THE IMPORTANCE OF MORAL COURAGE IN MILITARY LEADERSHIP: A STUDY AMONG OFFICERS IN 1ST BRIGADE INFANTRY
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND
Malaysian Army was established on 1 March 1933 consist of 25 Malay personnel and known as Skuad Percubaan. From a humble beginning until now, Malaysian Army has developed from a counter insurgency force and evolved to conventional force and along the fold of history of the nation, Malaysian Army had faced several major event such as World War II, First Emergency, Confrontation and Second Emergency. After the lay down of weapon by Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), there are several political issues arise Southeast Asia especially on the disputed territories such as Spratly Island and threat from non-state actor such as Daesh, terrorism and many mores has made top brass in Malaysian Army realised and understand the importance to have a modern and credible force equipped with the latest state of the art military equipment in order to become a competent and reliable forces in maintaining the Malaysia sovereignty from any enemy threats. Based on the requirement and challenges faced by Malaysian Army, its human capital will be the utmost and important element in order to makes doctrines and machines functioning well in the system. Above the all, to ensure the system are function accordingly, it still required competent officers that will become the leader to lead their subordinate and the organisation during war and peacetime.
Military organisation is an organisation rich with customs, belief, routines and codes of conduct or known as military ethos where it made this organisation is unique compare than other organisation. The officers are taught and exposed with military ethos as earlier in cadet training institution and the ethos will be functioning and provide as guideline a for officers to oblige and complied in their daily working and working life. In the military ethos, courage is the part of the ethos itself and according to Malaysian Doctrine (2000), courage defined as a part of tactics where it considered as intangible factor. Peter Olsthoorn (2007) cited Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics define courage as the middle position between rashness and cowardice, to be develop by practicing courageous acts, motivated by the love of virtue itself, and serving an honourable that morally just cause. Another term of courage based on Captain “Eddie” Rickenbacker, courage is doing what you are afraid to do.
Courage divided into two elements where each of the element has its own definition and functions. The first element of courage is known as physical courage where it identified as the courage shown during extreme and dangerous condition and situation. Based on the United States Army core value, courage is defined as overcoming fears of bodily harms and doing your duty. It is the bravery that allows a soldier to takes risks in combats in spite of the fear of wounds or death. The example of physical courage is like the brave action of Lt Adnan bin Saidi who fought the Japanese Army during the Battle of Bukit Chandu where he didn’t surrender although he was outnumbered.
Moral courage in other hand is quite different compared to physical courage where it has more relations towards ethics, belief and judgments of an individual. Moral can be defined as the courage shown when standing up to defend what is morally right. The other definition of moral courage as “the ability to use inner principle to do what is good for others, regardless of threat to self, as a matter of practice (Sekerka, Bagozzi, 2007). Another definition of moral courage also helps cultivate mindful organisational environments that among others, offset groupthink, mitigate hypocrisy and “nod-and-wink” cultures, educate mechanical conformity and compliance, bridge organisational silos, and check irregularities, misconduct, injustice and corruption (Oliver Serrat, 2011). Moral courage has its own function where it will consolidates the trust, enshrined in formal contract, oral contract and psychological contract when the organisation depend on it to be function effectiveness. Moral courage required a high of self-belief because it need a high inner strength of person to tell the truth although it will create negative perceptions from others. The best examples of moral courage have been shown during Vietnam War in My Lai incident where it shows how the moral courage has its place and function in the organisation. During that incident, Lt Calley platoon had involved in massacres on My Lai population by killing the innocent people. A helicopter pilot, Captain Hugh C.Thompson Jr saw this incident and he stop the massacre by hovering in the middle of the villagers and the soldiers who running to killed the villagers where he using his helicopter. He also gave order to his crew to shot any US soldier who came forwards to kill the villagers.
There are relations between physical and moral courage where both types of courage also have its influence with military leadership and leaders. According to Nancy and Candance (2001) that cited Kanungo and Medonca (1998) mentioned that related moral and ethical leadership is behaviour that influence follower’s belief and behaviour so organisational objectives can be achieved through the followers. Based on the statement given, types of leadership and the way officers behave will reflect the behaviour of the organisation, attitudes of the followers and the perspective of public towards the organisation. The level of understanding on moral courage in military leadership will determine the practises of ethics in the military organisation. Ethics are the foundation of the strength and resilience of a society where history had proved that collapsed of the societies have relations with the collapse of ethics practices in the society. Meanwhile violation of ethics in the military by the officers will undermined the trust of society and cause the danger the survival of the societies and also the country.
The function of moral courage and having ethical leadership have been mentioned in the Malaysian Army Doctrine and leadership philosophy. According to the doctrine in MD 0.0 TD (2007) leaders that have good leadership and also moral courage will involve ethically in striving for effectiveness and good management involves ethically striving for efficiency meanwhile command ethically strives for efficiency and effectiveness, but also include the trading of efficiency for effectiveness, or vice versa. Although the Malaysian Army Doctrine mention about good leadership and good management but there is no specific definition of moral courage inside the manuals where it just briefly describes under the military ethos and culture. The definition of courage is more toward physical courage where it defines as “the ability to step forward through fear and have the determination to carry on with the mission at hand” (MD 0.0 TD, 2007).
Malaysian Army has been established for 83 years and the organisation itself become more complex than before where with current challenges and global situation, it required enhancement of skill, knowledge and attitudes in order to become credible and first class army. This is due to the complexity of the organisation and the requirement to achieve organisation objective and become professional forces, moral courage have it place and its importance to develop and the organisation should enforce the moral courage among officers for better quality and ethical conduct in the leadership of Malaysian Army.
1st Infantry Brigade have been choose for the study of this paper because it is the oldest brigade in Malaysian Army. The history of 1st Infantry Brigade started with the establishment of this brigade on 1st Jul 1948 at Sungai Besi Camp, Kuala Lumpur with Brigadier General Tengku Ahmad bin Tengku Besar Burhanudin become its commander. British established this Brigade as the part of effort in to fight Communist Party of Malaya during Emergency. 1st Infantry Brigade moved to Terendak in 1969 after British hand over the garrison to Malaysian Army and has to move once again in April 1979 to Rasah Camp after the establishment of 3rd Infantry Division. Based on the operational history and deployment, this brigade engages in numbers of operation and deployment during First Emergency, Confrontation and Second Emergency.
1st Infantry Brigade is one of the brigades in Malaysian Army organisation where I put under command of 3rd Infantry Division. It commands by Brigadier General known as Brigade Commander. The 1st Infantry Brigade organisation consist of three infantry battalion or known as fighting elements, one company of Royal Service Corps, one company of Royal Ordnance Corps, one squadron of Royal Signal Corp, one company of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineering and. The area of operation and responsibility of this brigade are concentrated in the area of Negeri Sembilan. The main task of this brigade is to maintain the sovereignty of Malaysia by safeguarding the country border area. The other task of this brigade is to assist local authorities and law enforcer during the natural disaster and maintaining public orders if required. The organisation of 1st Infantry Brigade is shown in Table 1 below.
Table 1: Organisation of 1st Brigade Infantry
The reason for the research is conducted in 1st Infantry Brigade is because to study the level of understanding about the moral courage and its importance toward organisation among the senior officer (Colonel until General), field officer (Major until Lieutenant Colonel) and subaltern (2nd Lieutenant until Captain). Besides that, the location of the brigade is easy for the interview to be conducted due to the distances that is in vicinity.
1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT
Moral courage is important in the military organisation especially for military leadership where it will involve decision making process not only during peacetime but also during conflict or wartime. There is some researches that have been done on moral courage (Serrat,2011; Olsthoorn, 2007; Nichols, 2008) and had identified that most of the organization in modern era had been identified as morally complex environment because there are high demand and requirement for highly ethical and morally organization among individual and populations. Malaysian Army also foresee the importance of moral, ethics and virtue will enhance the level of professionalism in the organisation and also will increase the level of trust of the stakeholder towards this organisation.
Although most of the officers in the Malaysian Army know about the importance of integrity, ethics and moral in the military leadership but there are several disciplinary cases related to the ethics, integrity and moral in the organisation. Although these cases are not serious, but it created the opportunity for civilian to question and give negative perception that will tarnish the image and credibility of Malaysian Army. Failure to understand and practice moral courage among the military leadership will cause this organisation have unethical climate that will cause the military ethos not practised and will create the mistrust among the people towards this organisation in the future.
This qualitative study will explore and examine the perceptions and the importance of moral courage in military leadership especially officers as the way to overcome and prevent the wrongdoing in the organisation and at the same time will ensure the level of ethics in the organisation will be improve for times to times in the future. The data that to be gathered in this stu
1.3 Objective of the Study
The objectives of the studies are to examine and understanding about the importance of moral courage especially in the military leadership. Moral courage among the military officers will able and enhance the level of professionalism and effectiveness in organisation. The specific objectives of this study are as follow:
a. To examine the effect of moral courage toward military leadership.
b. To examine the relation between moral courage and unit performance.
c. To examine the relationship between moral courage integrity and ethical climate toward military leadership.
1.4 Research Question
For the study, interviews will be conducted among the officers in the brigade headquarters and unit where it will consist of Brigade Commander, Battalion Commander and Subalterns in order to get the views from their experience, opinion and appointments about the importance of moral courage and how to develop it. The interview conducted with three differences categories of officer and various appointments. The questions that will be asked are as follow:
a. Does moral courage enhance military professionalism?
b. Does every level of officer know the importance of moral courage?
c. Does moral courage have been practiced in order to have ethical and professional organisation?
d. Does moral courage will create ethical leadership?
1.4 Significant of Study
This research can be consider as important to the development of Malaysian Army where it will give the overview about the importance of moral courage in military leadership and the suitable level to teach and practices the moral courage. This research is also to find the level of understanding and definition about moral courage in organisation and it relation with influence the competency of the organisation. The clear understanding and observation are required to observe moral courage in Malaysian Army because the nature of the roles and tasks of this organisation that required high ethical conduct from it personnel in maintaining Malaysia sovereignty.
This research will contribute the analysis that had been conducted to Malaysian Army as the references in the future. The research on the organisational commitment has never been done in Malaysian Army and this makes any discussion and research on this matter quite difficult. The lack of references has cause the research been made. Practically the result from this research will provide the guidelines and reference for policies makers to improve and enhance the organisational commitment and the human resource management practices in Malaysian Army in the future. Indirectly this research will provide opinions and suggestion
1.5 Limitation of the Study
There are limitations in the study compare to other research. The main limitation is the lack of research and study on moral courage practices in Malaysian Army. This will cause this study depend on the foreign study and research where the environment and culture are totally different with the Malaysia perspective.