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Leader as Negotiator in Conflict Resolution:The Complexities of Direct Leadership

Mr. Ken Riggins is an Assistant Professor (Military Leadership) at the United States Army, Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.He retired from active duty with over 21 years of service.He holds a Master of Arts Degree in Public Administration from The University of LaVerne in LaVerne California.He also holds a Master of Science in Adult and Continuing Education and a Graduate Certificate in Conflict Resolution, both from Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas.Mr. Riggins is the primary author for the negotiations curriculum at the Command and General Staff College and plans to pursue further graduate study in negotiations and conflict resolution. He is married to the love of his life and is the proud father of four children and three grandchildren.

Mr. William Kuchinski is an Assistant Professor at the United States Army’s Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, KS. He retired from active duty with over 22 years of service as a US Army Aviator. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY and Master of Engineering degree in Chemical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. He has more than fourteen years of experience in adult education including teaching chemistry at the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY and leading the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) department at Lehigh University in Bethlehem PA. He currently is the leader of a team of 12 faculty members teaching mid-career officers at the US Army’s Command and General Staff College.

Leader as Negotiator in Conflict Resolution My vision for this article begins with my work here at the Command and General Staff College.As a leadership instructor I have had the good fortune to have the time to read and reflect on my military leadership experiences.It dawned on me after three years of study that many times during my active duty career that I had incorrectly framed the problems that I had been confronted with and incorrectly saw the enablers to achieve an acceptable end-state.Stated another way, I saw military authority and rigid adherence to the chain of command as the means to mission accomplishment.However, after several critical mistakes it became clear to me that the interests of my units could only be accomplished through cooperation with others and attending to the interests of partners inside and outside of my chain of command. This realization caused me believe that as much as 40 percent of my leadership tasks revolved around negotiation and conflict resolution.I now sincerely believe that negotiations and conflict resolution techniques’ are invaluable to a military officer and the success of his or her organization and I believe they should be overtly taught as a critical enabler to military professionals.