Professional Training and Personal Development: Essential Complementarity in the Military Educational Process

In this endeavor, the authors start from the premise that the characteristics and trends of the current security environment compel higher military education to place great emphasis on training the military leader of the future. Attention is given to future military commanders and planners. The authors suggest that commanders’ and military planners’ most important skills are those associated with leadership. The approach focuses on the dual aspects of professional training and personal development, whose complementarity can contribute to strengthening the profile of the military commander as an effective leader. The purpose of this initiative is to outline general competencies within a military leadership discipline, in accordance with learning outcomes based on competencies associated with complete leadership. The authors propose to redesign the higher military education curricula for training military leaders. The design of the endeavor is based on the results of a specialized study, which aimed to identify the predominant leadership profile among graduates of higher military education. These competencies will be adapted to the characteristics of education focused on measurable learning outcomes. The proposed objectives include analyzing leadership styles, leveraging the characteristics of the predominant type of leadership among command and staff faculty master graduates, and identifying ways to develop competencies based on an educational program model that enhances military leadership skills. The research hypothesis to be validated is that emotional intelligence predicts complete leadership styles, and the research results could be translated into a new educational program model for developing an effective leader.