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Mission Command

From ARRSEpedia

Mission Command is the art of 'directing' a subordinate towards a clearly defined endstate (or effect) without actually telling him 'how' to get there, with an understanding of 'why' he is doing it.

An alien visitor would think this would come easily to most people, as actually specifying the detail required to achieve even simple tasks is incredibly time consuming and can be a lot of work. Ergo 'mission command' is leadership for the idle and should be very easy to train and educate, and even easier to work with. Astonishingly, this isn't the case.

As with all human foibles, people can be graded on a bell curve in this area: on the right side are those who - by any practical measure - could be said to be 'Masters' at the art; then there are those on the left who can only be described as 'pettifogging micro-managers' who are incapable of even the slightest degree of a 'hands-off' approach. This latter group are all cnuts. There is no logical way to align sectors of the bell curve to the hierarchical rank structure: anyone of any rank can be anywhere on the curve. However, there are ways to spot those who - in all likelihood - haunt the left side.

[edit] Spotting Micro-managers

If they say "I'm well into Mission Command" then they are 99.9% likely to be the most vile, stupid and thoroughly pointless micro-managers ever born. Make your excuses and leave. Now.