Civilian leader development overhauled

Army Logistician, Sept-Oct, 2006

As a part of its overall transformation, the Army is changing civilian leader development by speeding up implementation of the Civilian Education System (CES). The transformation is driven in part by the Army's growing reliance on civilians in an environment in which uniformed leaders are increasingly focused on warfighting missions.

CES is a series of four centralized, progressive, and sequential courses: foundation, basic, intermediate, and advanced. The foundation course is designed for civilians entering the Army and will be taught entirely by distributed learning. The basic course is geared toward civilians who exercise direct leadership. The intermediate course is targeted to civilian leaders who exercise both direct and indirect supervision. The advanced course is for civilian leaders who exercise primarily indirect supervision. These three courses will be taught by both distributed learning and resident instruction.

Implementation of the CES is scheduled for January 2007. Current leader development courses and programs will be phased out or transitioned into the CES curriculum as follows--

* Sustaining Base Leadership and Management (SBLM) class 06-03, which was scheduled to begin on 11 September, is canceled.

* Personnel Management for Executives I and II will end on 30 December.

* Strategic Leadership for Executives is canceled.

* Organizational Leadership for Executives is canceled.

* Leadership Education and Development (LEAD) Train the Trainer is canceled.

* LEAD will end 30 December.

* Intern Leadership Development continues until 30 December 2007.

CES progress updates will be posted to the Civilian Leader Development Transformation Community on the Army Knowledge Online Web site. Information also is available on line at http://amscportal.belvoir.army.mil.