Reporting on GEN Dempsey's remarks at the 2009 Joint Warfighting Conference, Gerry J. Gilmore (AFPS) writes:

With the advent of terrorism and other types of irregular warfare, he said, the U.S. military now “must develop leaders who are effective in the context of ill-defined problems against an enemy likely to migrate among operational themes.”

REF: Writing in Army Requires Different Leaders to Fight Irregular Wars, General Says

Hat Tip to the War on Terror News (WOTN) for reporting this in GEN Dempsey: Junior Leaders Must Decide (**)

Dempsey, the commander of U.S. Training and Doctine Command (TRADOC), went on to say that the "complexity on the battlefield that, in turn, requires a different kind of leadership and a decentralized command structure that pushes down decision-making authority to more junior leaders."

As a TRADOC organization, his words made me stop and think, how well are we accomplishing the preparation mission he describes below?

“We must prepare leaders for the shifting balance of operational and tactical art due to complexity and decentralization [on the battlefield],” Dempsey said. “As the operational environment becomes more complex, commanders at much-lower echelons of command must gain an appreciation of the operational art.”

(**) As noted in the Failure to Communicate with Remote Server error message, the War on Terror News may not be accessible from many Army installations as it appears CTNOSC is arbitrarily blocking all blogs hosted at TypePad

The error message linked above provides a remedy:

If access to this site is needed for official business follow the instructions below.

1. Obtain Supervisor Approval with a written justification of why the site is part of your official duties.
2. Have your IMO contact the DOIM Help Desk to open a work order to request waiver to have this site unblocked if applicable.

Once we receive your waiver, it will be submitted to the Change Configuration Board (CCB) for approval prior to submission to CTNOSC for action.
This process can take up to 60+ to complete.  (I presume that is 60+ [days], although in practice it is probably "60+ [months]" or longer)

Reading the above procedure, does that in any way sound like GEN Dempsey's "decentralized command structure that pushes down decision-making authority to more junior leaders?"

The article Culture of Engagement summarizes LTG Caldwell's remarks to the FA30 students at the Information Proponent Office:

Every leader in our Army needs to be thinking about how we inform, educate and engage others, and what tools and mediums we will use.

[He] emphasized the importance of the message getting out. With new media, there is no news cycle. The command climate must embrace speed, creativity, and adaptability.

In his speech Fueling Change in our Army to the AUSA Land Warfare Breakfast Series, LTG Caldwell shared the SECARMY's remarks:

We have a tendency to keep our head down and do our jobs. We need a culture that is more open. We need to get people outside of their comfort zones. Soldiers and Civilians need to look for opportunities to tell the Army story.

Reading the above remarks, I can't help but think of a couple slides from one of GEN Casey's presentations, specifically his Rules for Information Engagement and his timeline for StratComms Impact. Are these draconian blocking policies meeting the intent of "Timing is everything" and "Don't over-centralize!"?  They certainly do not provide any assistance in helping us meet the "You Want to Get Your Story Out Here" objective as illustrated on the StratComms Impact timeline.

REF: GEN Casey's 11 Flat Out Rules for Information Enagement (Slide 56 of 57)

Annotations in RED reflect my additions and emphasis.