Fear and Loathing in the Motor Pool

摘要

This paper summarizes major themes that emerge from 500 hours of interviewing of 20 senior Army noncommissioned officers. It describes the collapse of morale and discipline in the early 1970's, and the leadership strategies used to restore discipline, the thesis is that contemporary noncommissioned officers grew up in an Army in which leaders feared subordinates and could maintain authority by naked power. Such leadership tactics may no longer be appropriate, but current leaders find it difficult to change because they had few alternative role models during their formative years.