Command, Leadership and Control Essence and Application

摘要

Command, Leadership and Control is one of the most commonly talked about activities, especially in the military circle. It is a subject in which historians, academicians, and military leaders have written volumes, with varying approaches. This wide source of information makes the subject one of the most challenging to write about: even more challenging however is the fact that no individual can claim to have found a 'recipe' to successfully conduct this all embracing human activity. The military leader could only tell us the best he did to succeed: the historian and the academician can best write based on hearsay and analyze. The effort of such writers are nonetheless commendable, as they give us the opportunity to learn from other people--the guinea pigs--experience. The importance of this human activity to the managers of violence requires no over emphasis. The logic of command, leadership and control is that, at the highest level of decision making within a particular system, let there be an individual or a group, that either has the answers or the means to find answers to problems affecting the smooth functioning of the system: communicate these answers or means down the hierarchy, setting objectives and the guidelines and constraints within which the objectives must be accomplished: provision of resources and delegation of authority are hallmarks of the system. The overall responsibility for success or failure remains with the decision maker.