The motivation for self-discipline

[Briski]

Over in the thread on "Hazing", we've been discussing various forms of punishments/disciplinary actions, aka external discipline.

The first couple of chapters of Leadership: 2000 and Beyond talk about self-discipline.  Things like defining it as "do[ing] a task because you see that it needs to be done, not because you are told to do it" and "The key is that self-discipline is internally, not externally motivated."

However, in chapter 6, it says:
"Although imposed discipline is necessary in some situations, use it only if the other types of discipline fail. Imposed discipline is not sufficient to meet the need to control subordinates. Neither is group pressure. Challenging tasks can be strong motivators. But, the ideal situation is to motivate cadets to willingly discipline themselves, and exercise self- control and direction to accomplish the task." (Emphasis mine.)

So, that brings us to this evening's thought-provoking leadership development question: how do we reach that ideal situation discussed in chapter 6?

[DNall]

Well, leadership isn't taught, it's caught. You can't teach people to be leaders, and you can't order them to be disciplined. You can stand next to real leaders till you become one, and you can be & emenate disipline on those around you. For the most part, people are conformists. People want to be led, not just assigned a boss. They will respond in almost all cases to a decent leader or a disciplined environment, because that's the natural state. Call it pack dynamics if you want, that's fairly applicable actually.

I guess what I'm saying is you can't teach self-discipline at the entry level. You can instill it with on the spot corrections, strong command presence, example, etc - a whole lot like training a puppy to be completely honest. Then self-disciplined people as the develop up the ladder will respond to the environments we psychologically train them to expect & demand.

I hate to sound like I'm comparing cadets or adults in CAP or the military or the civilian world for that matter to animals. And, I hate to make it sound like we're brainwashing people. None of that's the case. It's just that people try to make all this so much more complex & deep than it really is. Leadership is simple, discipline is simple, people are simple. It's just when you over-think it, or think it can be read in a book then executed, that it becomes complicated. I'm not saying an anti-itellectual approach to leadership is necessary. More that a balance of theoretical & spacial approaches has to be adapted across the situations. Achieving that ever-changing balance is the real art.

[notaNCO forever]

Before resorting to disciplining cadets you should try to motivate them to self discipline. The best way to do this is to have high moral and esprit DE corps in the squadron. It also helps to praise in public and correct in private[I don't mean praise every litle thing or else it will lose its meaning] before correcting a cadet I also make sure they were taught what they did was wrong encase it was the instructors fault for not teaching them right.