A metric for the shared interpretation of commander's intent

An enduring challenge in management and in military command is ensuring that subordinates select actions as their leader would, particularly when circumstances change unexpectedly. An experiment was conducted to test a measure of shared interpretation of commander's intent and its effects on the adaptability of subordinates. Performance was measured in the context of a simulated law enforcement task. A course of action ranking procedure was used as a measure of interpretation of intent with rank order correlation reflecting shared interpretation. The study validates a measure of shared interpretation of commander's intent and supports the hypothesis that making values explicit enhances shared interpretation and adaptability. The findings indicate that when missions change in unexpected ways, a commander's intent statement that presents the values by which actions are to be prioritized produces greater agreement between commander and subordinates on action preferences than do intent statements that prescribe command preference for specific actions.