The study of wartime leadership has been reinvigorated over the last couple of years. It is a crucial human skill with a wide variety of definitions and philosophies. In his 1961 book, The Path to Leadership, Field Marshal Montgomery described leadership as a “battle for the hearts and minds of men.” And the most recent leadership doctrine for the Australian Defence Force described it as follows:
Leadership is an affair of the heart. And of the mind. Guided by character. It is the spirit that develops people, builds teams and gets results. It is an interplay of emotions, feelings, attitudes and values. It involves being able to understand what followers need, being able to predict how they will react, and inspiring them towards achieving a common goal. We define it as the art of positively influencing others to get the job done.
There have are many other definitions offered by individuals from government, commerce, the arts and the military.
No human endeavour has the high stakes leadership that leading a nation at war possesses. In recent years, the leadership of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been examined from many angles.
Leadership and Battlefield Visits
Recently, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy conducted a battlefield visit to the Donetsk region. Almost since the start of the large-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, Zelenskyy has regularly travelled around his country to visit his soldiers in the field. These battlefield visits are important for a variety of reasons.
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