Military leadership under stress

Abstract

There is a lot of published theory about the skills, qualities and abilities that a leader should have to be followed faithfully by his subordinates, but there is very little written about which ones are really important, those that he must have inescapably and without which that person could not be a true leader. It is also easy to make decisions when there is time, when there is nothing at stake because we are in peacetime or it is an exercise. In this research, I intend to investigate what are those qualities that a leader must have, first in general terms and second especially when under pressure or when the decision can result in people dying or when they are in a complicated scenario such as the current missions of Iraq or Afghanistan. In this regard, I want to get into what stress is, what stress means to a soldier and how he copes with it and if there are special techniques to train resilience and be able to make stronger and better prepared leaders in the Officer and NCO Schools of the countries of our environment In addition to that, I want to analyze if it is true that there is what it is called “loneliness of a leader” and just in case, investigate what are the main supports that a leader should have to handle that isolation, that loneliness when taking important decisions.