The reason I like this picture – of a group of -soldiers resting while on patrol in Afghanistan – is because in some respects it sums up leadership in the British Army. It’s about getting small teams like this one to operate cohesively with other teams to achieve a successful outcome, invariably in a hostile environment. It shows a group of mates sharing a joke; the man in the middle is clearly in charge, but his team mates are entirely relaxed with him. For him, leadership means persuading these men to follow him into danger. Even if one of them is killed or seriously injured, they must -continue to trust their lives to his wisdom, integrity and professionalism to complete their mission.

This picture debunks the myth that “leadership in the army is somehow easy; that people simply do as they are told or are disciplined for not doing so”. Operational success for us is predicated on well trained and highly motivated individuals operating as empowered teams, along with a lot of other teams to achieve a common purpose. And we must grow our own leaders; we can’t go to the marketplace to buy in our junior commanders, so developing leaders is core business for us. Teams are at their most cohesive where values are shared and trust is implicit; leadership will thrive in these conditions. History tells us that when the chips are down, soldiers fight for their mates rather than some altruistic higher purpose such as patriotism. So our core values are really important to us in -enabling successful leadership. The army’s six core values are: courage, discipline, respect for others, integrity, loyalty, and selfless commitment.

I cannot overstate the value of good leadership to the army and this underpins the investment we make in developing our leaders. For us leadership is not about profit margins but about success or failure – life or death.


Major General Gerry Berragan CB is the army’s director-general for personnel. He joined the Royal Artillery in 1979, and has served in Northern Ireland, the first Gulf War and Iraq, where he was awarded the US Legion of Merit for his work in 2007 as deputy to the US Corps Commander in Baghdad. He spoke on ‘How to develop great leaders’ at HRD 2012.