Many people view Operations Research, if they view it at all, as dealing solely with numbers. Operations Research is more than just numbers; it is primarily about the thought process to get those numbers. An example of this would be increasing the throughput of an assembly line. Adding more resources at the beginning of the line does not necessarily mean there will be an increase to the quantity of the product at the end of the line within the same timeframe. No matter how much is put into the assembly line, it will not be able to produce any more if the slowest point in the assembly line is not quickened.
ABOARD USS IWO JIMA (LHD 7) — An MH-53 helicopter prepares to depart the flight deck of USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7) September 25 for assesments along the Louisana/Texas coast following Hurricane Rita’s landfall. U. S. Navy Photo by Photographer’s Mate Second Class (AW/SW) Robert Jay Stratchko
By viewing a problem through an Operations Research lens and breaking down the assembly line into its key components, the slowest point can be discovered. Once this point is discovered, a fix can be put in place that would eliminate this bottleneck and allow the assembly line to increase productivity.
The same Operations Research lens used to view the assembly line and break down the key components can be used in non-number related situations, such as leadership. An organization can have better leadership once the bottleneck is discovered and fixed. The leadership bottleneck is non-leadership roles, such as managers, encroaching on the leader’s responsibility.
Just like in the assembly line, no matter how good the leader is, he will not be able to succeed and thus the organization will not flourish without fixing this bottleneck. Managers create this issue because they feel they have all the needed information. When this information is not routinely gathered with face-to-face interactions, though, it is only partial and will lead to poor decisions and create a disconnection with the rest of the work force.
We have ‘Stone Age minds in a space-age universe’.
– An evolutionary psychologist caricature of humans. (Dunbar, 161)
Technology, the Culprit
The leadership bottleneck started when technology made conversations from a distance possible. World War I is an example of the negative impact of decisions made by the wrong role. Statesmen, after World War I, commented that without the telegraph, war might have been avoidable. (Ramo, 2009, p. 106) By using the telegraph, kings and foreign ministers of Europe were able to make decisions from a distance in a speedy manner. This sense of knowing what was happening and feeling the need to make an immediate verdict drove decisions, which ultimately led to the First World War. If information and decisions had to be hand delivered, then the leaders on the ground would have needed to make the quick decisions and the kings and foreign ministers would have been able to make the slow methodical decisions.
Now that technology has made the transportation of information almost instantaneous, and it is possible to make decisions at any location at any time, non-leadership roles are constantly making decisions that should be made by the leader. To remedy this situation and to fix the leadership bottleneck, all the roles in an organization need to be clearly understood and followed. This is done by first defining the roles, then by showing how those roles relate to each other using organizational structures and finally demonstrating the influence the roles have on each other and the organization.
Defined Roles
The four roles in an organization are workers, supervisors, leaders, and managers (see Figure 1). Even though some of these terms have been used interchangeably, they are different. This interchanging of the terms has continued to reinforce the leadership bottleneck.
The first role is the worker. A worker, according to Oxford Dictionaries (2014), is “an employee, especially one who does manual or non-executive work.” The worker does the hands-on labor that the organization requires to complete its many tasks to produce the product. Without the worker, the product will never be made. In the majority of organizations there are more workers than any other role. For this reason there is a continual focus on the worker and how to get the worker to produce in a more efficient manner.
The next role is the supervisor. A supervisor is “a person who supervises a person or an activity.” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2014) To supervise is to “observe and direct the execution of (a task or activity).” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2014) The supervisor’s main goal is to oversee the completion of the current task in the allotted time. To help accomplish this goal, he needs to understand the process to complete the task, the workers on the task, and how far along the task is from completion. The supervisor, thus, must be co-located with the workers and where the task is being accomplished.
The next role is the leader. A leader is described as “the person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country.” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2014) Oxford Dictionaries (2014) then describes lead as to “be in charge or command of.” Peter Drucker, an author of multiple management books, defines a leader as “someone who has followers.” (2008) These definitions are very vague and thus do not help anyone understand what a leader really is or does. This vagueness is due to the overuse of the word leader, which reinforces the leadership bottleneck. A different definition of a leader will be presented after a manager is defined.
The final role is the manager. The Oxford Dictionaries (2014) describes a manager as “a person responsible for controlling or administering an organization or group of staff.” The manager concentrates on the future of the organization, identity of the organization, and how to administer resources. Those resources range from people to money to time. He focuses on the big picture and does not get into the details of the process. He does not routinely interact with workers and supervisors. For this reason, a manager performs his duties in a separate location from the rest of the organization.
Now that a supervisor and a manager have been defined, a leader is defined as both a supervisor and a manager (see Figure 2). A leader needs to know the current status of the tasks and at the same time be focused on the future of the organization. He also needs to understand the processes of each task to decide where to administer the resources of the organization.
With this definition, a leader can be seen as either a supervisor who also deals with allocating resources or can be seen as a manager who physically interacts with the people of the organization. Also, since the manager is not physically located where the tasks are being accomplished, the leader is the direct representative of the supervisors and workers to the manager and vice versa. The leader is thus the in-between and must learn to communicate with all of the roles. Each leadership position will be different and the leader must decide how much of a supervisory role is required and how much of a managerial role is required.
The Nature of Enlisted and Officer Roles
In the military there are two separate tiers of people who comprise the work force: Enlisted and Officer (see Figure 3). Enlisted personnel will start as a worker, then move to a supervisor, and finally become a leader. 
There are very few Enlisted personnel who will become a manager. On the other hand, an Officer will start as a supervisor, then move to a leader, and finally end up as a manager. (An Officer may be a worker (usually on a staff), but only after their initial tour.)
When Junior Officers first start, they are at a disadvantage. Since they were never a worker, they do not fully comprehend the tasks the workers in their division are performing. This is why the Navy pairs up Junior Officers with Chiefs. Chiefs are leaders of the division. Good Chiefs will help the Junior Officers learn the specific tasks the division accomplishes, which is the first step in making the Junior Officers better supervisors and ultimately leaders.
The Structure Breakdown
Each organization can be structured differently with varying amounts of workers, supervisors, leaders, and managers. On one extreme there can be an organization made up of one person (see Figure 4). In this 
organization the person will play two roles, the two ends. As a worker, he will be doing the hands on labor to create the product. As a manager, he will be allocating the resources of the organization as well as looking to the future to decide where the organization should be going. Since the organization is only one person, there is no need for a supervisor or a leader. Supervisors and leaders are useful only when there are people in the organization (to supervise or to lead).
An organization with multiple people, but located in one location will either have only leaders and workers (see Figure 5); or leaders, supervisors and workers (see Figure 6). 
Managers are not needed since the organization is encompassed in one location. Leaders will do the future planning. The difference will depend on how many separate tasks need to be accomplished to finish the product.
If the leader is able to oversee the tasks and plan the way ahead for the organization, then the organization only requires leaders and workers. If the leader is not able to oversee all of the tasks, then the leader will need the help of some supervisors. This does not alleviate the leader from performing the supervisory role and talking to the workers, but it will help free him up to play more of a managerial role.
If the organization is big enough and needs multiple locations to 
make its product, then the organization will need a manager to oversee the multiple locations. The manager will ensure each location is getting the requisite amount of resources to continue to make the product. He will also groom the future of the organization.
Each location does not necessarily need to be structured the same. It will depend on the needs of the organization. For instance, one location may be small and able to accomplish its tasks with just a leader and some workers, while another location may be a lot bigger and need multiple leaders to oversee the tasks. Also, supervisors do not necessarily need to oversee only one group of workers doing one set of tasks; they could oversee multiple groups of workers (see Figure 7).
As the organization grows and expands to more locations there may be more managers, who would oversee other managers. Also, some of those managers may need help and acquire a staff. The manager with the staff would then be a leader to his staff, but a manager to the other parts of the organization (see Figure 8).
The above examples are only a few possibilities for arranging an organization. To make it more complicated, it is also possible to have an organization with overlapping structures. When this is the case, it can become very confusing for the work force and will take extra time to ensure that the individuals understand their part of the structure. Each organization needs to determine the most suitable work force structure to produce their product with the allotted amount of resources.
An OIC’s View of the Structure
The following is a real world example of the intricacy of a work force structure. The U.S. Navy is a huge organization, which is tasked with the mission of defending the United States in the naval spectrum. As an organization, the Navy has many workers, supervisors, leaders, and managers. Each one of these roles plays an important function in accomplishing the mission (or producing the product).
A small portion of the Naval mission is mine countermeasures and a portion of mine countermeasures is airborne mine countermeasures. HM-15 Det TWO in Bahrain is the airborne mine countermeasures component in FIFTH Fleet (the Arabian Gulf). The detachment has three departments (see Figure 9): Operations (which also included Administration, Medical, Training, NATOPS, and Safety), Aircraft Maintenance (which fixes the helicopters), and MCM Maintenance (which fixes the mine countermeasures gear). Each department has multiple leaders, but the two main leaders are the Leading Chief Petty Officer (enlisted) and the Department Head (officer). Under them are more leaders, supervisors, and workers to keep the detachment running.
As the OIC of HM-15 Det TWO, I needed to regulate my time to accomplish my supervisory role and my managerial role. In my supervisory role, I talked with the leaders, supervisors, and workers I led to find a better way to accomplish our mission to ensure aircrew, aircraft, and MCM gear were ready to hunt, sweep, and neutralize mines (the product). By walking around and talking to the Sailors, I was able to get a feel for the detachment and learn about the concerns of my Sailors and ultimately a way to make the detachment more productive and effective.
In my managerial role, I coordinated resources with two managers who oversaw my detachment. The first was the Commanding Officer (CO) of HM-15, who oversaw the manning of the Detachment. As a Department Head in the squadron in Norfolk, VA (the main body of the squadron), the CO was my leader. On the detachment, though, he was one of my managers. Since he was in Norfolk and I was out in Bahrain, the CO needed to rely on me as the OIC to make leadership decisions, which he would normally make if we were in Norfolk.
The other manager I reported to was the CTF-52 Commodore. He was in charge of the Staff that operationally oversaw my detachment. I worked with him for the resource of aircraft and MCM gear. I ensured that my aircrew was trained using the aircraft and MCM gear, in case he needed to call on my detachment for a mission. Every quarter, the Commodore ran an exercise using all of his units, which he managed, to ensure we were using his resources wisely and were ready to meet the demands of the mission.
Organizational Interactions and Influences
The Information Age has created multiple ways for interactions to take place beyond face-to-face communication. For example, telecommunication, texting, e-mail, videophone, and social media are commonly used nowadays. Each type of interaction comes with its own benefits and issues. For instance, face-to-face is the most personable.
Those interactions cost money and time, though. Depending on the size of the organization, it may not be feasible for everyone to have face-to-face interactions anytime a discussion needs to happen. A voice or video conversation can happen no matter where all the parties are located and all members of the conversation will still get direct and instant feedback. If there is any confusion, it can be discussed on the spot.
However, with face-to-face communication, voice conversations, and video conversations, there is no documentation of what was said and agreed upon. With text messages and e-mail, there is now documentation of the conversation. Both of these can also easily be sent to a wide range of individuals in a variety of locations. Issues include the potential for the lack of direct feedback and lack of confirmation about the message being fully understood. Text and e-mail are sent to specific individuals, but with social media, an individual can put out the message to a larger unknown audience.
Social media allows individuals in the organization to promote the organization. If used correctly it can be a very effective public affairs tool. However, it is also possible to lose control of information in the social media realm.
Through these different methods, the work force can interact horizontally and vertically. Horizontal interactions take place among peers. A good peer-to-peer connection will generate a better quality of life for the members of the work force, which will also ensure a more comfortable and, if set up correctly, a more productive work place. These interactions will help a person feel like a part of the organization and create a sense of cohesion. This cohesion will assist in keeping people in the organization. It is more difficult to leave a place if one is happy and has built up a network of friends. The horizontal interactions can also make the organization more productive.
For instance, if an organization is big enough and has multiple leaders, these leaders can interact and help each other accomplish their tasks. One leader may need something from another leader and with this connection it will be easier and quicker to get it than it would have been without this connection. Also, the leaders will be able to voice opinions to each other and get honest feedback before voicing their decision vertically.
The vertical interactions (between a boss and an employee) are important to ensure the tasks get accomplished properly and to help the boss make informed decisions. The boss should have an overview on what needs to happen and when. This picture needs to be relayed to his employees so they know which tasks need to be accomplished and on what timeline. Since the boss cannot always know what is happening in every location, he also needs to listen to the employees to get an idea of how things are progressing. This conversation will vary depending on which roles are interacting. A unique vertical relationship exists between a manager and a leader.
Since they are not in the same location, they need to figure out which method of interaction and frequency works best for their set-up. Part of this candid conversation should also include the speed of information when a potential problem arises. Currently, managers and leaders have become too worried about quickly informing their boss, which does not allow an opportunity to correct the issue. With technology allowing information to flow from many sources, the concern is the boss’s boss will learn about the problem before the boss.
Leaders and managers must come to the understanding that it is okay to learn about a problem from another source and not necessarily from the employee. Bosses need to allow their employees time to gather information, assess the situation, start to correct the problem, and properly report the incident. There should be no backlash on appropriately delayed information.
To help ensure supervisors and leaders are informed they need to constantly interact face-to-face with their employees. This frequent face-to-face interaction will also help the supervisors and leaders create a connection with their employees and a venue to receive and give the right information. If used correctly, this connection can create a more cohesive and productive organization.
The employees will also gain a real sense of their supervisors and leaders. On the other side, supervisors and leaders will be able to gain a better picture of how their part of the organization is really running. This better picture is not only created by what the employees say, but also by what the bosses gather with their observations. All of this will create the picture for the boss. This picture may not be overt, though, and may only be realized as a gut feeling.
Timothy Wilson explains this gut feeling in his book Strangers to Ourselves as adaptive unconscious:
The term “adaptive unconscious” is meant to convey that nonconscious thinking is an evolutionary adaptation. The ability to size up our environments, disambiguate them, interpret them, and initiate behavior quickly and nonconsciously confers a survival advantage and thus was selected for. Without these nonconscious processes, we would have a very difficult time navigating through the world…This is not to say that nonconscious thinking always leads to accurate judgments, but on balance it is vital to our survival. (2002, pages 23 and 24)
Even though people are not constantly worried about their survival, they still constantly use adaptive unconscious. For instance, when walking through the organization, a person is not only gathering information from the obvious but also from the subtle suggestions. The more time supervisors and leaders walk around their areas of the organization, the more information they gather with their adaptive unconscious and the more accurate their gut feelings will become.
Since a manager is not able to routinely walk around, he does not have a chance to create a connection with the employees and build his adaptive unconscious about the specifics of the organization. His job is thus to focus on the organization as a whole and interact through the leaders and through the organizational culture. The identity and direction of an organization are major concerns of a manager. Any time he wants to change this organizational culture, he needs to voice the change and then follow it with action. This action will encourage the other roles of the work force to embrace the change. Without the other roles embracing the change, the organizational culture will stagnate.
A good example of successfully changing an organizational culture is the British Army in the Malayan Emergency (1948-1957) when they wanted to change the organizational culture from conventional war fighting to more progressive approaches, such as counterinsurgency operations. When the shift was pushed down to the soldiers on the ground, not everyone was onboard. For example, a battalion of Scots Guards did not want to change their fighting style from the World War II European style to counterinsurgency.
The same day that General Sir John Harding, Commander in Chief, Far East Land Forces, heard about this battalion, he relieved the Colonel in charge. By enacting such a swift action, General Harding ensured there was no confusion on his desire to change the culture. “It is not hard to imagine the impact of that relief on colonels commanding other battalions in theater.” (Nagl, 2002)
The Right Spirit Campaign
The Right Spirit Campaign is another good example of how managers (Chief of Naval Operations) changed an organizational culture. The Right Spirit Campaign was the Navy’s way to deglamorize alcohol and thus stop alcohol abuse. It started in the late 1990s and was a very successful campaign. “The Navy Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Program credits this campaign for a nearly 40-percent reduction in alcohol-related incidents (i.e., infractions in which alcohol played a role) from 1996 to 2000, and for a nearly 50-percent decline in arrests for driving under the influence.” (Ames & Cunradi)
Even after the campaign had been running for almost ten years, it was still successful. The CNO put out a NAVADMIN on 25 February 2009, which applauds the success of the program:
Over the past decade we have made significant progress in addressing and preventing alcohol abuse. The “Right Spirit” campaign has been highly successful, as evidenced by a 33 percent reduction in alcohol related incidents and a 23 percent reduction in DUI/DWI incidents for the Navy since FY-04.
The statistics show it was an effective campaign, but the people show the culture changed. A Sailor published a piece on the Blog, Sonarmark on December 2, 2008 entitled The Right Spirit Campaign – Most Effective Program which shows how much the campaign changed the culture of the United States Navy:
The Right Spirit Campaign is the most effective program during my 22 year naval career.
I joined the Navy in 1986 and alcohol use and abuse was common. It constituted the most serious threat to mission effectiveness at that time. The “drunken sailor” image was easily identified on base and in the streets of San Diego. There were beer machines in the barracks, laundry facilities, and base clubs which sponsored drinking for Sailors 18 and over…
Currently, Alcohol related incidents still occur, but they are far less frequent and have a much less significant impact on mission readiness. I can not tell you the last time I heard a few sailors say, “Hey, why don’t we grab a pitcher and pizza for lunch”…We should all be proud of our current Quality of Service and The Right Spirit Campaign.
The campaign mandated the new culture and the managers ensured the leaders were enforcing the cultural shift. Everyone was, and still is, held accountable for their actions when it comes to alcohol.
Breaking Through the Leadership Bottleneck
The bottom line is humans have evolved with face-to-face interactions and face-to- face interactions are still required to effectively lead. Once this idea gets ingrained into an organization, the leadership bottleneck can dissolve.
To help this process, each person in the organization needs to look at the organizational structure and figure out what role they fill (worker, supervisor, leader or manager) using these new definitions. Workers will continue to do the manual labor, which is required to accomplish the tasks. Supervisors are going to be expected to understand all of the tasks they oversee as well as know the workers who perform those tasks. Leaders will again be given the responsibility to know their employees and know how to control their resources.
To do this, leaders have to organize their time between supervising and managing. Some days supervising will be more important and the leader will walk around to interact with his employees. Other days, managing is more important and the leader will be consumed with beyond face-to-face communication. The leader must always remember, though, that both sides (supervising and managing) are vital and if one is neglected for the other, he is not properly leading.
Leaders also need to have a conversation with their boss about how and when they will communicate to include when there is an issue. Before this conversation, though, the boss should have a conversation with his boss. This vertical line of conversation is for the boss to reiterate that it is acceptable to appropriately delay information. By giving employees this freedom the employees will maintain ownership of the issues, which will drive better solutions.
Since leaders are embedded with the other roles, they are constantly building a complete picture of what is happening in their part of the organization. No matter how much beyond face-to-face interactions the manager has, he will never have as much of an understanding as the leader. And he should not want to. He has an important job to accomplish which is to build the future of the organization and to administer the resources. The leadership bottleneck now can finally be removed and the potential of the whole organization will increase.
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Background on Philip Gift
With any topic of this nature it is good to know the background of the preacher. I am married with two children and am currently a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy. I am Navy trained through in through. I was raised a Navy Brat. I graduated from the Naval Academy with a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering in 2002. Afterwards, I went to flight school and then out to a squadron to learn to fly the MH-53E. My first sea squadron was with Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron FOURTEEN (HM-14). I did multiple jobs and small detachments in HM-14. I then went to Naval Postgraduate School where, in 2010, I earned my Masters in Operations Research and my Joint Professional Military Education (JPME) phase I. My next tour was aboard USS BATAAN as part of ship’s company; I ultimately was the Mini-Boss (Assistant Department Head of the Air Department). After the ship tour I went back to a flying tour with Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron FIFTEEN (HM-15) as a Department Head. During this tour I was the Officer-In- Charge (OIC) of the squadron’s forward deployed detachment (HM-15 Det TWO) of approximately 130 Sailors. This is where the following ideas started to really take shape.
I would also like to take this time to thank my wife, my parents, Col Pierce King, USMC (Ret) and CAPT Jeffrey Kline, USN (Ret) for helping me focus this paper.
References
Ames, G. & Cunradi, C. Alcohol Use and Preventing Alcohol-Related Problems Among Young Adults in the Military. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Retrieved from http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh284/252-257.htm
Dunbar, R. I. M. (2010). How Many Friends Does On Person Need? Dunbar’s
Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Drucker, P. F. (2008). The Essential Drucker: The best of sixty years of Peter Drucker’s essential writings on management. [Kindle Version]. Retrieved from http://navy.lib.overdrive.com.
Nagl, J. (2002). Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife. [Kindle Version]. Retrieved from http://navy.lib.overdrive.com.
NAVADMIN 250018Z FEB 09. [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.navycs.com/blogs/2009/02/25/navy-right-spirit-is-effective.
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Oxford Dictionaries. (2014). Definition of Supervise in English. Retrieved from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/supervise?q=supervise.
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Oxford Dictionaries. (2014). Definition of Worker in English. Retrieved from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/worker?q=worker.
Ramo, J. C. (2009). The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New Global Order
Constantly Surprises Us and What to Do About it. [Kindle Version]. Retrieved from http://navy.lib.overdrive.com.
The Right Spirit Campaign – Most Effective Program. (2008, December 2). Leadership and Leader’s Ship. Retrieved from http://sonarmark.wordpress.com/2008/12/02/the-most-effective-program- over-my-22-year-naval-career/.
Wilson, T. D. (2002). Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.