Building Cultural Capability for Full-Spectrum Operations

Abstract

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2011 Center for Army Leadership Annual Survey of Army Leadership (CASAL): Main Findings

“…The need for foundational interpersonal skills is supported by CASAL findings which show that interpersonal tact is the lowest rated attribute of leaders. Abbe (2008) noted that good interpersonal skills may sometimes allow a leader to overcome deficits in understanding the local culture's language. Abbe also suggests that crosscultural training prioritize generalizable concepts about culture and culture skills that teach Soldiers to adapt in unfamiliar environments.…”

Leading Global Teams

“…One of the diffi culties in determining the KSAOs needed for effective teamwork in global contexts lies in the unique challenges faced by Service members operating abroad. Over the years, the complexity of competencies required for Service members has expanded greatly as the nature of warfare has shifted from an emphasis on attrition and maneuver warfare toward a focus on asymmetric warfare and wide area security operations which encompasses a broad spectrum of military operations (Abbe, 2008 ). In the last decade alone, the focus on stability, security, reconstruction, and transition (SSRT) operations has highlighted the need for Service members capable of quickly adapting to and reconciling the sometimes vastly different roles in which they fi nd themselves.…”

Framework for Rapid Situational Awareness in the Field

“…This framework does not teach Soldiers what to think, but rather how to think about the situations they encounter. There are a variety of names for this in the literature, including "perceptual acuity" (Abbe, 2008), "multicultural perspective-taking" (Rentsch & Mot, 2009) and "heedfulness" (Thomas, Sussman & Henderson, 2001). In this report, we have adopted Endsley's (1995) term "situational awareness" to describe the ability to identify salient aspects of the environment, decide what they mean, and respond appropriately.…”

“…In military training, cultural capability has three intersecting components: regional or culture-specific knowledge, language proficiency, and cross-cultural competence (3C), which comprises the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics that enable effective performance in any culture (Abbe, Gulick & Herman, 2007;Abbe, 2008). As Abbe and colleagues (2007) point out, language and regional knowledge help one operate in a specific cultural environment, while 3C enables one to work across a range of cultures and settings.…”