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II-1 CHAPTER II THE ART OF JOINT COMMAND 1. Introduction a. Command is the authority that a commander in the armed forces lawfully exercises over subordinates by virtue of rank or assignment. Accompanying this authority is the responsibility to effectively organize, direct, coordinate, and control military forces to accomplish assigned missions. Command includes responsibility for health, welfare, morale, and discipline of assigned personnel. b. While command authority stems from appropriate orders and other directives, the art of command resides in the commander’s ability to use situational leadership to maximize operational performance. The combination of courage, ethical leadership, judgment, intuition, situational awareness, and the ability to consider contrary views gained over time through training, education, and experience helps commanders make difficult decisions in complex situations. The desired result is the conscious and skillful exercise of command authority through visualization, decision making, and leadership. Effective decision making combines judgment and visualization with information; it requires knowing if to decide, when to decide, and what to decide quickly enough to maintain the initiative over the adversary. Information management (IM), knowledge sharing, an understanding of the operational environment, and a sound battle rhythm facilitate decision making. c. This chapter discusses factors related to “commander-centric” leadership, and then focuses on operational art and processes that help the commander make decisions during planning and execution. 2. Commander-Centric Leadership a. Historical analysis shows that commander-centric organizations out-perform staff- centric, process-oriented organizations. A commander’s perspective of the challenge at hand is broader and more comprehensive than the staff’s due to interaction with civilian leaders; senior, peer, subordinate, and supporting commanders; and interorganizational partners. Clear commander’s guidance and intent, enriched by the commander’s experience and intuition, are common to high-performing units. Employing the “art of war,” which has been the commander’s central historical command role, remains critical in the contemporary complex environment regardless of technological and informational improvements in control—the “science of war.” Successful commanders can strike a balance between the “art of war” (human interaction) and the “science of war” (technological solutions) by emphasizing the inherently human aspects of warfare. “When all is said and done, it is really the commander’s coup d’oeil, his ability to see things simply, to identify the whole business of war completely with himself, that is the essence of good generalship.” Carl von Clausewitz On War