THE COMMAND CLIMATE IN AN ARMY BATTALION: THE INTANGIBLE HUMAN DIMENSION

Abstract

Command climate of a unit has a direct impact on its performance. Importantly, knowing the command climate allows a commander to identify shortfalls and manage his human resource effectively. Thus, a study was done to establish the command climate of a battalion in the army. A quantitative method was adopted and survey questionnaire was used for assessing the command climate of the battalion. This paper highlights the results of the survey involving eight domains namely; leadership, motivation, espirit de corps, spiritual, work, neighbourhood, community and family. The survey data was obtained from personnel in base of the whole Battalion. Partial Least Square - Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) software program was used for the statistical validation of the command climate model with the data (n = 315). The results indicate that the Battalion’s command climate model could be predicted by the eight domains (R2 = 0.556). The Importance-Performance Matrix Analysis (IPMA) shows that all the domains have similar performance on the command climate of the Battalion with the exception of Leadership, Family and Neighbourhood having a below average values. However, the importance of the different domains towards the command climate of the Battalion varies from low to that of medium effect. The personnel of the Battalion viewed Community as of higher relative importance and Leadership as least important in the overall measure of its command climate. The analysis also shows that the Battalion has to enhance the domains of Family and Neighbourhood so as to enhance the performance of the command climate in the Battalion. Similarly, efforts must be made by the Battalion to enlighten/educate its personnel the importance of Leadership, Neighbourhood, and Family in contributing towards an improved command climate in the unit. The overall command climate of the in the Battalion is positive. However, the commander of the Battalion has to adopt effective measure to overcome the shortfalls identified during the study.