Leadership Case Study

Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS): Leadership Lessons

OR

Abstract:
“Study the past if you would divine the future”, said Confucius, which is the overarching objective of this case. How were all the battles and wars fought, right from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Genghis Khan, and may be even beyond? What principles guided some of the armies to victory, while many were left with bruised failures? How did they formulate strategies and who executed them? What was the commander-in-chief’s role? Do the beginnings of management have roots in military for organisational structure, resource mobilisation and resource allocation, motivating the forces, etc.? What are the similarities and dissimilarities between military leadership and corporate leadership, if any? This case study enables a discussion on all the above questions. Management as a discipline had evolved over many decades imbibing practices from various other fields. Military is one such field. Management borrowed some practices from military and vice versa. What are they? The case can also be used to dwell on this in the backdrop of Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS).

Pedagogical Objectives:

• To compare and contrast military leadership with corporate leadership
• To explore if corporate leadership has its roots in military leadership
• To understand RMAS’ leadership training initiatives and debate whether companies can emulate some of those practices
• To analyse the challenges in adopting the military leadership style in companies nurturing ‘open culture’.

Keywords : Leadership, Military, The Art of War, RMAS, Henry Fayol, Sandhurst, Strategy, Sun Tzu, Warfare, Culture, Crisis, Leadership Case Studies, HRM, Marketing, Drucker

Contents:

• RMAS: Developing Leaders
• Corporate Leadership: The Military Connections
• RMAS's Leadership Initiatives and Corporate Lessons