A Do As
You Like Army?
by Commissioner Wesley
Harris
REFLECTING on
more that sixty years as a Salvation Army officer I have the
impression that oversight and control is less rigorous than it
used to be. If
asked whether that makes the Army more or less effective my
reply would be both yes and no. In most organizations there is
reaction against a too tight yoke of control by headquarters
but at the same time if every one does what seems good to them
an organization can cease to be organized and certainly an
army can’t live up to its name.
A leader has to
strike a balance between a cramping control which prevents the
exercise of local initiative and a laxity which could spell
the end of united action.
(Paradoxically, if someone joins a football team they
may both enlarge and limit their scope for action. Left to
themselves they could accomplish little but while in a team
they must subordinate some of their notions.)
I have heard some
officers complain that their leaders restrict their initiative
but whether as a corps officer or as a territorial leader I
never found this to be the case.
Subject to reasonable financial and other limits there
was encouragement for initiative and experimentation, as
indeed there should be.
At one time I was
involved with others at IHQ in vetting possible changes to
orders and regulations and learnt about the efforts made to
ensure that a change in one territory would not cause problems
if applied in another. Cohesion as an international movement
means that we must have a care about how our actions affect
others for in many ways we are indeed our brothers’ keepers.
Our general has
well reminded us that we are one army and not a series of
little armies around the world.
Of course, methods and means will vary from country to
country.
Initiatives will save us from being imprisoned in the patterns
of the past. New
occasions will call for new duties and, according to our
Founder, there must be ‘adaptation of method but continuity of
principle’. Part
of the genius of our Army is that this can and does happen all
the time.
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