From May 23rd to June two other cadets and I took part in an AIAD at GE’s Crotonville campus. The corporate university at Crotonville is the oldest of its kind, teaching GE employees essential skills for furthering their career and becoming better leaders. Our job as West Point cadets was to introduce the students to the military’s style of leadership. I initially thought that the practices considered standard in the army would be foreign and new to the corporate world, but in reality I soon found while attending Foundations of Leadership that many of the problems in leadership are the same and many of the same processes set in place to prevent problems exist in both corporate and military leadership styles.
 

The main reason I derived to be the cause of similarities is the similarity of the structures of the Army and GE. Both have hundreds of thousands of employees spread across the globe, accomplishing a myriad of tasks with only a vague central goal. These employees have different jobs, but must work together to achieve whatever they have been ordered to do. Just as a Forward Observer may be assigned to an infantry unit, an engineer or lawyer may be attached to a group developing a new technology.
 

Both GE and the Army have very standard practices set in place, six sigma and things like the 8 troop leading procedures respectively. This allows for any group to immediately begin working with another group very smoothly, as each group in the confederation has the same way of completing the task and can easily understand what the other members are doing and why. In my work at GE I was working with employees at several different locations across the nation and only communicated in email and conference calls. This brings up two important issues that both the Army and GE face due to being physically and globally large, the importance of good communication and the necessity of trustworthy employees. Commanders’ intent is huge on a battlefield, but being able to communicate clearly extends beyond radio messages. In working with groups of people spread across the globe, managers must be able to describe what they need scientists and engineers to do without even being physically there to describe it, and just like in the Army, they must be able to trust that what the employees report back is accurate and true. Just as West Point places huge importance on being a leader of character, GE strives to produce managers who will lead with integrity – the same concept for the same reasons.
 

To summarize, it was interesting to see the issues that both the army and GE face, and how similar many of their remedies are.