This course provides participants with foundational and practical knowledge of leadership principles and models (academic and military) and the key contexts that they will face as mid-level leaders.

The SAF Leadership 24-7 Framework, which is a model of “contextual leadership” with the context defined in terms of the mission and purpose of the organisation, the characteristics of the operating context, and the desired outcomes of the organisation. It will also help the participants to evaluate the applications of the leadership principles in different contexts.

The Multi-source Leadership Feedback (MSLF), which is a tool co-developed by the Centre of Leadership and Cultural Intelligence  (CLCI- NBS) and Centre of Leadership Development (SAF) is discussed as part of the Leadership Competency Model (LCM) to help the mid-level leaders to enhance their self-awareness in tandem with the current coaching framework in the SAF.

This module adopts active learning pedagogies. Evidence-based theoretical understanding and peer sharing, and learning activities using case studies are some approaches to achieve the desired learning outcomes. 

Communication is the lifeblood of all organisations. As leaders are asked to guide and manage complex organisations, communication becomes increasingly important. We believe that today’s leaders must be well grounded in communication theory and able to master a broad repertoire of communication skills.

Theory is important because it provides a conceptual framework that guides both strategy and skills. Strategy is crucial because it helps managers and leaders make intelligent communication choices about such factors as media, message, timing, content, organisation, style, and tone. Strategising communication allows leaders to break out of habitual patterns that may no longer serve them well.

Finally, leaders need continuous practice in honing their communication skills, whether it is giving persuasive briefings, providing feedback to others, influencing others, or communicating change.

This course seeks to address three sets of questions with regards to national defence and security policies and issues:

a. How and why policy-makers identify what national interests must be secured and defended?;
b. How policy-makers can approach the problem of how to secure and defend national interests?; and
c. What kinds of potential problems can these measures, designed to secure and defend national interests, create that can undermine the entire national security edifice.

In so doing, students will be given a foundation for understanding how states formulate defence and security policies, and will recognise how the roles of various actors adapt as conditions change. This foundation will allow students to conceptualise how national security policies are formed and how perspectives on the use of force and the role of government shape policy, which will be consistent themes throughout the course. Students will later be asked to identify security concerns and explain how the policymaking process will likely work. By the end of the course students should be able to devise a model of the factors affecting the security policy of their respective states, so as to understand how these policies might change and what they may look like in future environments.

How can military force be effectively employed to fulfil the ends of policy? The goal of this course is to sharpen your ability to think strategically and exercise strategic judgment. It is designed to improve your capacity to assess how alternative operational courses of action best combine ends, ways and means in order to achieve overall strategic and political objectives.  

To do so, the course is based on two core components: a study of foundational theories of war and analyses of key case studies. The works of prominent strategic thinkers - such as Sun Tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, Mao Zedong, Sir Julian Corbett or André Beaufre - provide a sound foundation to understand the interrelationship between policy, strategy and operations. The case studies help you discuss and evaluate the ways in which strategic planners and military leaders in the real world have, successfully or not, addressed the problems associated with the use of force to attain political objectives. The case studies highlight different types of war and cover a wide range of strategies and operations.