Leadership Lab: Iraq: Lessons in Leadership and Counterinsurgency

First and foremost, Leadership Lab: Iraq is a book about leadership. It tells the story of one US Army battalion conducting counterinsurgency operations in Iraq from June 2003 to April 2004 and uses that story to reveal lessons in leadership applicable to any leader in any organization. The book focuses on mid-level army officers struggling to understand a complex, foreign and hostile environment; applying conventional training and tactics to a conflict they weren't entirely prepared for. In doing so these army leaders overcame challenges that all organizational leaders face—how to translate ambiguous guidance into a meaningful vision, how to communicate measurable goals, how to accomplish varied, competing tasks without enough resources, and when and where to assume risk. In addition to the leadership lessons, Leadership Lab: Iraq provides insight into the first nine months of counterinsurgency operations against an emerging, adaptive and resilient enemy that should prove informative and useful to future generations of military leaders. The lessons learned are shaped through the prism of additional deployments and six years of reflection by the author.