Your assignment is to prepare and submit a paper on civilian training and education.

Your assignment is to prepare and submit a paper on civilian training and education. The process of building adequate training programs and providing adequate tools to support these programs is also a difficult one. At a time when the US army is faced with such difficult tasks such as the war on terrorism, international peacekeeping missions, the need for leadership is insurmountable. The army needs to be more agile and efficient. Therefore the military has to devise programs to suit this purpose and from prospective leaders. This is the reason why the military has adapted a competency based model for promoting core leadership values and education. The Army Civilian Training, Education and Development System or ACTEDS is another such program which has been introduced in an effort to provide a planned, advanced, orderly approach to the career development of enlisted officers in the military and groom them to be adequate leaders. It is a mix of traditional training, operational assignments and self development and is a tool to enhance the potential and performance its employees.

It was therefore necessary to primarily ascertain what competency means and its implications in the military. The most common view was that the word denotes the capability of a leader to adapt to a situation and the quality of his judgment or actions. Thus they fit the role that the organization wants its leaders to play. Competencies have proven to be an efficient tool in determining performance assessment and skill development. Among other things such as knowledge, skills, abilities, tasks, and functions, competency is another yardstick that needs to be measured and established because they provide a general set of guidelines and description of responsibilities. Managerial and supervisory positions can thus be identified. The traditional job analysis tools existing before this framework were time consuming and accurate in matters relating to individual jobs but inaccurate in matters pertaining to varied job positions within an organization. This framework provides employees with a set of measurable and verifiable objectives associated with leadership actions and behavior.

Atwater, Leanne E, Shelley D. Dionne, John F. Camobreco, Bruce J. Avolio, Alan Lau. 2001. Individual attributes and leadership style: predicting the use of punishment and its effects. Journal of Organizational Behavior. 19, 6, 559-576. School of Management, Arizona State University West, P.O. Box 37100, Phoenix, Arizona 85069-7100, U.S.A.. Center for Leadership Studies and School of Management, Binghamton, NY

The overall goal of the ACTEDS plan is to ensure that in the short term, employees are provided with a comprehensive list of competencies, provide sufficient knowledge to employees and supervisors, improve job proficiency and to provide employees and supervisors with a reference for information regarding the actions expected of them, and to continuously improve the efficiency of an employee and train him for more responsible positions.