Trust: Implications for the Army Profession

TRUST IS AT heart of Army Profession. As Army transitions from an era of substantial operational deployments to an era characterized by training and preparing force for next series of conflicts, it will face several threats to trust. An environment of reduced force structure and fiscal austerity will accompany transition. How Army profession fares in coming decade will be based on trust institution engenders among its members (uniformed and civilian) and with American people.The Department of Army-directed Profession of Arms (PoA) campaign reemphasized trust as an essential characteristic of Army Profession along with military expertise, honorable service, esprit de corps, and stewardship of profession.1 The PoA campaign had its official kickoffin January 2011 under leadership of Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), and was later renamed Army Profession (AP) Campaign. When Dempsey subsequently became 37th chief of staffof Army, his initial guidance to force stressed Trust, Discipline, and Fitness as three areas that he would discuss with commanders during visits around Army. His successor, Gen. Ray Odierno, in his Initial Thoughts and Marching Orders communications, appropriately called trust the bedrock of our honored Profession.2Trust is manifested in two interrelated but distinct realms. The campaign focused much of its effort on trust internal to Army Profession. The other domain is external public trust, which is trust held between Army profession and American people. The maintenance of internal trust among members of profession, and between members and institution, is critical to effectiveness of Army. Maintenance of trust between Army profession and American people is critical to its legitimacy within our democratic society. While Army profession currently enjoys a high level of public trust, that trust relationship is intensely fragile. The loss of either internal or public trust would constitute a major threat to profession.This paper examines three fundamental threats to Army profession related to trust. The first threat to profession is that leaders are not familiar enough with frameworks to understand trust and do not have language to discuss it effectively. The lack of understanding is most acute when examining differences in nature of trust at interpersonal, organizational, and public trust levels. Exploring nature of trust and enabling Army senior leaders to guide professional dialogue about trust are among principal purposes of this paper. The second threat to Army profession is represented by interpersonal trust findings identified during 2011 Army Profession campaign. The campaign study effort included two Army-wide surveys, a survey of senior leaders, focus groups of Army personnel, and multiple senior leadership forums. The paper will present study findings about trust among various cohorts within profession, and between members and Army as an institution. The paper then examines third threat to profession, posed by perceived violations of public trust. The public trust section of paper will explore nature of public trust, sources of public trust violations, and offer recommendations to address damage posed by various forms of public trust violations.The Army Profession CampaignFollowing publication of The Profession of Arms White Paper that identified trust as clearly most important attribute we seek for Army,3 researchers identified five essential characteristics of Army profession to represent basis for establishing and sustaining trust. The themes depicted in Figure 1 give impression that each is independent and distinct. In reality, these characteristics are overlapping, complementary, and interrelatedA critical omission of original PoA White Paper was a taxonomy that included a definition of trust. …