چکیده (انگلیسی):

Military colleges and service academies are a small and unique subset of the U.S. schools offering
undergraduate degrees. With missions of preparing young men and women for serving and
leading in perilous circumstances, what lessons, regarding developing leadership skills in young
people, can be transferred to traditional schools? This paper argues that undergraduate
institutions can strive to build a leadership foundation for their students by combining academic
pursuits and leader experience in a comprehensive manner, similar to the “whole person” (i.e.,
mind, body, character) approach of military higher education. While military-specific topics and
grueling training regimens are inappropriate in most cases, certain aspects common to military
schools, like rigorous academic standards and honor codes, are relevant and recommended.
Similarly, each student should have the opportunity to practice leadership in the relatively safe
environment of a college campus, where mistakes do not lead to lost profits or derailed careers.
Leadership can be in NCAA or intramural sports, student government or clubs, or in community
outreach projects. The crucial element is that participants must be encouraged to reflect on their
successes and failures and accurately attribute causality, acknowledging others’ contribut ions
and their own deficiencies. Finally, the results of a preliminary study at a well-known U.S.
military college, comparing undergraduate leadership experience and perceptions of leader
effectiveness, will be presented and discussed. Interestingly, those students with the most
experience were the most self-critical, thus arguing that self-awareness is a crucial predeterminant for effective leadership at any level.