Consider the situation stated below and answer questions

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Consider the situation stated below and answer questions.

In 2008, facing a serious shortage of leadership-ready employees at the store management

level Wal-Mart decided to recruit from the U.S. military. The company sent recruiters to military

job fairs and hired 150 junior military officers, pairing them with store mentors to learn on the

job. The result: Wal-Mart claims that it's been able to bring in world-class leaders who were

ready to take over once they had learned the retail business that Wal-Mart could easily teach

them. Other organizations that have heavily recruited from the military in recent years include

GE, Home Depot, Lowe's, State Farm Insurance, Merck, and Bank of America. It's not really

surprising to see companies turn to the military for leadership potential. A long tradition of books

and seminars advises leaders to think like military leaders ranging from Sun Tzu to Norman

Schwarzkopf. And military veterans do have a variety of valuable skills learned through

experience. General David Petraeus notes, "Tell me anywhere in the business world where a

22- or 23-year-old is responsible for 35 or 40 other individuals on missions that involve life and

death. They're under enormous scrutiny, on top of everything else. These are pretty formative

experiences. It's a bit of a crucible-like experience that they go through." Military leaders are

also used to having to make due in less than optimal conditions, negotiate across cultures, and

operate under extreme stress. However, they do have to relearn some lessons from the service.

Some may not be used to leading someone like an eccentric computer programmer who works

strange hours and dresses like a slob, but who brings more to the company's bottom line than a

conventional employee would. Indeed, in some companies like Google, there is nothing like the

chain of command military leaders are used to. Still, most forecasts suggest there will be an

ample supply of battle-tested military leaders ready to report for corporate duty in the near

future, and many companies are eager to have them.

QUESTION NO. 1

Do you think leaders in military contexts exhibit the same qualities as organizational

leaders? Why or why not (15 MARKS)

QUESTION NO. 2

In what ways not mentioned in the case would military leadership lessons not apply in

the private sector? What might military leaders have to re-learn to work in business?