2026 Defense Conference Thought Leadership Compendium by Professional Services Council

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP COMPENDIUM Released on October 28, 2026

FEATURED ARTICLES BY

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

Winning The Pace War: How Rapid Capability Delivery Defines Modern Deterrence

The Performance Risk Equation: Why Workforce Well-Being Is Now a MissionCritical Imperative

Non-Standard Logisitics in Contested Environments A Special Operations Forces Perspective

Golden Dome Presents Opportunity to Break Silos Like Never Before

The Leadership Assessment System An Approach to Leader Selection and Development at Scale

The Greenbrier Bunker: A Strategic Case Study in Continuity, Resilience, and Public-Private Partnership

High-Energy Lasers Strategic Imperative for Defense Modernization

The Leadership Challenge Preparing for the Future Fight

Winning the Pace War: How Rapid Capability Delivery Defines Modern Deterrence By Dr. Karl Spinnenweber, President, Mission Solutions, Amentum The character of global competition is changing faster than the systems designed to safeguard our nation. Modern deterrence is now measured not only by the sophistication of our platforms but by our capacity to generate and sustain combat power at speed. Industrial strength, adaptability, and resilience have become defining attributes of national security. In this environment, the defense acquisition system, long optimized for cost and linear efficiency, must evolve to deliver readiness at the pace today’s challenges demand. For much of the post–Cold War era, the United States engineered an acquisition ecosystem that prized predictability and cost control. Lean production, just-in-time logistics, and concentrated supply chains offered compelling economic advantages. Yet recent conflicts and strategic shocks have revealed the fragility embedded within these cost efficiencies. Adversaries understand that operational endurance - not initial capability - can determine outcomes. A force that lacks depth, surge manufacturing capacity, or assured access to critical materials risks strategic overmatch regardless of its technological edge. The war in Ukraine has made this point unmistakably clear. There, we see advanced systems operating alongside high volumes of uncrewed platforms, munitions, electronic warfare tools, and repair networks: all essential, all consumed at remarkable speed. It is a vivid reminder that credible combat power relies on sustained production, rapid adaptation, and resilient logistics. Agility matters as much as precision. Scale matters as much as innovation. This reality is reshaping U.S. defense acquisition in fundamental ways. The Department of War is pursuing a transition from process-driven, program-centric models to frameworks built for speed, iteration, and flexibility. Time, once treated as a constant, is now a critical variable and a strategic risk. A capability delivered even a year too late may fail to deter or defend. New acquisition pathways reflect this urgency. Portfolio-based management is replacing stove-piped program structures, enabling decision-makers to align resources to emerging operational needs. Other Transaction Authorities or OTAs, Middle Tier Acquisition, and iterative requirements models are creating faster avenues to prototype, experiment, and integrate commercial technologies. Fixed-price contracting, when appropriate, is being used to instill discipline and accelerate delivery. These reforms represent more than procedural changes - they are a cultural shift toward continuous modernization. The systems shaping tomorrow’s battlespace will not be fielded through traditional, linear acquisition cycles. Integrated air and missile defense, autonomous systems, counter-UAS

capabilities, CJADC2, space domain awareness, AI-enabled decision support, and undersea networks are complex ecosystems. They evolve rapidly, rely on software as much as hardware, and demand seamless integration of sensors, data, and operational concepts. Delivering these capabilities requires a workforce skilled not only in engineering and manufacturing but in digital innovation, systems-of-systems integration, cyber resilience, and lifecycle sustainment. After years of analyzing barriers and proposing reforms, the central question has become: How do we operationalize acquisition transformation so that it yields real capability for the warfighter? Answering this question requires more than policy shifts. It requires a fully aligned defense ecosystem. Government cannot do it alone. Neither can any single integrator, laboratory, or emerging technology firm. Progress depends on collaboration that is early, candid, and continuous: spanning program offices, industry partners, academia, and the extended supply base. It requires shared understanding of risk, mission needs, and the operational environment. Most importantly, it demands the ability to transition from innovation to scalable production without losing momentum or capability. Key challenges remain, including contested supply chains, an increasingly constrained industrial workforce, and the pressure to adopt emerging technologies at speed while maintaining security and interoperability. These pressures are not temporary, they reflect the new strategic baseline. To meet it, industry must continue advancing digital engineering, modular architectures, rapid system integration, and sustainment models that can operate under contested conditions. Ultimately, modernization is meaningful only if it delivers capability to the warfighter when and where it is needed. Operationalizing acquisition is not simply a cost efficiency initiative; it is a strategic imperative that determines our ability to deter, compete, and prevail. Our competitive advantage in the coming decades will be shaped not only by what we build but by how rapidly we can field, adapt, and sustain it. Achieving that advantage requires bold thinking, a collaborative mindset, and an unwavering commitment to execution at speed.

Health, Wellness & AI Workforce Automations

AEROBODIES Performance Risks Newsletter

Workforce Transformation Solutions

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The Performance Risk Equation: Why Workforce Well-Being Is Now a Mission-Critical Imperative

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Aerobodies Inc. | aerobodies.com

THE PERFORMANCE RISK EQUATION:

Why Workforce Well-Being Is Now a Mission-Critical Imperative

ABSTRACT

The modern workforce is operating under a compounding set of performance risks. From chronic stress and behavioral health decline to physical inactivity and poor environmental design, left unaddressed, these risks erode organizational resilience, mission effectiveness, and competitive advantage. This paper argues that workforce well-being can no longer be treated as a benefits checkbox or a post-crisis intervention. It must be positioned as a strategic performance lever, one that federal contractors, government agencies, and enterprise organizations can systematically measure, manage, and optimize.

I. THE HIDDEN COSTS ORGANIZATIONS ARE NOT MEASURING

Every organization tracks revenue, turnover rates, and productivity. Few track what we call the Performance Risk Index the cumulative drag on organizational performance caused by unaddressed workforce health vulnerabilities. According to the World Health Organization, depression and anxiety alone cost the global economy an estimated $1 trillion per year in lost productivity.¹ In the United States, the American Psychological Association found that 76% of workers reported at least one symptom of a mental health condition in the past year — yet fewer than one-third had access to an employer-supported mental health resource.² The federal contracting sector faces a particularly acute version of this challenge. Personnel hold security clearances, manage high-consequence decisions, and operate in environments where cognitive performance, stress tolerance, and physical readiness directly affect mission outcomes. Yet the infrastructure to manage workforce performance risk in these environments has historically lagged the private sector by years. The result? Organizations absorb the costs of presenteeism (reduced productivity while at work), attrition (the financial and institutional cost of losing experienced personnel), and operational fragility — while attributing these losses to market conditions rather than to the manageable health of their workforce.

$1.9T Annual cost of lost productivity from poor workforce health (WHO, 2024)

76%

6:1

of U.S. workers report at least one symptom of a mental health condition (APA, 2023)

Average ROI for every dollar invested in integrated workforce wellness (HBR, 2023)

Sources: ¹ WHO Global Report, 2024; ² APA Work and Well-Being Survey, 2023; ³ Harvard Business Review Meta-Analysis, 2023

II. FROM COMPLIANCE TO CULTURE: A PARADIGM SHIFT

For two decades, workplace wellness has been framed primarily as a compliance and benefits administration function. Organizations offered gym memberships, annual health fairs, and Employee Assistance Program (EAP) hotlines — and checked the wellness box. What research now confirms is that transactional wellness programs produce transactional results. A 2023 meta-analysis published in the *Journal of Occupational Health Psychology* found that wellness programs with no cultural integration yielded less than 12% sustained behavior change among participants, compared to 54% among programs embedded in daily workflow and managerial practice.³ This isn't just a programming question — it's a leadership and organizational design question.

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Aerobodies Inc. | aerobodies.com

The organizations winning the talent war and sustaining mission performance are those that have made wellbeing a strategic business function — resourced like operations, measured like finance, and led from the executive level. They understand that healthy teams are not a liability offset; they are a competitive differentiator.

"Performance risk is not an HR issue. It is an enterprise risk issue — and it belongs in the boardroom." — Fran Dean-Bishop

III. A FRAMEWORK FOR MANAGING PERFORMANCE RISK AT SCALE

Over 27 years of delivering health, wellness, and workforce performance programs across federal agencies and Fortune-class enterprises, my team at Aerobodies Inc. has developed a structured approach to what we now call Workforce Transformation Solutions (WTS) — a systems-level framework for identifying, quantifying, and addressing the full spectrum of performance risk across an organization. WTS operates across three integrated domains: ■

■

Human Performance Infrastructure — assessing the physical, behavioral, and cognitive health baseline of the workforce through evidence-based screenings, occupational health protocols, and ergonomic evaluations. Environmental Health Optimization — ensuring that the built environment itself supports human performance through WELL Building Standard principles, workspace ergonomics, and air and light quality standards proven to enhance cognitive output. Cultural and Behavioral Change Management — equipping leaders with the tools, data, and coaching to embed well-being into organizational culture, not just programming calendars — including addiction prevention, stress resilience, and psychological safety strategies.

What differentiates this framework from traditional wellness vendor offerings is its measurement architecture. Every WTS engagement is built around a baseline assessment, quarterly performance risk reporting, and a return-on-investment model tied to specific organizational outcomes — reduced absenteeism, clearance retention, injury rates, and talent acquisition costs. This is the language of the boardroom applied to the science of human performance.

IV. WHAT LEADERS MUST DO NOW

The convergence of post-pandemic behavioral health decline, federal return-to-office mandates, and AI-driven workforce restructuring is creating a perfect storm of performance risk. Organizations that respond with legacy wellness thinking — reactive, siloed, and unmeasured — will find themselves managing the symptoms while the root causes compound. Leaders in government contracting and enterprise environments must take three concrete steps: First, conduct a Performance Risk Audit. Understand what your data is — and is not — telling you about workforce health. Most HRIS and EAP systems generate reporting that obscures as much as it reveals. You need an independent, structured assessment. Second, invest in integration, not addition. Adding another wellness app or vendor will not move the needle. What moves the needle is weaving performance health into your existing operational rhythms — onboarding, leadership development, facilities strategy, and contract performance management. Third, demand accountability from your wellness infrastructure. Every dollar invested in workforce health should generate measurable returns. If your current wellness provider cannot show you a performance dashboard tied to business outcomes, you are not managing performance risk — you are managing optics.

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Aerobodies Inc. | aerobodies.com

The future of competitive advantage in government contracting is not technology alone. It is technology plus human performance — and the organizations that understand this will be the ones that endure.

REFERENCES 1. World Health Organization. (2024). Mental health in the workplace. Geneva: WHO Press. 2. American Psychological Association. (2023). 2023 Work and Well-Being Survey. APA Center for Organizational Excellence. 3. Goetzel, R.Z., et al. (2023). Return on investment in workplace wellness programs: A meta-analysis. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 28(4), 312– 329. 4. Gallup. (2024). State of the Global Workplace: 2024 Report. Gallup Press. 5. McKinsey Health Institute. (2023). Addressing employee burnout: Are you solving the right problem? McKinsey & Company. 6. Harvard Business Review. (2023). The ROI of employee well-being programs. HBR Analytics Services.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT AEROBODIES INC.

Fran Dean-Bishop is the Founder, CEO, and Executive Performance Advisor at Aerobodies Inc. With over 27 years of experience designing and managing health, wellness, and workforce performance programs for federal agencies and global enterprises, she is a recognized authority on workforce resilience, human performance risk, and integrated occupational wellness strategy. She is a WELL Building Accredited Professional, an Executive Leadership Coaching Certificate holder from Georgetown University, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Professional Services Council. She is the publisher of the Performance Risks newsletter and creator of the Workforce Transformation Solutions (WTS) framework.

Aerobodies Inc. operates at the intersection of government contracting and commercial wellness solutions, delivering programs focused on human performance, resilience, and workforce well-being. A woman-owned small business founded in 1997, Aerobodies provides federal and state agencies and private industry organizations with a comprehensive suite of health, wellness, and process improvement services — including occupational health management, ergonomic and WELL building consulting, behavioral health programming, fitness and wellness facility management, and enterprise workforce transformation engagements. Aerobodies consistently demonstrates quantifiable program outcomes, achieving measurable impact on business performance, operational efficiency, and the human capital that powers mission success.

franb@aerobodies.com | 703-820-0217 www.aerobodies.com

Alexandria, Virginia | Serving clients nationwide

WHITE PAPER

Non-standard logistics in contested environments

A Special Operations Forces perspective

OCTOBER 2026 Curtis Mathis Jr.

Executive Summary The character of war has changed, but the decisive importance of logistics has not. In today’s era of strategic competition, adversarial nations no longer wait for open conflict to disrupt U.S. sustainment. Instead, they quietly influence the political, economic, and legal systems that govern access to fuel, transportation, communications, finance, and industrial capacity. Special Operations Forces (SOF) operate at the leading edge of this competition, and their missions depend heavily on having reliable logistics. When sustainment is not designed for contested environments, SOF campaigns lose persistence, partners lose confidence, and adversaries gain a competitive advantage. THE STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT: WHY LOGISTICS IS NOW A BATTLESPACE The modern battlespace is defined less by physical terrain than by influence, legitimacy, and access. The ability to move, sustain, and support forces is inseparable from the ability to shape political and economic outcomes. Logistics is no longer simply a means of delivering military power; it has become a form of power in its own right. Adversaries understand this and have built strategies that target sustainment to achieve strategic effects without triggering open conflict. In the Indo-Pacific, China has spent decades building a logistics influence network that stretches from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean and beyond. Through port investments, shipping conglomerates, fuel infrastructure, telecommunications systems, and digital payment platforms, China has embedded itself into the commercial lifelines of the region. In Europe, Russia uses a different but equally effective approach. By exploiting energy dependence, rail and trucking networks, insurance markets, and information operations, they have learned how to create uncertainty about NATO’s ability to sustain forward forces. During crises, the threat of energy cutoffs, transportation disruptions, or legal challenges to transit can have as much impact on political decisionmaking as military movements. For SOF, these dynamics mean that access is always conditional. A partner force may be willing to cooperate, but its ability to move, train, and fight depends on logistics networks that are often influenced or monitored by adversaries. SOF, IRREGULAR WARFARE, AND THE CENTRALITY OF SUSTAINMENT SOF are the primary U.S. instrument for operating in the irregular, ambiguous spaces that define modern competition. Their missions are designed to build partner capacity, enable resistance, conduct sensitive activities, and shape the information environment. These activities are rarely conducted from large, secure bases with robust supply chains. Instead, they rely on small teams, distributed footprints, and relationships with local actors. This makes logistics both more difficult and more strategically important. CACI’s Irregular Warfare framework emphasizes that influence, access, partnerships, and authorities are the core levers of success, and logistics intersects with all of them. TITLE 10, TITLE 50, AND THE LOGISTICS CHALLENGE The legal framework that governs U.S. operations adds another layer of complexity to contested logistics. •

Title 10 authorities empower the Department of War to organize, train, and equip its forces, as well as conduct military operations.

•

Title 50 authorities govern intelligence activities and covert action.

•

The 127-series (sections 127d, 127e, and 127f) exists to allow the Department of War (DoW) to support foreign forces and irregular warfare partners in ways that blur the traditional boundary between military and intelligence operations.

These authorities are powerful, but they are only as effective as the logistics systems that support them. A recurring problem in sensitive operations is that authorities are approved without a realistic sustainment concept. Funding may be authorized, but there may be no way to spend it locally. Equipment may be allocated, but customs and import rules may prevent its delivery. Partner forces may be trained, but their salaries may be frozen by a local bank under pressure from politics. In contested environments, these problems are not accidental; they are often the result of adversary influence over the commercial and regulatory systems that underpin logistics. If logistics experts are included early, they can anticipate and avoid these issues. If they’re not, the mission may be authorized on paper but impossible in practice. NON-STANDARD LOGISTICS AND THE LOGIC OF IRREGULAR WARFARE Non-standard logistics are sustainment methods that do not rely exclusively on traditional DoW systems. Using commercial networks, local suppliers, third-country shipping, and alternate financial systems is often more resilient and less politically visible than supply chains in contested environments. Adversaries have already embraced this model. China uses commercial shipping to project influence quietly, Russia uses private logistics networks to support proxy forces, and Iran uses commercial and illicit finance to support militias across the Middle East. For SOF, non-standard logistics offers similar advantages. It allows forces to operate in politically sensitive areas without the footprint of large bases. It enables partner forces to be sustained in ways that reinforce their legitimacy rather than undermining it. It provides multiple pathways for movement and resupply, making it harder for adversaries to impose a single point of failure. Influence and access are the real objectives of modern competition. Sustainment is one of the most powerful ways to shape both. THEATER-LEVEL REALITIES: WHY NON-STANDARD LOGISTICS IS ESSENTIAL

In the Indo-Pacific, long distances and dispersed terrain make sustainment inherently fragile, while China’s influence over regional ports, fuel infrastructure, and digital systems means SOF movements and resupply are often visible and easily constrained. Effective SOF operations therefore rely on non-standard logistics — local commercial networks, third-country support, and discreet supply pathways — to maintain access without escalating tensions. In Europe, logistics is contested less through geography and more through political and economic leverage. Russia’s influence over energy, rail corridors, and information systems creates uncertainty for NATO’s sustainment and can shape allied decision-making. SOF must use similarly discreet, resilient logistics networks and align closely with host-nation regulations to preserve freedom of action and support partners without provoking political friction.

Golden Dome Presents Opportunity to Break Silos Like Never Before Nicole McAlister, Sr. Director, Space, Entarian Across the Department of War, and amongst the defense industrial base, leaders across the spectrum continue to develop the Golden Dome missile defense system. While Golden Dome will not completely rebuild the U.S. missile warning systems; it aims to reuse and upgrade current legacy systems while integrating new technologies and systems incrementally. This poses an immediate challenge, as current missile warning systems— which span terrestrial, tactical and space networks—often operate in silos. One of the biggest challenges regarding Golden Dome remains hidden — establishing a foundational architecture that ensures future mission success. As public comments from the Department of War have indicated and based on the parallel strategic and tactical approach General Guetlien is taking, the development of Golden Dome’s command and control architecture signals an opportunity to break legacy silos and enforce systems-of-systems integration like never before. To ensure Golden Dome provides a strong foundation for continued innovation, it must face this challenge of interoperability head-on by establishing clear communication and data practices and actively encouraging collaboration among contractors and partners. A foundation of interoperability Golden Dome requires multiple programs and vendors to work together across different systems, practices, processes and cultural work environments to establish a unified defense system, and its architecture must unify transport, databases, authentication and security to create a ubiquitous, interoperable environment. To create this environment, the Government should define and enforce open modular interfaces and shared standards (e.g., IEEE) for interoperability across legacy and new systems as soon as possible. This will create a reference architecture for new partners and contractors and, for legacy systems that already contribute to Golden Dome’s efforts, milestones for legacy partners to work toward to ensure compatibility with new systems coming into Golden Dome. For legacy systems or systems already in place that won’t be new or substantially modified as a part of Golden Dome, compatibility requirements should be set to ensure these systems have minimum viable interoperability. Interface layers, data translation services, and standardized gateways can allow existing capabilities to contribute to Golden Dome without introducing unacceptable schedule or cost risk. Requiring standards compliance in all contracts and mandating interoperability testing as part of certification will promote interoperability is a core component of work for Golden Dome, rather than an afterthought.

Ensuring data prioritization In addition to delivering interoperability across communication systems, Golden Dome must have a clear mechanism for tagging and prioritizing data during conflict, as accurate, secure defense data supports timely and responsible actions on the part of leadership. As such, data tagging and prioritization frameworks for mission-critical scenarios. API-driven orchestration layers for data exchange and command execution will be instrumental in the effectiveness of Golden Dome. Without these frameworks, delays due to failure to communicate across systems or accurately pull relevant information could be the reason commands are not executed in time. Incentives for collaboration The incentive structure for the defense contractor industry is dominated by revenue and margin, rather than mission outcomes and collaboration in service of that mission. Contractors are often not incentivized to work together due to competitiveness in the marketplace or Zero Trust and IA restrictions that prevent unified connectivity. This leads to incompatible standards and solutions and can often hinder larger programs and initiatives if an overarching architecture and standards are not established. Golden Dome should look to incentivize cross-vendor collaboration to drive compatibility and offer more rigorous rewards and benefits for performance regarding specific outcomes, cost savings and/or efficiencies gained. Driving compatibility among contractors and projects can be done through acquisition strategies like establishing contract language requiring interoperability and shared standards and adding monetary incentive awards in contracts. Leaders can also consider funding digital engineering initiatives to reduce integration risk. To deliver performance in service of the mission, government should consider enacting early follow-on awards and outcome-based smaller-duration programs, providing incentives to programs that deliver ahead or schedule or below/at budget and establishing an “offramp” option to allow government to walk away from projects and programs that are consistently failing to meet performance standards. Federal leaders have a historic opportunity to position Golden Dome as a forcing function for interoperability across agencies and allies with the development of its command and control architecture. Mandating collaboration incentives and enforceable interoperability standards will not only streamline acquisitions and strengthen Golden Dome’s infrastructure today, but also for years and generations to come.

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The Leadership Assessment System An Approach to Leader Selection and Development at Scale Bob O’Brien, Chief Strategy & Innovation Oﬃcer, GKG

Across federal civilian and military agencies, leaders are still chosen mainly on résumés, performance records, and intuition, even though research shows structured assessment is a better predictor of performance.1 The Department of War’s new Joint Warﬁghter Evaluation is a meaningful step for uniformed oﬃcers, but a single work sample captures only one perspective. Drawing on large-scale military leader assessment experience, this article outlines a proven multi-method approach to selecting and developing leaders and recommends extending it to the Department’s senior civilian workforce.

The Scenario A few years ago, a senior leader whom I will call Mike contacted me with a tough problem. “Bob, one of my subordinate leaders, Jim, is acting exactly how I used to act when I held his job, and I’m close to ﬁring him but I don’t want to do that. I know you have a lot of data on Jim. How can I help him?” Mike’s question is one most senior leader eventually faces: we know what’s on our leaders’ résumés. But do we know how they’ll decide under pressure, or how they’ll lead day to day? And once they’re in the seat, how do we help them?

Why Leader Selection Matters Now Leadership quality remains one of the most important determinants of organizational success.² Yet many federal selection processes still rely on résumés, career records, supervisor recommendations, unstructured interviews, and the assumption that a great individual performer will automatically be a good leader. Personnelselection research shows that structured, standardized methods such as structured interviews and work samples are among the strongest predictors of job performance and outperform unstructured, intuition-based approaches.³ On the civilian side, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) moved the Senior Executive Service in this direction in 2025, replacing lengthy narrative essays with structured interviews.4

The Leader Assessment System

An Approach to Leader Selection and Development at Scale

The Department of War (DOW) is already moving in this direction. On September 22, 2026, the Secretary of War announced the Joint Warfighter Evaluation (JWE), a standardized assessment of operational planning, decision-making, and leadership under simulated combat conditions for officers competing for their first star.5 The JWE is an important step: it gives selection boards a common, objective Talent data point that a series of performance reports cannot. But it is one work sample, showing howUnlocked. a leader Solutions De performs in one situation from one vantage point. To understand a leader well enough to entrust them with an enterprise, an organization must see that leader from multiple perspectives, including those of peers and subordinates. And the Department’s senior civilians, the GS-15s and Senior Executive Service (SES) members who lead its acquisition, sustainment, and enterprise functions, have no JWE equivalent.

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OPM Leadership Framework in Figure 1 shows the scale of the challenge. It deﬁnes ﬁfteen competencies, and the set a leader must demonstrate grows at each level from team lead to executive.6 The competencies added at higher levels, such as executive judgment and strategic thinking, are the ones a résumé or interview reveal least.

Figure 1. OPM’s Leadership Framework adds competencies at every level from team lead to executive. Most cannot be observed in a résumé or a single interview.

Organizations that systematically and objectively assess leaders from multiple perspectives make better-informed, merit-based leadership decisions than those that rely on experience and intuition alone. Integrated with targeted development, that data selects better leaders today and builds stronger leaders for tomorrow.

The Leader Assessment System

An Approach to Leader Selection and Development at Scale

A Multi-Method Approach: The Leader Assessment System

Grounded in decades of assessment-center research7 and practice8, the Leader Assessment System Figure 2 is a structured, multi-method process that objectively assesses a candidate’s demonstrated performance, leadership readiness, and future potential against clearly deﬁned requirements. It serves Unlocked. two connected purposes: informing selection decisions for critical leadership positionsTalent and guiding eachSolutions De leader’s continued development using that leader’s own data. The numbered icons below match the four steps in Figure 2.

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Figure 2. The Leader Assessment System moves through four steps—Deﬁne, Measure, Gather, Integrate— to produce objective data that informs both selection and individualized development. 1

Deﬁne. The process begins by deﬁning what the position requires: mission requirements, the leadership competencies for that level (Figure 1), anticipated future demands, and organizational priorities.

Measure. Candidates are assessed across six dimensions: performance (what they have accomplished), potential (what they could accomplish), character (whether they should be entrusted with greater responsibility), learning agility, interpersonal effectiveness, and higher-level thinking.

3 Gather. Evidence comes from multiple complementary methods rather than any single measure: scenario-

based work samples with observed behavior, the same principle behind the JWE; 360-degree feedback from peers and subordinates; written and verbal communication assessments; validated cognitive, behavioral, and personality instruments; and structured interviews. Trained, certiﬁed assessors evaluate every candidate under standardized conditions against common criteria, rating each independently before results are combined. 4

Integrate. Results are combined across all sources so that no single evaluator, and no single relationship, drives the outcome. That protects selections from favoritism and gives decision makers a fuller, more reliable picture. Each candidate receives speciﬁc feedback on strengths and development needs, which is translated into an individual development plan that guides coaching and executive development.

The banner at the base of Figure 2, governance, transparency, and accountability, is the system’s foundation: human judgment remains accountable for every decision, and the system is continuously validated.

The Leader Assessment System

An Approach to Leader Selection and Development at Scale

Anticipating the Objections

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• “We already have boards and performance appraisals.” Keep them. Appraisals describe past performance; assessment adds objective evidence of readiness and potential for roles not yet held. Like Talent Unlocked. Solutions De the JWE, it supplements rather than replaces. • “It costs too much and takes too long.” A poor executive selection costs far more in lost talent and degraded mission performance. A focused pilot measures the return before scaling. • “How will the data be secured?” Treat the data like any sensitive personnel record by restricting access strictly to deﬁned roles. If candidates doubt data security, they will not participate candidly.

What Department Leaders Can Do Now The Department has raised the standard for selecting its uniformed general officers. Its senior civilians warrant the same rigor. Four actions would begin to close that gap: 1. Pilot multi-method assessment for senior civilians. Start with a cohort of 50–100 GS-15 and SES candidates in an acquisition or sustainment organization over six months, producing selectionready assessment reports for hiring officials alongside individual development plans (IDPs) for all participants. 2. Build on the JWE, not around it. Treat the JWE as one valuable work sample within a fuller picture that adds peer, subordinate, and behavioral perspectives. 3. Set the rules before collecting and using the data. Establish the data governance structure and assessment system guardrails. 4. Validate and share what is learned. Track whether assessment results predict leader effectiveness and use de-identified findings to refine leader development across the Department. Industry can help. Many PSC member companies face the same leader-selection challenge and can share lessons on assessment design, assessor training, and data protection. The appearance of U.S. Department of War (DoW) visual information does not imply or constitute DoW endorsement.

The Leader Assessment System

An Approach to Leader Selection and Development at Scale

Returning to the Scenario

Mike’s call for help was well placed. I reviewed all Jim’s assessment data, taking care not to anchor on any single source. Together, the data pointed to a critical vulnerability: Jim cared deeply about how others perceived him, especially his bosses one and two levels up. That concern drove most of his Talent Unlocked. decisions and produced consistently negative interactions with subordinates and peers, impacting his Solutions De mission effectiveness. In short, the more Jim focused on what his boss thought, the worse his organization performed. No single exercise would have revealed that pattern; it emerged only when considering peer, subordinate, behavioral, personality, intelligence, and observed data together.

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Jim received this feedback during his assessment but did not internalize it. Because Mike understood Jim’s leadership vulnerabilities and challenges, he could directly address them with Jim while there was still time to turn things around. Without multiple data sources, Mike would likely have ﬁred him, and Jim’s organization would have continued to struggle, ultimately failing its mission. That is the value of multi-source assessments: more relevant data informing better selections, and leaders who keep getting better after they are selected.

Nathan R. Kuncel, David M. Klieger, Brian S. Connelly, and Deniz S. Ones, “Mechanical Versus Clinical Data Combination in Selection and Admissions Decisions: A Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Applied Psychology 98, no. 6 (2013): 1060–1072, https://doi.org/10.1037/ a0034156.

2 “Transformational Leadership and Organizational Culture.” Public Administration Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring 1993), pp. 112-121, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40862298, accessed October 1, 2026.

Paul R. Sackett, Charlene Zhang, Christopher M. Berry, and Filip Lievens, “Revisiting Meta-Analytic Estimates of Validity in Personnel Selection,” Journal of Applied Psychology 107, no. 11 (2022): 2040–2068, https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000994. 3

Madison Alder and Matt Bracken, “OPM outlines merit hiring plan, new SES process ahead of hiring freeze end,” FedScoop, May 29, 2025, https://fedscoop.com/opm-outlines-merit-hiring-plan-new-ses-process-ahead-of-hiring-freeze-end/, accessed October 5, 2026. 4

“Pentagon adds new ‘warfighter’ evaluation for officers seeking first star,” Military Times, September 22, 2026, https://www. militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2026/09/22/pentagon-adds-new-warfighter-evaluation-for-officers-seeking-first-star/, accessed October 5, 2026.

6OPM Leadership Framework, https://www.opm.gov/agency-services/fact-sheets/opm-leadership-framework.pdf, accessed September 23, 2026. Winfred Arthur Jr., Eric Anthony Day, Theresa L. McNelly, and Pamela S. Edens, “A Meta-Analysis of the Criterion-Related Validity of Assessment Center Dimensions,” Personnel Psychology 56, no. 1 (2003): 125–153, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2003. tb00146.x.

International Taskforce on Assessment Center Guidelines, “Guidelines and Ethical Considerations for Assessment Center Operations,” Journal of Management 41, no. 4 (2015): 1244–1273, https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206314567780.

Golden Key Group (GKG) is an agile, customer-focused professional services ﬁrm dedicated to helping the federal government solve complex strategic, organizational, and operational challenges. Since 2002, GKG has partnered with more than 50 federal departments and agencies, delivering responsive, eﬃcient, and compliant services so clients can remain fully focused on executing their core public missions. With a proven track record spanning more than two decades, GKG stands ready to help federal agencies navigate modern operational mandates, system modernizations, and critical workforce milestones.

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The Greenbrier Bunker: A Strategic Case Study in Continuity, Resilience, and Public-Private Partnership Beneath The Greenbrier lies one of the most remarkable examples of Cold War continuity planning: a once-secret underground bunker built to house the United States Congress in the event of nuclear war. Known as Project Greek Island, this facility represents a unique intersection of government contracting, infrastructure innovation, and public-private collaboration. For today’s government contracting community, the Greenbrier Bunker offers enduring lessons in continuity of operations, dual-use infrastructure, operational secrecy, and strategic partnerships. In an era defined by cyber threats, geopolitical uncertainty, and distributed risk, these lessons are more relevant than ever.

1. Cold War Origins and the Imperative of Continuity In the late 1950s, at the height of Cold War tensions, the federal government prioritized the development of secure facilities to ensure the survival and functionality of national leadership in the event of a nuclear attack. The result was the construction of a classified relocation site beneath The Greenbrier. Completed in the early 1960s, the bunker was designed to accommodate all 535 members of Congress along with essential staff. The facility included fully operational House and Senate chambers, dormitories, medical areas, and communications infrastructure. It was engineered to allow Congress to reconvene and govern in the aftermath of a catastrophic event. The driving concept—continuity of government (COG)—remains foundational today. While the nature of threats has evolved, the requirement to maintain operational capability during disruption has not.

2. Public-Private Partnership in Practice What makes the Greenbrier Bunker particularly relevant to a Professional Services Council audience is how it was executed: within a private-sector environment. The facility was constructed beneath an active luxury resort and concealed as part of a routine expansion. Its ongoing maintenance was handled by personnel posing as civilian technicians, allowing the operation to remain classified for more than three decades. This model highlights several principles still central to government contracting:

• • •

Integration of federal missions into commercial infrastructure Reliance on private-sector expertise and discretion Long-term trust between government and industry partners

Today, similar frameworks underpin: • • •

Cloud computing and FedRAMP-authorized environments Defense-industrial base partnerships Critical infrastructure protection across energy, telecom, and transportation

The Greenbrier Bunker demonstrates that effective national security solutions often depend on seamless collaboration between public and private entities.

3. Engineering Resilience and Operational Readiness The bunker was designed as a fully self-sustaining facility capable of operating independently for extended periods. Key features included: • • • •

Reinforced structural systems and massive blast doors Independent power generation and water supply Medical facilities and food storage Secure communications systems

From its completion until its decommissioning in 1992, the bunker was maintained in a constant state of readiness—despite never being used. For today’s contracting environment, this reinforces a critical point: Resilience is not reactive—it is built, maintained, and continuously validated. Modern parallels include: • • • •

Secure and redundant data centers Continuity of Operations (COOP) facilities Cyber resilience architectures Distributed command-and-control systems

The shift from physical to digital infrastructure does not diminish the importance of resilience—it expands it.

4. Secrecy, Disclosure, and Risk Management

The bunker remained classified until it was publicly revealed in 1992, prompting its immediate decommissioning. This moment underscores a key challenge that persists today: the difficulty of sustaining long-term secrecy in a connected world. For government contractors, this raises several important considerations: • • •

Security vs. transparency: Balancing mission protection with public accountability Information control: Managing sensitive data in an era of digital exposure Reputational risk: Preparing for how programs are perceived once disclosed

In the modern landscape—where cyber breaches, insider threats, and real-time media are constant factors—contractors must design systems and programs with the expectation that information may eventually surface.

5. Strategic Lessons for Today’s Government Contractors The Greenbrier Bunker offers a framework that translates directly to today’s operating environment:

A. Continuity Planning is Essential COG and COOP remain central to federal missions and contractor support roles. Whether addressing cyber incidents, natural disasters, or geopolitical disruptions, continuity must be embedded in every layer of operations.

B. Public-Private Partnerships are Critical The success of Project Greek Island depended on trust, discretion, and alignment between government and private enterprise—principles that remain fundamental in today’s contracting ecosystem.

C. Dual-Use Infrastructure Maximizes Value Combining civilian and government functions within shared infrastructure enhances efficiency, flexibility, and strategic resilience.

D. Preparedness Requires Investment The bunker was never used, yet it justified its existence through readiness. Similarly, modern resilience investments—particularly in cybersecurity and redundancy—must be viewed as essential, not optional.

6. Relevance in Today’s Threat Environment While the Cold War threat model centered on nuclear conflict, today’s risks are broader and more complex: Then Nuclear attack

Now Cyber warfare

Centralized government risk Distributed infrastructure risk Physical destruction

Data and systems disruption

Isolated secrecy

Networked vulnerability

Government contractors are now on the front lines of addressing these challenges through: • • • •

Cybersecurity and zero-trust frameworks Cloud-based continuity solutions AI-enabled threat detection Critical infrastructure resilience

The mission has evolved, but the objective remains the same: ensure continuity under any conditions.

Conclusion The Greenbrier Bunker is more than a historical artifact—it is a strategic case study in resilience, foresight, and collaboration. Its legacy demonstrates that: • • •

Continuity planning is indispensable Public-private partnerships are powerful Infrastructure must be adaptable and secure

For the Professional Services Council community, the takeaway is clear: The future of government resilience will depend not only on federal agencies, but on the innovation, reliability, and partnership of the private sector.

High-Energy Lasers Strategic Imperative for Defense Modernization Mission Technologies, a division of HII

MISSION TECHNOLOGIES │ A DIVISION OF HII

Executive Summary High-Energy Lasers (HELs) have matured into deployable capabilities that reshape defensive options across domains. HELs deliver speed-of-light engagement, adjustable effects, deep magazines limited by power, and exceptionally low marginal cost per engagement. These attributes make HELs especially effective against proliferating, low-cost threats such as unmanned aerial systems, rockets, artillery, mortars, and fast attack craft while offering a scalable path toward higher-end threats as power and integration improve. This paper summarizes HEL fundamentals, operational value, acquisition pathways, technical and policy challenges with mitigations, and actionable priorities for government and industry stakeholders. Strategic Rationale Threats are shifting toward speed, volume, and affordability, stressing legacy kinetic defenses and increasing lifecycle costs. HELs respond by offering: • • • •

Near-instant engagement that shrinks reaction timelines and increases defended asset survivability. Scalable effects enabling graduated responses from sensor denial to destructive defeat. Sustainable magazine depth because engagements consume electrical energy rather than expendables. Reduced logistics burden by replacing repeated interceptor resupply with power and component sustainment.

Directed energy functions as an architectural enabler that, when integrated with sensors and command-and-control, strengthens layered defense. This integration can be supported by aligning mission engineering with operational needs and delivering platform-aware solutions. Technical Overview HEL systems concentrate electromagnetic energy to produce effects ranging from dazzling sensors to structural defeat. Core subsystems and enabling advances include: •

• •

Laser Source o Solid-state and fiber lasers provide efficiency, ruggedness, and scalability. o Coherent beam combining and improved diode pump efficiency increase output in compact footprints. Beam Control and Optics o Adaptive optics, precision beam directors, and real-time beam shaping maintain target coupling despite motion and atmospheric aberrations. Power and Thermal Management o Compact energy storage, power electronics, and hybrid power architectures enable tactical and naval deployments. o Advanced cooling and thermal routing extend duty cycles and protect components. Sensors and Fire Control o Multi-sensor fusion and high-frame-rate electro-optical/infrared sensors provide detection, discrimination, and continuous tracking. Software and Autonomy o Automated threat triage, software-defined control, and human-in-the-loop engagement authorities accelerate decision loops while retaining oversight.

MISSION TECHNOLOGIES │ A DIVISION OF HII

Systems engineering and software expertise integrates these subsystems into cohesive, standards-based solutions that accelerate fielding and upgradeability. Operational Advantages and Mission Effects HELs deliver operational capabilities that change mission planning and force posture: • • • • •

Speed-of-Light Engagement reduces kill-chain latency and enables near-instant response. Low Cost-Per-Engagement supports sustained defense against high-volume, low-cost threats. Graduated Response allows escalation control through power modulation. Deep Magazine yields persistent engagement capacity limited primarily by power availability. Reduced Collateral Signature supports operations in urban and maritime environments.

Validated and emerging mission sets: • • • • •

Base and Critical Infrastructure Defense providing persistent, affordable protection against UAS, rockets, and mortars. Mobile Force Protection with manned/unmanned mounted or containerized HELs for convoy and maneuver to detect, track, and engage airborne threats. Naval Point Defense protecting ships from small boats, UAS, and short-range projectiles when integrated with ship sensors and point defense suites. Airborne and Space Concepts advancing as SWaP and power technologies mature for missile defense and space resiliency. Non-Lethal Escalation Control enabling sensor denial and dazzling for maritime interdiction and rules-of-engagement sensitive scenarios.

Operationalization is supported through scenario-driven mission engineering, integrated T&E, and training packages that accelerate doctrine and tactics development. Acquisition Patterns and Industry Collaboration Accelerating HEL fielding requires acquisition practices that favor speed, flexibility, and industry partnership: • • • • •

Rapid Prototyping and Experimentation iterate capability quickly through operational experiments and live testing. Flexible Contracting Vehicles leverage prototype authorities and OTAs to reduce procurement friction and enable novel team structures. Open Modular Architectures allow plug-and-play upgrades and cross-platform reuse to protect investment. Mission-Centered Design ties engineering to real-world operational requirements through continuous user feedback. Public-Private Partnerships combine government mission sets with industry innovation in optics, power systems, and software.

Engagement across these acquisition models reduces integration risk, provides systems engineering, and accelerates transition from prototypes to capability blocks.

MISSION TECHNOLOGIES │ A DIVISION OF HII

Technical and Operational Challenges with Mitigations HELs present engineering and operational challenges that are tractable with focused investment: •

•

Power Generation o Challenge: sustained high output exceeds many platform power budgets. o Mitigations: hybrid power systems using batteries, fuel cells, and vehicle power; staged engagement profiles; mission-tailored power management. Thermal Management o Challenge: heat limits firing duration and component lifetime. o Mitigations: integrated thermal routing, advanced heat exchangers, mission pacing, and modular component replacement. Atmospheric Effects o Challenge: turbulence, aerosols, rain, smoke, and dust degrade beam propagation. o Mitigations: adaptive optics, real-time atmospheric compensation, predictive environmental modeling, and layered employment with kinetic or EW effects. Size Weight and Power Constraints o Challenge: SWaP limits integration, especially for airborne and small ground platforms. o Mitigations: modular subsystem placement, incremental power-scaling roadmaps, and distributed architectures. Target Discrimination and Countermeasures o Challenge: complex backgrounds and adversary deception hinder discrimination. o Mitigations: multi-sensor fusion, AI-enabled classification, and integrated ISR for persistent situational awareness. Policy Doctrine and Safety o Challenge: rules-of-engagement, export controls, and safety frameworks require evolution. o Mitigations: early policy engagement, doctrine pilots, legal reviews integrated with experiments, and robust safety protocols. Cybersecurity and Supply Chain Resilience o Challenge: software-defined systems and critical components create new attack surfaces and production risks. o Mitigations: secure-by-design architectures, encryption and authentication, supplier diversification, and active cyber defenses.

Engineering teams and programmatic experience supports the implementation of these mitigations while aligning capability development to operational timelines. Workforce, Test Infrastructure, and Sustainment HEL adoption requires investments in people, facilities, and industrial capacity: •

Workforce Development o Establish operator and maintainer pipelines that include simulation, live-fire certification, and predictive health monitoring training. o Build mission-engineering cadres to translate operational needs into measurable technical requirements.

MISSION TECHNOLOGIES │ A DIVISION OF HII

• • • •

Test Ranges and Facilities o Expand instrumented ranges and environmental simulation labs to validate performance across realistic scenarios and atmospheric conditions. Industrial Base Strengthening o Secure domestic sources for diodes, optics, and power electronics and invest in supplier diversification to reduce production bottlenecks. Sustainment Models o Shift logistics toward power provisioning, modular spares, depot repairs, and condition-based maintenance to maximize availability. Safety and Range Management o Implement laser safety standards and cross-agency coordination to enable routine testing and safer operational use.

Workforce and sustainment planning supports the design training curricula, delivery simulated environments, and establishment of T&E protocols that shorten learning curves and reduce lifecycle cost. Actionable Priorities To institutionalize HEL capability, government and industry should pursue these priorities now: 1. Accelerate Prototyping and Operational Experiments to capture lessons and refine tactics quickly. 2. Adopt Open, Modular Architectures to enable incremental capability upgrades and cross-platform reuse. 3. Invest in Power and Thermal Innovation to broaden HEL applicability across platform classes. 4. Develop Workforce Pipelines and Test Infrastructure for certification, sustainment, and realistic evaluation. 5. Engage Early on Policy Doctrine and Safety to align operational employment with legal and ethical frameworks. 6. Harden Cybersecurity and Supply Chain to protect mission continuity and program sustainability. 7. Leverage Industry Partnerships to integrate systems, accelerate T&E, and field sustainable solutions. Partnership with government and industry will enable the integration of HEL capability into layered defense constructs by providing systems integration, software development, mission engineering, test and evaluation, and sustainment solutions. Conclusion High-Energy Lasers are a strategic, near-term capability that deliver persistent, affordable, and precise defensive effects. The imperative is clear: prototype rapidly, integrate intelligently, and institutionalize HELs within layered defenses to meet evolving threats with agility and costeffectiveness.

MISSION TECHNOLOGIES │ A DIVISION OF HII

THE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE Preparing for the Future Fight

Introduction The character of future military operations is changing rapidly. Advances in technology, the increasing complexity of command and control, the integration of multiple domains, and the growing importance of joint and multinational operations are placing new demands on military leaders. The future fight will require leaders who can make sound decisions with incomplete information, integrate diverse capabilities, communicate across organizational boundaries, and adapt as circumstances change. These requirements make leadership development more than a professional-development objective; they make it a readiness issue. The quality of the force ultimately depends not only on the capabilities available to it, but also on the leaders who employ those capabilities. Modern military operations require leaders who can translate strategic objectives into operational action while maintaining a clear understanding of the broader mission. Leaders must be able to operate within complex staffs, coordinate across Services and commands, and make decisions when there is no obvious or perfect answer. Consequently, preparing leaders for these responsibilities must begin well before they reach the most senior positions. A strong leadership-development model builds these capabilities through a deliberate progression of education, practical experience, reflection, and increasingly complex responsibility. It connects individual expertise with the broader demands of joint, multinational, and multi-domain operations, giving leaders repeated opportunities to ntegrate capabilities, work across organizational boundaries, and apply lessons from real-world operations. Leadership education therefore must extend beyond technical proficiency and doctrinal knowledge. A coherent development model should build judgment progressively across a leader’s career, use experience-based instruction to connect theory with practice, prepare personnel to work across joint and multinational boundaries, and evaluate whether learning produces greater operational readiness.

Developing Leaders Across the Career Continuum Effective leadership development is not a single event. It is a continuous process that should provide military personnel with increasingly complex opportunities to develop judgment, broaden perspective, and practice leadership throughout their careers. A deliberate continuum prepares emerging leaders, operational leaders, senior staff leaders, and theater-level leaders for the distinct demands they will encounter at each stage. At the emerging-leader level, development should move personnel beyond technical competence and introduce the responsibilities of leading teams, coordinating across functions, and making decisions in realistic operational settings. Practical exercises are especially valuable because they allow developing leaders to apply concepts, receive feedback, and understand how their decisions affect a larger mission. As leaders assume responsibility for larger teams and more complex planning, development should emphasize operational thinking, command-and-control relationships, collaboration, and the integration of diverse capabilities. This stage marks an important transition from individual expertise to organizational leadership, requiring personnel to consider how their work connects with the decisions and priorities of others. As personnel progress through their careers, leadership requirements become more complex.

The appearance of U.S. Department of War (DoW) visual information does not imply or constitute DoW endorsement.

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Development for senior staff and strategic leaders should address enterprise-level coordination, competing priorities, crossfunctional decision-making, and the translation of strategic objectives into operational action. The emphasis should shift progressively from leading within a defined function to exercising judgment and influence across organizations, commands, and domains. Viewed as a whole, this progression forms a leadership pipeline:

Emerging Leader → Operational Leader → Senior Staff Leader → Theater-Level Leader

The value of this continuum is that leadership development begins well before personnel reach senior command. Rather than postponing development until an individual assumes a demanding position, organizations should provide repeated opportunities to practice decision-making, collaboration, communication, and operational problem-solving at progressively higher levels of responsibility. This approach also recognizes that leadership responsibilities change as careers advance. An emerging leader may coordinate a small team or planning function. An operational leader may integrate multiple capabilities and staffs. A senior staff leader must synchronize competing priorities across an organization. A theater-level leader must align strategic objectives with operational action across multiple organizations and domains. A leadership-development enterprise must therefore cultivate more than experience alone. It must prepare people for the specific decisions, relationships, and responsibilities associated with each stage of leadership, while building the adaptability required for challenges that cannot be fully anticipated.

Experience-Based Instruction: Turning Knowledge into Judgement Knowledge of doctrine is necessary for military leadership, but knowledge alone does not create judgment. Doctrine offers a common framework, while training provides a setting in which leaders can interpret, question, and apply that framework. Judgment develops when knowledge is tested against realistic problems, competing priorities, and incomplete information. Experienced practitioners play an essential role in that process. They bring context that cannot be captured fully in doctrine or formal instruction: how decisions unfolded, which assumptions proved wrong, how relationships influenced outcomes, and why an approach that appeared sound in theory succeeded or failed in practice.

This creates a bridge between one generation of leaders and the next. Emerging leaders can study not only successful decisions but also misjudgments, tradeoffs, and unintended consequences. They can examine how others managed uncertainty, balanced mission demands, communicated intent, and accounted for the effects of decisions on people and operations. The transfer of experience should therefore be intentional rather than incidental. Structured interaction with seasoned leaders gives developing personnel access to hard-earned insight while creating space to challenge assumptions and consider how past lessons may—or may not—apply to new circumstances. In this model, the classroom becomes more than a place where information is delivered; it becomes a laboratory for leadership. Participants can test ideas, debate choices, hear competing perspectives, and practice explaining the reasoning behind their decisions before confronting comparable pressures in an operational setting. Practical exercises deepen that learning by requiring participants to act rather than merely discuss. A concept understood intellectually takes on greater meaning when a leader must use it to solve a complex problem, coordinate across organizational boundaries, prioritize limited resources, or communicate a consequential decision to a staff. For experience-based learning to endure, insights from operations must be captured and translated into purposeful scenarios, exercises, discussions, and assessments. This requires thoughtful curriculum design as well as a willingness to revisit established lessons as missions, technologies, and operational conditions evolve. The ultimate objective is not to prepare leaders with a ready answer for every situation, but to strengthen their capacity for sound judgment. Future leaders must be able to frame problems, identify relevant information, weigh alternatives, communicate intent, and act responsibly despite uncertainty.

Preparing Leaders for a Joint, Multinational and Multi-Domain Environment The future leader will rarely operate alone or exclusively within a single organization. Military operations increasingly require coordination across Services, commands, staffs, domains, agencies, and coalition partners. The leadership challenge therefore extends beyond understanding one's own organization. Leaders must understand how their decisions affect organizations and partners beyond their immediate chain of command. Preparing leaders for this environment requires more than exposing them to joint terminology or organizational structures. Development must place them in situations that demand coordination across Services, commands, staffs, domains, agencies, and international partnerships, where differing authorities, perspectives, and priorities shape every decision. Joint and multinational interaction is particularly important because it exposes leaders to different decision-making cultures, planning assumptions, authorities, and operational constraints. These encounters broaden perspective and help leaders distinguish between practices that are merely familiar and those that are genuinely effective in a shared operating environment. Exposure to different perspectives is not simply an interoperability requirement. It also contributes to leadership development. Leaders who understand the perspectives and responsibilities of other Services, organizations, and nations are better positioned to build consensus, communicate intent, resolve competing priorities, coordinate resources, and build trust. These skills become particularly important as leaders move into positions requiring them to lead through influence rather than authority. A theater-level leader may need to synchronize organizations that have different missions, authorities, capabilities, and priorities. A joint staff leader may need to reconcile competing Service perspectives. A multinational leader may need to achieve a common objective while accounting for different national authorities and approaches. Practical training reinforces these leadership skills by requiring participants to apply concepts in complex operational environments.

Realistic scenarios should ask leaders to perform command-and-control roles, work through staff processes, respond to rapidly changing conditions, and address the practical demands of deployment, sustainment, and recovery rather than simply study those activities in the abstract. The value of this training becomes most apparent when conditions are uncertain. The objective is not to produce leaders who know every answer. Instead, it is to produce leaders who understand how to make good decisions when there is no obvious answer. Experience, practical exercises, senior mentorship, and diverse perspectives provide the foundation for developing that capability. This is a central requirement for leadership in the future fight. Technology may provide leaders with more information and more capabilities, but information and technology do not eliminate uncertainty. Leaders must still determine what information matters, understand competing priorities, assess risk, communicate intent, and make decisions that enable organizations to act.

From Training to Readiness: The Strategic Value The ultimate measure of leadership training is not simply whether students completed a course. Course completion, knowledge transfer, certification, and familiarity with doctrine are important outcomes, but they do not fully capture the strategic value of leadership development. The more consequential outcomes are better judgment, greater confidence, improved decision-making, stronger collaboration, greater adaptability, and improved operational readiness. This distinction is important because leadership development should produce capabilities that carry into operational assignments. A leader should leave training better prepared to interpret complex situations, collaborate across organizational boundaries, make decisions under uncertainty, and lead people toward a common objective. The connection between training and readiness is strengthened by continuous evaluation and improvement. Effectiveness should not be inferred from course completion alone. Graduate performance, participant and supervisor feedback, course validation, and trend analysis can help determine whether learning transfers to operational assignments and where the development model should adapt. This creates a continuous cycle:

Train ⟶ Apply ⟶ Evaluate ⟶ Learn ⟶ Adapt ⟶ Improve

The cycle is particularly appropriate for military leadership development because the operational environment itself is constantly changing. Lessons from exercises and operations can inform curriculum development. Student feedback can identify areas where additional emphasis is required. Performance data can reveal trends. Experienced practitioners can bring new lessons into the classroom. The curriculum can then evolve to address emerging requirements. A mature leadership-development system treats this cycle as an institutional responsibility. Operational experience must be captured, translated into relevant learning, tested through realistic practice, and refined in response to evidence. When these activities are connected, training becomes a living system rather than a static collection of courses. The strategic value of this contribution is ultimately measured in the leaders the training helps develop. Technology will continue to evolve. Command-and-control architectures will change. New weapons, sensors, networks, and information systems will create new opportunities and new challenges. Yet the requirement for capable leaders will remain. The future of military leadership will not be determined solely by the technology available to the force. It will also depend on leaders capable of employing that technology, integrating people and capabilities, and making sound decisions when conditions are uncertain. Developing those leaders requires more than teaching them what to know. It requires giving them opportunities to learn from experience, practice judgment, engage with senior leaders, and lead in increasingly complex environments.

Conclusion The leadership challenge facing the Department of War is fundamentally a readiness challenge. Future operations will demand leaders who can cross organizational boundaries, integrate capabilities, work with joint and multinational partners, and make sound decisions when information is incomplete. That capacity cannot be developed at the end of a career or through doctrine alone. It must grow progressively through experience, realistic practice, reflection, senior engagement, and increasingly complex responsibility. The purpose of this continuum is not to supply leaders with predetermined answers, but to strengthen their ability to frame problems, exercise judgment, and act responsibly under uncertainty. Leadership readiness, then, is not the product of a single course or institution. It is a sustained practice in which operational experience informs learning, practice tests judgment, and evidence drives improvement. The enduring advantage is not a force with every answer, but one led by people prepared to confront questions that cannot yet be anticipated.

About Jefferson Solutions Group Jefferson Solutions Group solves complex challenges with bold solutions that work in the real world. Building on nearly four decades of mission and business expertise, Jefferson combines deep expertise, intellectual agility, hands on execution, and purposeful technology to help public and private sector customers adapt to changing needs and turn bold ideas into measurable outcomes.

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