We learn to lead primarily through experience, and themost developmental experiences are the tough, challeng-ing ones that push us out of our comfort zones, like what1LT Clark experienced when he was thrust into the hotseat. With this in mind, we, the Company Command team(http://CC.army.mil), created the Leader Challenge project.We ask leaders around the Army to describe hard-hitting,dilemma-type experiences they’ve had. We then bringthose video clips into an interactive online environment (ora face-to-face session) where Leader Challenge partici-pants put themselves into the protagonist’s shoes. In theprocess, participants are immersed in the real-life chal-lenge of a leader. It’s not a hypothetical scenario; it’s an ac-tual situation filled with uncertainty and discomfort thatplaces participants in the hot seat and forces them to takeon different perspectives. First Lieutenant Clark’s story, for example, is the vehicle

to place you into his experience. As you articulate what youwould do, and exactly how you would do it, new connec-tions begin to emerge. You are vicariously experiencing hischallenge! As you engage in facilitated small-group discus-sions, your assumptions are challenged, you’re exposed tocourses of action you never considered, and along withyour fellow participants, you’ll likely identify second-ordereffects and implications that you initially didn’t think about.By immersing yourself in the scenario and engaging in vi-

brant conversation with others about it, you are gaining vi-carious experience, and you will develop judgment andframeworks for effectively leading through the challengingexperiences that await you in the future.There are two ways that you can leverage the Leader

Challenge approach to develop leaders: through an inter-active online environment and through a dynamic face-to-face engagement.

Take the Leader Challenge Online� The Leader Challenge online platform (LC.army.mil) is

accessible to select members of Army Professional Fo-rums (APF), which is hosted on milSuite (https://www.mil-suite.mil). You must be a member of one of APF’s “leaderforums” for NCOs, warrant officers, platoon leaders, com-pany commanders or S3 XOs. When you arrive on theLeader Challenge home page, you will see a list of all theLeader Challenges.

� When you select and click on a particular LeaderChallenge, you begin the three-step experience that startswith watching the short video clip of the leader describingthe challenge:What would you do in this situation? Watch the Leader

Challenge introductory video clip and in no more than 500characters, answer the questions: What are your consider-ations; what would you do?

June 2013 � ARMY 55

The Leader Challenge Approach

To: Company CommandersFrom: Company Commanders

When we immerse ourselves in the tough, real-life challenge of another leader, we hone our judgment and we grow more prepared for our own future challenges.

Imagine that you are in Afghanistan. You are 1LT Ab-dullah Clark, an infantry company executive officer in the504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. On one mission, youare leading a company (minus) dismounted patrol. Yourcompany commander, who is back at the outpost, is in-tentionally having you lead this company mission foryour development. The mission has gone well, but asyou egress past a village along the route back to the out-post, you come under heavy fire. Bullets are flying;rocket-propelled grenades are exploding; your heart isracing. The company first sergeant begins to takecharge. He’s charismatic, highly experienced and super

aggressive. He is directing Soldiers to break contact andcontinue bounding back in the direction of the outpost.Your company commander, on the other hand, is on theradio talking to you, and he directs you to “close with anddestroy the enemy!” You see, your commander has aUAV up—a drone—and through the video feed, he’swatching the building from which the enemy is firing atyou. What are you going to do—listen to the companycommander and close with the enemy, or go along withwhat the first sergeant is already putting in motion? Andnot only what are you going to do, but how are you goingto do it?

Compare your response with others. As soon as yousubmit your response, you are granted access to the re-sponses of those who have already taken the challenge.As you read through other members’ responses, you canvote responses as helpful and comment on them. Learn the rest of the story. You then get to watch the

“Rest of the Story” video clip, in which the protagonist de-scribes what actually happened. You can also access addi-tional resources such as related articles, doctrine and soon. These resources foster additional learning and connec-tions to existing knowledge and make each Leader Chal-lenge a complete leader-development package ready foryou to use, either for self-development or as a catalyst forleader development and learning in your unit or classroomenvironment.

Conduct a Leader Challenge WorkshopLeader Challenge Workshops are engaging, interactive,

face-to-face sessions that can be used in unit leader profes-sional development (LPD) or in classroom settings. Wehave even witnessed platoons across an infantry battalion(2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regi-ment) doing a Leader Challenge Work-shop with all the Soldiers participating. When a group meets to discuss the

Leader Challenge, its participantsshould be divided into huddles of threeto five participants, with one desig-nated facilitator per huddle. The work-shop typically begins with watching theLeader Challenge video and facilitatorsasking participants, “What are yourconsiderations? What would you do?”The method includes three rounds ofconversation, with participants splittingto form completely new huddles eachround and the facilitator staying in

place. The movement of the participants is crucial to thesuccess of the method, which scales from small (eight to 12participants) to very large (more than 600 participants), de-pending on the space available. A Leader Challenge package includes a “facilitator quad

chart” with recommended questions to drive the conversa-tion in each round. It is a starting point from which facilitatorscan adjust depending on the goals of the specific workshop.Another proven element of the method is the use of easel

paper to visually capture insights in the huddles. The notesand diagrams become a history of the learning for a partic-ular huddle, artifacts that the facilitator uses to brief newlyarriving participants and to build upon with each round. Af-ter the third round, participants stay in place and go directlyinto the close-out discussion.

Keys to Success� Designate and prepare huddle facilitators ahead of

time. An effective way to prepare facilitators is by havingthem take the specific Leader Challenge online before youmeet to rehearse. Then, meet and review the facilitator quad

56 ARMY � June 2013

So, what did the real 1LT Clark do? That is what we call“The Rest of the Story” in a Leader Challenge. It’s notnecessarily the right answer; rather, it is what actuallyhappened. Because it’s real life, the outcome can be am-biguous, which creates more conversation and the possi-bility for more learning to emerge. First Lieutenant Clark’s“Rest of the Story” is that the company had recently lost awell-respected squad leader and two Soldiers, and noone wanted to lose another Soldier. Instead of con-

fronting the first sergeant, 1LT Clark grabbed his radiotelephone operator and his fire support officer and be-gan moving toward the enemy. When the first sergeantsaw what was happening, he stopped dead in his tracksand supported 1LT Clark. They closed with the enemy,doing so in a way that limited collateral damage to thevillage. The enemy got away, but the unit gained intelli-gence and sent a message to the villagers about itscompetence and resilience.

Company commanders can developtheir leadership skills in an interactive

online environment—the LeadersChallenge (LC) interface—in which

they consider and describe how theywould react to situations related bythe leaders who experienced them.

chart to ensure that all the team is on the same sheet of mu-sic. Facilitators can be peers to the participants. They will bemore committed and will learn more because of their role.

� Keep facilitators in place at their respective tablesthroughout the workshop, but have all the other participantsmove between rounds so there are all-new participants inthe huddles for the second and third rounds. Ideally, no twoSoldiers will be in the same huddle more than once.

� Designate a timekeeper and stick to the time line. Keepthe first round brief; this sets the conditions for subsequentrounds to be effective. (It gets the juices flowing, while pro-tecting time for the other rounds.)

� Have facilitators begin each roundby welcoming the new participants andorienting them to the key insights thathave emerged so far at that table, usingthe easel paper and notes. Participantsbegin the second and third rounds bysharing one key insight from their previ-ous huddle, enabling the cross-levelingof ideas and insights.

� Participants do most of the talking.The facilitators’ key role is to ask ques-tions that spark thought and conversa-tion to stretch participants’ thinking.

� Use devil’s advocate and role-playing facilitation techniques. A devil’sadvocate challenges the huddle’s con-sensus and causes participants towrestle with their assumptions. Role-playing encourages participants toact out what they would say or dorather than just talk about it in thethird person.

� Be positive, inspiring and ener-gizing (and treat every person as avaluable member of the profession).

� Trust the process and have fun. It

doesn’t get much better than this!So far, 21 Leader Challenges have

been published. Some of the topics in-clude: rules-of-engagement decisions;ethical dilemmas; interpersonal con-flicts; being given a tactical order youdo not agree with; managing the ten-sion between taking care of Soldiersand accomplishing a mission; andleading through crises such as the

loss of a Soldier. The following examples will give you a bet-ter feel for what Leader Challenge vignettes are like. As youread them, imagine a leader telling the story on videotape:“My best friend Robbie was killed by an IED. That night

was a long and emotional night. The very next morning,LTC Jones called me in to tell me I was moving from thebattalion operations office to take over Robbie’s platoon—immediately!”“We were high up in the mountains observing a favorite

enemy ambush location. Are those insurgents on therooftop, or are they innocent goatherders? I see a weapon;yes, that looks like a weapon. Do you see the weapon? My

June 2013 � ARMY 57

Cadets at West Point conduct an LCas part of their Professional MilitaryEthic Education program. Every cadetplatoon leader, mentored by an officer,leads the monthly exercise for his orher cadets, with senior cadets servingas group, or “huddle,” facilitators.

Officers and NCOs interact in huddles during an LC at Fort Benning, Ga. LCworkshops can be used in unit leader professional development or classroomsettings. Participants should be divided into huddles of three to five per table.

forward observer sitting next to me says, ‘Yes, I’m prettysure that is a weapon!’ We are too far away to engage withdirect fire, and I can’t make radio communications with ourmounted patrol that is coming up the road any minute. Thatis the same spot where one of our guys was killed lastweek. Crap, what am I going to do?”“Once we passed the eight-month mark, I started witness-

ing my second squad leader growing more and more risk-averse. One morning in the chow line, I overheard PFCJones talking about how they sat in a building for eight hoursinstead of patrolling—something that, if true, is at odds withwhat the squad leader reported in his patrol debrief.”“Coming back from an all-night foot patrol, SGT H. was

hit by an IED. He didn’t make it. Aftergetting him medevaced out, I beganthinking about what I was going to tellthe platoon once we got back to ourbase. Then the commander called andgave me a direct order to clear thenearest village, where the guys whoput in the IED could be located—amission that would easily take eighthours. My guys were out of food andwater, already physically smoked andin a bad state of mind. There’s no way

those people [Iraqis in the village] didnot know something about that IED.Then my platoon sergeant says to me,‘Sir, there is no way we can do thismission. Look at the guys!’ At thatpoint, my company commander calledagain to find out why I wasn’t movingto the village. What do I do?”These are the kinds of challenging

experiences that our small-unit leadersin the Army are having. Situated in theLeader Challenge online forum, the sto-ries become a cutting-edge leader-de-velopment curriculum across the threepillars of Army leader development.Leaders can use the Leader Challengeas a vehicle for self-development (par-ticipate online), leverage it for unitleader development (as the basis for anLPD) and integrate it into the curriculumto support existing learning objectivesin the Army education system (for ex-ample, at the Maneuver Captains Ca-reer Course).

The Leader Challenge approach to developing leaders isgrounded in work done in the 1990s at West Point and inpartnership with the Army Research Institute and Yale Uni-versity, which included the “Tacit Knowledge for MilitaryLeaders” study that culminated with a book, Practical Intelli-gence in Everyday Life. Furthermore, the small-group discus-sion techniques, including rotating participants and use ofeasel paper, are informed by experiential learning theory andthe World Café technique for conversations (The World Café:Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter).The approach has been iteratively tested and improved forthe last 13 years with periodic funding sponsored by theArmy Chief Information Officer/G-6 through the Army Studies

58 ARMY � June 2013

First Lieutenant Abdullah Clark shareshis LC story with 500 West Point cadets

in the “MX400: Officership” coursewhile a picture of his First Sergeant isprojected on the screen behind him.

Each huddle should include a designated facilitator.

Program. The method has been integrated at West Point andis being adopted in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps,Captains Career Courses, Basic Officer Leader Courses andoperational units. The feedback is overwhelmingly positive.

Feedback Examples“The Leader Challenges are amazing. We just did one

with every squad leader and above in the conference roomfor the last 90 minutes. Great stuff, and the leaders loved it.Teaching this stuff in a group setting is beneficial becauseit flushes out different perspectives, points and counter-points. Please keep them coming.” —Company commander

�

“This was the most real-life developmental experience Ihave had so far at USMA [U.S. Military Academy]. No otherleadership course or PME [professional military ethic] classhas been as clearly applicable to me and my future as theLeader Challenge series. I am better prepared to enter theArmy.” —Cadet at West Point

�

“I like the Leader Challenges because they force you tovery succinctly explain a difficult choice. I find them to be agood tool to generate conversation with my lieutenants

about battlefield ethics. The first one we did, I assigned ashomework. The next two we did at work, where I applied ashort time hack to force them to quickly choose and explainthemselves. Using the basic Leader Challenge construct,my 1SG and I developed additional scenarios based on myNCOs’ previous combat tours, which we used with all theSoldiers in the unit. As a result, we were able to talk aboutethics in general, and I was able to lay out my own expec-tations. We all know that a commander cannot be every-where at all times, and I want my subordinates to make theappropriate judgment decisions when called upon to doso.” —Company commander

�

“We are using two drill sergeant Leader Challenges asan integral part of how we bring new drill sergeants into ourbrigade. It is a powerful way for leaders to shape unit cul-ture.” —Brigade commander

Benefits of the Method� Captures real-life challenges that actual leaders have

recently faced.� Situates learning in rich context (not a context-

stripped, hypothetical case study).

June 2013 � ARMY 59

An LC workshop typically begins with a video clip of a leader describing a challenging situation.

� Engages all participants in conversation and requiresthem to think through and articulate their thought process.

� Helps to reveal (and appropriately challenge) partici-pants’ underlying assumptions.

� Exposes participants to the thoughts and perspectivesof other members of the profession.

� Becomes a catalyst to bring out the experiences (andtacit knowledge) of participants as they engage in conver-sation about the scenario.

� Gives facilitators valuable experience facilitatingsmall-group conversation.

� Develops judgment and frameworks for effectivelyleading through the challenging experiences that charac-terize our profession.

A Vision for Army LeadersTake a Leader Challenge every month and then talk about

it with other leaders when appropriate and relevant. To sup-port this, we recommend (if necessary funding is provided)launching a new Leader Challenge in the first week of everymonth on a rotation that alternates between scenarios fea-turing an NCO, a company-grade officer and a field-gradeofficer. This design—having all leaders across the Army takethe same Leader Challenge each month focusing on a dif-ferent level of leadership—creates multi-echelon mentoringand leader development. It causes leaders to take on multi-ple perspectives by placing themselves in the shoes of theleader in the scenario and, in the process, to be exposed tothe thought processes of different ranks. The potential existsfor this to transform the way that Army leaders learn and de-velop, resulting in a more effective Army.

* * *To be physically fit for our mission,

Army leaders conduct PT every day.If you consistently do challenging,functional PT, you and your unit willbe more effective in your mission.There is a direct causal effect there,which is easy to see. The same istrue for exercising our leader judg-ment. To develop and maintain ex-ceptional judgment, leaders mustconsistently do challenging, func-tional thought exercises. LeaderChallenges are one effective way todo that. As you regularly immerseyourself in real-life leadership chal-lenges in an environment that facili-tates learning and development,you will develop and hone yourjudgment and become a more ef-fective Army leader.Join your professional forum and

then integrate Leader Challengesinto the way you develop yourselfand your team. Learn more at LC.army.mil. If you have a challenging

leadership experience of your own that you are willing toshare, please connect with us at cocmd.team@us.army.mil.

60 ARMY � June 2013

Art by Jody Harmon

Company commanders: Please join usin the new and improved version of ouronline professional forum to continuethe conversation: http://CC.army.mil.

Company commanders in the Pennsylvania National Guard watch thevideo that opens an LC workshop in Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa.