Soft Skills and Leader Development at a Senior Military College

Hiring managers in organizations seek college graduates who possess certain “soft skills” that enable them to be of value immediately upon entering the workforce. In response, many institutions of higher education are using and expanding high impact educational practices to not only improve knowledge acquisition and retention, but also to develop the soft skills that help make students “employable” after college. In U.S. senior military college corps of cadets, soft skills development is nothing new: it has always been part and parcel of their intensive and highly effective leader development programs. Although these programs exist primarily to produce leaders for the military—a public good—graduates contribute to the public good in other sectors of American society as well. This chapter depicts how cadets are transformed into highly effective leaders for the military, and how they contribute in other ways to the good of American society.

Wschodni model współczesnego wychowania państwowego na przykładzie rosyjskiego korpusu kadetów. Zarys problemu

The modern model of state education in Russia promotes patriotism and devotion to the authorities. Young people must be proud of their origin and, in spite of deteriorating material conditions, should stay in the country contributing to its development. Cadet Corps Alumni are an example of a patriotic education model. Several years of learning in the military school shapes their beliefs and teaches them complete surrender to authority. Patriotism, combined with the sense of external threat, has become the driving force behind the reconstruction of the Russian superpower. One of the cornerstones of the school is the acceptance of Putin’s Russia by spreading the vision of becoming an international representative of the country. The increase in military spending and functioning of military schools such as the Corps of Cadets give rise to fears that in the future Russia the army will become one of the tools of the superpower on the arena of foreign policy.