Civilian Stabilization Team Leadership Success: Perceptions for Iraq Provincial Reconstruction Teams

Team Leaders were a crucial element of Iraq Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), and they dramatically impacted the performance of a team, both positively and negatively. This review examines PRT members’ perspectives of Team Leaders (TLs) and the roles leaders played in PRT successes, as well as the particular challenges that leaders faced. This review is based primarily upon interviews of PRT members ending their tours. Beginning in the latter half of 2009, the Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) and the Center for Complex Operations (CCO) conducted lessons learned interviews with departing Iraq PRT members. Over 100 interviews from this process were examined for this review (initially completed in October of 2010).
Though derived from feedback on Iraqi operations, the examples and insights found here should also be applicable to other or future reconstruction and stabilization operations. It is likely that similar leadership challenges or roles will be required in similar circumstances, when operating in hostile conditions, and with teams composed of members with a number of different organizational perspectives and goals.