Browsing by Author "Spain, Everett"

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    Columbia in the Nation’s Service: Warner Burke and the Education of U.S. Army Leaders
    (The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 2020-09-10) Spain, Everett ; Reed, Brian J.
    In 1969, Columbia University banned Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) from campus. In 2004, Teachers College’s Warner Burke, a senior professor of psychology and Army officer veteran, saw an opportunity to close this civil–military gap. Burke partnered with West Point to educate West Point cadets’ primary leader developers, its 36 company tactical officers, through hosting them annually in a world-class Master of Social-Organizational Psychology. In 2010, Burke welcomed the Army Fellows program to campus, bringing in one or two senior Army officers a year to study under his mentorship. Since Burke courageously showed the way, Columbia has welcomed ROTC back to campus and now boasts the largest numbers of veteran students in the Ivy League. Most recently, Burke built a third program, this one to educate critical Army leaders who historically did not have access to elite higher education, its noncommissioned officer corps.
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    Early predictors of successful military careers among West Point cadets
    (Military Psychology, 2020-11-16) Spain, Everett; Lin, Eric ; Young, Lissa V.
    The importance of leadership to organizational performance puts a premium on identifying future leaders. Early prediction of high-potential talent enables organizations to marshal scarce developmental resources and opportunities to those who are best positioned to show distinction in elevated roles. Much of the existing literature indicates that general mental ability remains the strongest predictor of future professional performance. Using data from 13 classes of West Point graduates who stayed in the Army to be considered for at least early promotion to the rank of major (N = 5,505), regression analyses indicate that cadet military grade point average surpasses both cognitive ability and academic performance by a considerable margin in the ability to predict future professional outcomes such as selection for early promotion or battalion command. Moreover, these differences in predicting managerial career outcomes endure over 16 years. Both practical and theoretical implications are discussed.
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    Reinventing the Leader Selection Process: The U.S. Army’s new approach to managing talent
    (Harvard Business Review, 2020) Spain, Everett
    The U.S. Army has long struggled with toxic and inept leaders, and no wonder: It has historically chosen battalion commanders, a linchpin position, on the basis of 90-second file reviews. Last year it undertook an ambitious revamping of that selection process, which now involves four full days of physical, cognitive, and psychological assessments and interviews. The author, a lieutenant colonel who served as an adviser to the task force that designed and implemented the new process, describes it in granular detail, including a variety of rigorous measures for reducing interviewer bias and ensuring diversity and inclusion. Although specifically aimed at improving the validity, reliability, and developmental impact of the army’s executive-leader selections, the redesigned process offers important lessons for any organization seeking to bolster its talent assessment and promotion practices.
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    The Army NFL Combine: The Battalion Commander Assessment Program
    (Modern War Institute, 2020) Spain, Everett
    What is the best way to select the US Army’s future battalion commanders? The Army Talent Management Task Force (ATMTF) has spent the past two years actively studying this critical question. In the fall of 2019, Army senior leaders directed that the highest rated officers from the recently concluded fiscal year (FY) 2021 lieutenant colonel command/key billet selection board participate in the Battalion Commander Assessment Program (BCAP), scheduled for several four-day periods across January–February 2020. The BCAP will refine the results of the traditional battalion command board by further assessing each officer’s readiness for command and strategic potential to better determine who will be the primary selectees for command, who will be the alternates, and who should not command at all.