Command Abilities of Captain Career Course Completers in Maneuver, Fires and Effects: A Self-Perceived Assessment

The primary purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship exists between specific demographics of U.S. Army Company Grade Officers that have completed the U.S Army’s Captains Career Course (CCC) in Maneuver, Fires and Effects and their self-perceived capacity to perform as a successful Company Commander. This study included six objectives. The research hypothesis states: Company Grade Officers in the U.S. Army who have held a command position prior to completion of the CCC will have higher self-perceived abilities to function as a successful company commander than those who have not held a command position. The instrument was a combination of a U.S. Army Leader Behavioral Scale (LBS) consisting of 87 items and a researcher designed, 21 item, personal and professional demographic questionnaire. A total of 903 surveys were personally distributed and collected by the researcher with 844 surveys identified as usable for the study. All respondents remained anonymous. Findings of the study revealed “Very Good” to “Good” degrees of self-perceived command ability by the majority of the respondents. Factor analysis was used to verify the existing eight LBS sub-scale factors. Within the regression analysis none of the variables explained a significant portion of variance in the self-perceived command abilities, resulting in zero significant regression models. Finally, the researcher could not reject the null hypothesis, leaving the alternative hypothesis unproven. A conclusion of the study found OD CCC completer’s hold a “Very Good” self-perception of their ability to command. This conclusion is based upon study data, where, 67.3% of the LBS means were within the researcher’s survey response scale score of “Very Good”, and the remaining 32.7% identified as “Good”. Recommendations for research is the additional study of the self-perceived command abilities of both OSD and FSD officers completing the CCC, not just OD. Furthermore, the establishment of a longitudinal study beginning with an officers commissioning source to investigate self-esteem versus self-perceived ability. Overall, the variables considered within the study provided no significance or influence outside the expected random error with regard to an officer who has completed an OD CCC and self-perceived command ability