The nature of Army operations makes it essential for leaders at all levels to be able to influence outside of their chain of command. This lesson will teach you the importance of extending influence in the current operational environment. You will become more self-aware of your goals and able to achieve those goals as the lesson provides information on understanding your own interests, assessing your target of influence, and building rapport with your target. The lesson will teach you how to effectively gather information about the ultimate priorities and goals of those you are influencing to improve communication and enhance the effectiveness of your influence.

Decision making is critical to effective leadership. Army leaders regularly deal with situations that are complex or chaotic. Leaders are often in a position of having to make tough decisions, this lesson covers specific techniques to enhance decision making in difficult circumstances, as well as, how one’s perception or interpretation of information influences decision making.

Teamwork, team unity, and unit cohesion are some of the most important concepts to effective leadership and achieving mission success. As a leader, it is your responsibility to build effective teams that display cohesion and unity so they are ready for the challenges that they will face. This lesson will teach you the characteristics of effective teams and how you can recognize those characteristics within your team. You will also learn about dysfunctional team behaviors and how to diagnose dysfunction. In the lesson you will use multiple case studies and interactive exercises to develop your skills and achieve team unity and minimize team dysfunction.

Whether in a command meeting or communicating with host nation leaders, negotiation skills are an integral part of succeeding as a leader in today’s Army. The art of negotiation is an advanced level of communication that requires leaders to leverage their knowledge and negotiation techniques to achieve desired outcomes. This lesson will teach you about negotiation and the general conditions for negotiation. It will also help you identify why negotiations fail and how to avoid the circumstances that lead to a breakdown in negotiations. You will also learn how to apply negotiation techniques and deal with emotions.

As today’s operational environment becomes more complex and uncertain, the need for mission-focused delegation has become increasingly important. In this lesson you will be able to assess your comfort level with delegation. You will learn the difference between mission-focused delegation and regular delegation, as well as what tasks are suitable for delegating and how you can benefit from effectively delegating.

Creating and promulgating a vision of the future helps leaders to more effectively execute their mission. Leaders who are able to instill their vision in their subordinates can avoid common leader missteps such as micromanagement by giving their subordinates the vision and guidance they need to act. When leaders are successful at communicating their vision, their subordinates can act in accordance with that vision, with mission command, and without over relying on direct orders. This allows subordinates the freedom to make decisions on their own and execute in real time using their judgment and their leader’s vision as guidance. Enhancing your ability to create and promulgate your vision will allow you to provide clearer guidance and give subordinates more autonomy and responsibility to accomplish the mission.

Given the nature of current operations, it is essential that Army leaders are prepared to build and develop relationships with a host of individuals, teams, and organizations from diverse backgrounds. Building effective working relationships is complex and requires leaders to communicate across interpersonal and intercultural boundaries. Although the differences between and among individuals and groups may be real, it is just as likely that they are perceived based on prior experience, assumptions, or stereotypes. Leaders must be able to break down stereotypes and overcome differences in order to form effective working relationships.

Trust between individuals is essential for effective teamwork and group action. Trust starts from respect among people and grows from common experiences and shared understanding.” This lesson will help you to better understand trust, who’s involved in trust, and the distinction between different types or bases of trust. The lesson will describe techniques to build trust and you will be able to practice the techniques in realistic scenarios. You will learn how to assess trust in others and new ways to figure out if someone else is trustworthy. These topics will help to broaden your knowledge of trust and give you effective strategies to better earn and build trusting relationships with others.

Achieving a shared understanding is the goal of communication. This lesson will improve your communication so that your thoughts, ideas, vision, and orders are understood. Sharing information builds trust because a leader’s thinking and decision making processes are transparent to others. Sharing information also allows others to make better, more informed decisions. Other benefits include clearer understanding of your vision and intent, relieving stress that comes from not having enough information, and controlling rumors that can spread in the absence of information.

Interactive media instruction that can be used by all Army leaders to understand, assess, create and sustain a positive command climate and increase unit effectiveness.