A Quest to Identify the Emerging Leadership Skills in VUCA World and Investigation of Their Applications in Various Organizational Levels and Security Environments

The theoretical framework of this research is based on “skills approach” that emphasizes the leader’s capabilities (skills, knowledge, and capabilities) that can be learned, taught, and fostered. VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) environment is chosen as the focal point of this research as the leadership skills are extracted from studies referring to such environment. Although the acronym is dominantly used in management and business domains, the military also uses it to describe the complex operational environments like in Iraq and Afghanistan. The identification of individual leadership skills and delivering the right skill, at the right time, to the right individual is the only way to employ the “employee/leader we need” instead of “employee/leader we have.” It is harder than ever to specify with any degree of certainty which skills are required. It is also needed to have quality leaders, who need to qualify as both experts and generalists at the same time. The primary purpose of the research is to identify, categorize the emerging leadership skills required in a VUCA environment, and also to examine how the military officers perceive the identified emerging skills in various security environments and organizational levels. To achieve this, the research employs the hybrid method. The qualitative part delivers a content analysis on the identification and the categorization of emerging leadership skills that feed into the survey instrument used in quantitative part to investigate the relationship between security environments and application of these emerging leadership skills as military officers perceive it. The fact that the primary data is collected from active and retired military officers from various nations, services, and ranks makes this research more noteworthy. This research fills a gap by identifying and categorizing leadership skills that VUCA environment necessitates in broad and practically applicable perspective and also provides empirical evidence to show that military officers favor some leadership skills more than others in the different security environment and organizational level. The findings will contribute to the leadership and organizational management domains by providing a broad and holistic perspective to improve our understanding of leadership skillsets in VUCA environment and by increasing the knowledge on skills and organizational-security context relationship. The results show that retired military officers think statistically significantly different than those on active duty. The results of this research also demonstrate a need to create a better understanding of the VUCA dynamics in military, and the findings can be used as the foundation for further research in the area of VUCA leadership skills

Cybersecurity Acquisition Framework Based on Risk Management: Economics Perspective

Acquisition Research Program Sponsored Report SeriesSponsored Acquisition Research & Technical ReportsCyber attacks continuously target organizations, however, the mitigation actions taken for defense are not sufficiently effective. Ability to compute the cost of attacks is crucial to assess the effectiveness of countermeasure investments. In this study, we developed a framework to have a well-informed decision-making process in cybersecurity acquisition by evaluating the business impact caused by the operability losses of assets. We tested the developed framework using various attack and mitigation scenarios. The findings suggest that using a simulation approach to calculate the business impact of cyber attacks provides the ability to support decision-making process.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Electronic Warfare (EW) historical perspectives and its relationship to Information Operations (IO)-considerations for Turkey

The purpose of this thesis is the exploration of the relationship and interaction between Electronic Warfare (EW) and Information Operations (IO) core, supporting and related competencies. Understanding the definitions of information and its value, information superiority, and the decision making cycle provides the foundation for the thesis. Investigation of the historical transformation of EW from the U.S. Civil War to the First Gulf War, and also examining how the concept of IO has developed and evolved contributes to this study by helping to comprehend the modern day interaction between EW and each IO competency separately. This interaction is constructed upon the guidance and standards provided by the latest U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Publication Joint Publication 3-13 Information Operations. This study concludes that the relationship between EW and IO is increasingly interactive and consists of two aspects: limiting and interfering, and reinforcing and supporting. Also, the relationship between EW and each IO competency is not consistent between the core and supporting competencies. In addition to these conclusions, this study expresses some considerations for EW and IO applications with respect to the unique environment and requirements of the Turkish Republic.http://archive.org/details/electronicwarfar109452642Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Cybersecurity Acquisition Framework Based on Risk Management: Economics Perspective

Panel #22: Acquisition Dimensions of CybersecurityNaval Postgraduate SchoolApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited