ROAD TO LEADERSHIP OFTEN A DIFFICULT PATH

ANNOUNCING the SAS will from now be commanded by a full colonel delivered an unintended insult to every serving Australian lieutenant colonel.

The path to coveted command is both long and arduous.

It is not for the faint-hearted nor mediocre hoping that he, or she, will be tapped on the shoulder and handed the keys to glory and advancement, or perhaps calamity and professional ruin.

The ambitious Steve Thrusts or Rhonda Lunges who beaver away writing nice papers in the eternal hope their obvious talents will be noticed from above, usually serve a long apprenticeship, understanding their future fortunes will be decided by an ever increasingly personally risk-averse senior leadership.

If leadership best describes what the same individuals actually do.

If time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted, time spent in Canberra or one of the lesser headquarters is also seldom wasted for ambitious careerists who are wishing to be seen.

It is not necessarily an indication of the future value of the careerist, just determination.

The unlamented guys and gals bloke David Morrison floated to the top without serious command experience between lieutenant colonel and chief of army, though he demonstrated a matador’s skill at sidestepping responsibility for things that allegedly occurred under his commands.

Peter Dutton, who may prove one of the better defence ministers in recent times for his political savvy and no-nonsense copper’s approach, has nonetheless been snowed if he believes a full colonel may be more mature, experienced and better qualified to lead the SAS.

The SAS is a proudly elitist unit that does not look kindly on ‘outsiders’ being posted into senior appointments without having first passed through its initiations.

Even a full colonel would have trouble winning the unit’s trust if he was from outside the tribe.

Experience has many facets.

Having your head chewed by a cantankerous one or two star officer for failing to notice an Oxford comma is not the same as sticking it over a parapet and risk having it shot off.

Perhaps the best known

SAS CO was the late Major General and former Governor-general Mike Jeffries, who assumed the role after a previous battalion command in PNG.

He’d also served his SAS apprenticeship, including operational service.

It would be brave careerist who accepted the role knowing where blame will be apportioned if things go pearshaped.

After all, the Russell Offices senior officer motto states: “In victory revenge, in defeat malice.”