[darkerside]

> The military demands that soldiers immediately and unquestioningly follow commands given by their superiors (particularly during combat).

This doesn't jive with my understanding of US military (or human nature). Out of combat, a top-down command and control hierarchy leads to poor decision making by troops on the ground. A general can't and shouldn't make decisions on day-to-day operations at the platoon-level.

In combat, certainly the stakes are higher, and lives are on the line. If anything, that means trust plays MORE of a role than hierarchy. If a leader I don't trust tells me to do something that seems wrong and reckless enough to get me killed, I'm not going to do it. I'd rather get court martialed back home than die in the dirt. It's all about trust. If the leader has earned trust, I'll know that they have the bigger picture, and what seems wrong to me now makes sense in some way I can't see from where I am. And of course, it's not all black and white, these are matters of degree, including measuring the desperation and force in the tone of an order.

[ghaff]

See for example Team of Teams by General Chrystal--which is also a good book about organization/business generally.

[viscanti]

+1. Team of Teams is a great intro to leadership for tech. General Chrystal identifies the distinction between complicated and complex areas and shows best practices for dealing with complexity (it's not just a semantic argument but actually something substantial, where tech leaders generally deal with complex problems and not complicated problems).

[darkerside]

Is it an easily communicated difference?

[ghaff]

Yes. Complicated means lots of moving pieces but predictable. Complex means lots of components that are far less predictable.

https://thearmyleader.co.uk/team-of-teams/