“Moral high-ground”
Despite how leadership and values lectures emphasise on how everyone has a different “style”, the leadership styles within military are in essence rooted in fundamentally similar values, homogeneous and rather stagnant. I thought of this when reflecting upon my most recent board interview, which had left me deeply dissatisfied with my own answers to a question challenging the value of females in the military. I had felt pressured to self-censor then and didn’t give any answer I was proud of. What I had meant to say was: we need more female officers in the force to challenge the leadership style we have. This is symbolic of a larger transition we have to make, to expand how we define leaders to accommodate non-traditional additions to the force, like females, or those in the cyber defence realm.
Leadership in the military is, more than in any other spheres, a huge subscriber of the lead by example ethos, and it has proliferated every policy and curriculum we are exposed to. At least in the initial rungs of leadership, the way our command structure plays out in a conflict testifies to that: The Platoon Commander must be the first to enter a breach, Section Commander must be the first to move forward in a firefight, last to retrograde … A term I commonly hear (and hate) is “moral high-ground”: commanders must obtain an ippt gold to have the moral high-ground to demand the same standards from their men. If you bend over and wretch, or look shag, or close your eyes to rest, what example would be set for your men watching you? I take so many issues with this whole “moral high-ground” thing, but otherwise I agree with the general logic of how to earn respect and hold this close to my own values. If you don’t have the confidence to advance, how would your Men want to fight for you thinking that they’re just there to test the ground because you’re too scared to die? Without example there is no respect or command.
There is correlation between capabilities and fitness, otherwise how else to spare energy for encouragement when things get tough, or to return to planning when the men are resting. Nowadays though, we mistakenly conflate the “example” we portray with “physical” – commanders have to lead the way not because they fight against the fear of potential death but because they are fitter to lead the charge. The “moral high-ground” of getting ippt gold even has disturbing assumption that Men are inherently always less fit and unable to achieve gold without the commander’s exacting that standard from them.
Such a conflation becomes problematic as “lead by example” works only when the military has largely similar composition – if no common ground was to be found in their ideologies, class or race, at least their biology is an indisputable similarity. War was a physically demanding task first and foremost, so naturally up till a certain point the soldiers were all males coming in at the above average fitness. The first women to be enlisted as a cohort into the US military was in 1976 – notably after most of the major wars in the world. Even those countries conscripting the female population look insignificant next to the millenniums of war-making we have under the belt of modern human civilisations (a rather masculine endeavour since kings usually initiated conquests and women were often the spoils of war). Joan of Arc and Mulan were famous because they were exceptions, and because they had a male disguise. The deeply rooted masculine authority in the military afforded an environment for leadership style suited to a rather homogeneous group of people.
However, if we’re looking to increase female representation, as well as to attract talent to deal with a vastly different nature of cyber threat, the organisation is no longer as homogeneous as it once was (not everyone has that baseline capacity for fitness and combat) and inflexibility in our training ideas will only turn these people away. To challenge this homogeneous idea of leadership by example, there is the tangible female standards to adjust, and the intangible of a culture rewarding only one type of leadership.
Female standards as a measure of our incompetence?
I am all for that gender equality but there are biological realities that we cannot will away: on average male bodies are stronger than a female’s, and given how the average height and weight are much higher than a female’s, our load-bearing capacity is also very different. With my experience up to this point I really don’t think it is possible to demand the same from females what we do for males and a differentiated assessment index is necessary, just like how we do for ippt and soc. To make any argument from here on we must accept that we are comparing the averages, because there will always be ridiculously fit ladies and weak guys to disprove the claim. The point is that the standards we set must be calibrated in a way that assesses the average fairly and is able to recognise or reward these outliers.
I’m thinking of adjusting standards not just to particular tests, but also to calibrate according to individual’s health, specifically period symptoms. I have no answers to my friend’s questions about “omg then how do you do that on your period”, only “just suck it up and deal with it”, which isn’t exactly the healthiest conversation. Personal experience wise, I don’t think it’s very safe to do intense combat circuit on second day period, but we are neither comfortable enough to broach that during our Risk Assessment nor is the culture forgiving enough to avoid undermining a female commander’s leadership just because she’s weak (from bleeding out profusely without her control).
I first started becoming engrossed with the idea of differentiated standard in something called the Interval Fast March (IFM) during the common infantry training, where everyone has to carry a 25kg load and meet a certain timing per distance (which was darn fast). So many girls weigh the bare minimum of 45, 46, 47kg, and hardly any guy have to carry a load that is half of their weight. Neither do girls have the same stride length as a guy and inevitably will struggle with meeting the timings. I think it should be calibrated with height and weight taken into consideration. One might say that physical tests are meant to be unfair just as how sports are unfair for those who are genetically blessed to play something better. To that I say: it makes sense to have demanding standards for selection processes, such as for competitive sports or special forces training, but in our training we are firstly a conscript army that aims to accommodate diversity rather than aiming for selectivity and secondly the IFM is a mandatory process to go through and not something we can sign ourselves up for. And that is why I started thinking a lot about the for and against to having differentiated female standards.
Detractor 1: more traditional, arguing that in an actual war the bullet will not see gender, it will not swerve for a girl, nor will the mission essentials and combat load stop being essential just to accommodate a female.
The traditional argument cannot explain a glaring contradiction: if one were to subscribe to standardisation across gender why did we have differentiated ippt and soc standards? It is also a line of argument that is pretty ridiculous to pursue: you’re telling me that gender makes a difference when trying to outrun modern weapons? Besides, even in an all-male group there is bound to be difference in physical strength, and instead of ditching the weak and treating them as liabilities, don’t we share the load because of camaraderie? There is also the common counter argument that “furthermore girls who signed on didn’t choose to do infantry life so they shouldn’t be assessed for it”, but I personally will not use that because neither did guys choose to be put through this hardship in our conscript army.
Another problematic implication of this argument is that the females will always be kept in the lower rungs of leadership. Up to a certain rank and above, the commanders are no longer fighting in the frontline sweating it through with the Men, but making strategic plans. Those who occupy this position are usually older men, firstly because of their experience and secondly because of a weaker physical state (the media’s stereotypical portrayal of beer-bellied men crowding into their tight uniform and looking very unlike their subordinates actually holding the front). These two reasons hold true regardless of gender, so technically once in that position of leadership their main concerns aren’t carrying loads or avoiding bullets. This entire argument is only engaging with females in junior positions of leadership.
Detractor 2: there is no need to change any standards because females can serve the military in different support capacities such as logistics or combat support roles.
Call me oversensitive but it sounds like “women should stay in the kitchen where they belong” masquerading with a different context. Furthermore, this point doesn’t engage with the problems that the females who choose to serve in combat roles will still struggle, instead of solving the problem it is offering an alternative that is more convenient to maintaining the status quo. Women were already serving the role in supporting the military in WW2, joining the workforce where males went off to fight, making up for the logistical and manpower shortage. It has been more than half a century and nothing has changed. Is this the best we can come up with on how to maximise women’s contributions?
Perhaps if someone could offer up a reason for why combat and frontline roles are uniquely suited for males, this division of leadership spheres could make sense because bringing in females will not value add. However, disregarding the benefits of having greater diversity in leadership, even on a purely numbers’ game, we all know of the declining birth-rates and how it affects the size of our troops, and bringing in females can help even out the decline. With what little information available, the combat vocations require more people (8 active infantry battalions, 2 active armoured brigades and so on vs 2 transport battalions at its busiest, 1 active signals battalion and so on).
Detractor 3: differentiating standards will cause people to look down on females because it violates that “lead by example” premise – how do you tell your men to meet those standards when you cannot?
As with all affirmative action people will look upon females unkindly if differentiated standards are applied. However, so long as the policy is rooted in scientific reasoning – such as the ippt scoring system – it will become integrated and people will hardly bat an eye at it when given sufficient time. Pursuing this line of logic means that the female gold is worth nothing since it technically requires less than their male counterparts: no guy push-ups, no run time of 10 minutes or under, no moral high-ground to demand standards. Does that mean a female commander has less right to lead since she cannot do it by example? If so, we must also ask then, should a senior commander in his 40s, held to much more lenient standards, have the right to tell his men to get that gold in their 20s? Clearly that is not the case, because the validity of a claim isn’t diminished just because the person cannot do it themselves. In a rather hyperbolic allusion: is a murderer wrong when he claims that “it is immoral to murder?”
Even in other area, such as weapon THT, commanders regardless of gender cannot beat their Men who have trained their entire lives at handling the weapon, no “moral high-ground” in sight but still it is permissible for them to require their Men to be the best at doing their job. People tip-toe around the idea of differentiated female standards because it deals with gender, and it is much more sensitive than things like experience. Calibrating the standards is not about asking for luxuries or to be pampered, but to recognise that just like different PES statuses, there are differences in physical capabilities that are real and have corresponding training demands. One example would be: in OCS the gentlemen are required to do 12 pullups by commission, but the lack of conversation surrounding female standards results in our exemption from any requirements, which is as unfair as it is to expect a girl to carry more than half her weight.
I will also be the first to admit that there are girls who are less than deserving of respect and understand why there are unkind judgments against making some standards “easier” for us. There will be black sheep regardless of gender. Perhaps “excuse period cramps” might make people look down on us, but it is a reality just like things such as “excuse sunlight” or “excuse camo”, just as how those aspects of soldier’s health can be abused to chao keng. I think what’s important is to adjust the standards in order to attract a certain quantity in the first place so that we are afforded the choice to even deliberate on the quality of who we choose. Only by removing deterring barriers would we be able to have more talents, and with more chance to prove that we aren’t just token females.
By extension – more than to lead by example
Adjusting what demands to exact of females in the military is uncomfortable because it challenges the premise of leadership by example. We always talk about diversifying our composition, but how we judge them still remains that same stiff ruler we have always used. I don’t know about the future of female conscription – I am more pessimistic because not only would it be unpopular with girls it would also be unpopular among our ranks who cannot adjust to the debilitating effects on our culture and core values – but this adjustment is necessary to pave the way to that eventuality if it were to ever happen.
Beyond just being a gendered issue, I see the involvement of lower PES statuses, as well as the intake of new military branches for intelligence and cyber defence, as another reason why we should re-examine this whole “lead by example” idea. I only went so in depth for the female standards because that was what I knew and could speak about. How should a PES C commander lead their own men, when they are side-lined and looked down upon by the combat soldiers? How should a C4X commander lead their men when there are no fires to charge into first, or the physical and mortal risk of a traditional battlefield? Surely, we can’t expect them to be ripped and fit when they spend the majority of their defence works before a computer, much like how we can’t expect anything of a combat officer wielding code when they spend their time rolling in the mud. Do we think they are less of leaders than the rest of the military?
The obvious answer should be no, not when we need to fortify this area of our defences with talent, but listening to the way people talk about this new diversity shows that the reality is that these less combat fit leaders struggle to hold respect; with their colleagues, because they don’t fit the idea of “leading by example”; with their subordinates, because our organisation has no model of leadership to impart in them or answer on how to lead their team. The irony is that these shouldn’t have been issues if we truly understood and subscribed to leadership by example, because these commanders are holding up their example by being competent in their skill set, or in their work ethics, even if it’s not the kind we are used to (plunging into the fray, shouting the loudest commands, being the fittest).
What our increasingly diverse military calls for is either to truly understand the leadership style of leading by example, or to embrace different way people inspire and earn their respect. One of my commanders said something about how he realised that female officers tended to be better liked by the Men because they are sensitive and care for their emotional wellbeing. Her leadership manifests in how readily the Men move to protect, form a circle when the enemy comes, and give their all to ensure mission success with minimum damage. This might not sit well with those feminists who believe females don’t need guys to protect them, but I think it is a refreshing type of leadership that motivates people to by extension defend their motherland. Inspiring the urge to protect is especially beneficial in the military’s core business of defending our sovereignty. It can come off as sexist, perhaps that is why it is imperfect, but it is also fundamentally different from the masculine idea of having to be the strongest example to be a leader and deserves to be recognised by the organisation and developed as a style of leadership.
Being put through military, experiencing OCS and some leadership appointments, everyone can take away something different from their reflection on leadership in the military. While I still strongly believe in leading by example, it might be time for us to reach a cognitive turning point on the type of leaders we want to groom, especially with the changing composition of our force. Partly motivated by my strong aversion to the phrase “moral high-ground”, I think this long argument is but a thought experiment and reaches no conclusive or useful end. Maybe the end point is that this is also about me reflecting about what kind of leader I want to be, and hope to see.
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