Report
Compensating for Incomplete Domain Knowledge
Aug 5, 2007
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Preparing senior leaders to take charge of an organization as complex as the U.S. Air Force is enormously difficult. Ideally, all senior leaders are fully qualified for their positions, but this is not always possible. The need for multiple areas of expertise, known as domain knowledge; the emergence of new weapon systems, technologies, and operating environments; and the constraints of long-term career development strategies frequently cause the Air Force to assign senior leaders to operational and functional domains in which they lack specific experience.
A RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF) study shows that Air Force leaders in such positions draw on existing skills—called compensating competencies—to become engaged in and begin adding value to their organizations. Four are especially important:
Because of the broad utility of compensating competencies, the Air Force should take steps to ensure that its education and development programs develop a deep pool of leaders who are proficient in these competencies. Curricula designed around developing organizational analysis techniques, systems-level problem-solving strategies, and communication-analysis skills would be most instrumental to developing compensating competencies. Such an approach would augment the benefits already gained from broadening assignments. In return, the Air Force will have established a hedging strategy for developing leaders and staff members who can cope in a wider variety of organizations and operating domains in the future.
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