Mahogany Bomber:
I had a discussion with a colleague over Christmas on the topic of the quality of senior leaders in the military and we agreed that they currently(in general, there are of course exceptions) tend not to be of the top drawer. We appear to be led by what the army would term as "top of middle third". Why? The top third recognise their value (or have it recognised for them) and are invited/convinced to employ it elsewhere, the bottom third are recognised as such and are required to leave the service at the earliest opportunity. That leaves the middle third who, naturally, sit somewhere between the two and it's from that layer that we select our current and future leaders.
They end up with a "sent down with the rations" MA, having conformed for a year on ACSC and climb the greasy pole by sticking to the regulations and avoiding controversy. When they get to a position of substance we all of a sudden expect them to ditch that which has got them there (risk aversion, conformity and not putting their name to controversial decisions) and become dynamic leaders. Funnily enough, as they are at this point in their late 40s/early 50s they unsurprisingly fail to change their behaviours.
As an army colleague of mine put it, the best Generals leave the army as Captains. I'm not overly cynical, just experienced enough to have seen how we tend to promote managers/those willing to flog themselves in an outer office (other similar roles are available); valuing managers (of time, workload, process) over leaders.
MB - I could not have put this better myself - you are spot on and this supports my thesis (above) concerning risk averse and banal middle and senior ranked officers. Again, I see these officers with a string of degrees (all Masters') after their names and wonder how on Earth they obtained them, knowing them when they were junior officers. I joined the RAF after a 'proper' five year Masters' - but not Shrivenham, so, in effect, it didn't count. Moreover, a number of people I know who have done both - the fellowship at Cambridge and then ACSC - also confirm that they found the Dissertation at Shrivenham particularly easy and not particularly demanding, rating it as undergraduate level. Perhaps I'm wrong, and I hope I am; I did a foreign staff course and was awarded a Masters' Degree from that, which I don't bother to list because it is largely meaningless.