skill set, however, will likely change according to profession and other circumstances. Based upon the previous discussion, the following recommendations will provide a way ahead for strategic thinking and strategic leadership in the military.   

1. Senior military leaders at strategic organizational levels must identify the strategic thinking skills they believe necessary for success in those positions.
2. Military personnel centers must have a process to match the specific requirements of strategic thinking/leadership positions to the personnel who have the required skill set.
3. As flag and general officers deal with a far greater range of issues than their previous experiences allow, they will need to be more broadly educated. Undergraduate and advanced degrees must be purposefully focused to include non-technical degrees, such as economics, culture, history, and other social science-related disciplines.
4. Tactical leadership development must include a focus on leading through unity of effort and employing the soft or people skills needed to operate successfully in more senior positions.      
5. Staff and war colleges must incorporate more strategic thinking tools, such as systems thinking, creative thinking, and futuring, and activities, such as horizon scanning, implications trees, and scenario development, into their curriculum.
6. Strategic thinking skills should be introduced within the formal military education process at the initial accession level.
7. Militaries must proactively seek interaction in exercises, conferences, training and education with the business and interagency communities early in officer careers.   

Over 2,500 years ago, Confucius said, “When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.” Strategic thinking competence is not about a single skill, but rather a bundle of skills. In essence, it is the “art” associated with strategic leadership. Unlike their experiential learning gained at the tactical and operational levels, strategic leaders are being asked to adjust their action steps by learning without experience. In essence, strategic leaders, using strategic thinking tools and skills, are being asked to gain an understanding of the “lessons to be learned” to assist them in making the necessary changes to the organization, its processes, and training today.

The ability to employ the instruments of national power in unique, synchronized, and mutually supporting approaches in the pursuit of long-term national security objectives demands that military leaders develop and refine their strategic thinking skills. This survey represents an initial step in institutionalizing strategic thinking in militaries around the world so that officers develop these skills not just to survive, but to thrive.