Mission Leadership, Coordination and Integration

Contemporary UN peace operations require imaginative and dedicated leadership grounded in integrity and competence. UN Security Council mandates are now broader and are often more demanding as the functions of peacekeeping, peace enforcement and peacebuilding become increasingly intertwined and mutually supportive.

Mission leadership is also about developing a strong relationship with national counterparts, coalescing the international community’s support and efforts on the ground and, most critically, facilitating change. These trends have placed greater demands on mission leaders, requiring MLTs to be better prepared, resourced and accountable for their actions.

Mission leadership needs to be exercised by the MLT at the country level, and by Heads of Offices and Sector Commanders at the subnational level. Good UN leadership reflects the multifaceted character of peace operations and their political foundation; the hazardous environment; the ever-changing interests and agendas and their complexity and width; the high stakes; and the large number of dynamic and external factors.

Senior leaders in peace operations need to be proven and capable leaders from the outset. Exercising leadership in peace operations cannot be about on-the-job training. It is, however, to a large degree about on-the-job learning.

Successful mission leaders are open-minded, curious and flexible, and facilitate an environment conducive to continuous and adaptive learning throughout the mission and the duration of its mandate.

The UN system leadership framework outlines eight defining characteristics of UN leadership:

The political process in any country is complicated by contending pressures and actors. The mission leadership will have to continually manage the expectations of the various actors involved in the process, and indeed the entire population. Accordingly, the consent of the parties for mandate implementation can never be taken for granted. The impact of spoilers should also be considered. Perhaps more than in any other aspect of the mission’s mandate, and owing to the centrality of the political process, the mission leadership should continually reassess and adjust every decision against the peacekeeping principles of impartiality, the non-use of force except in self-defence or defence of the mandate, legitimacy, credibility and the promotion of national and local ownership. At the same time, the mission must monitor consent at all levels – including the working and local levels – with great political sensitivity to ensure that the mandate is being properly implemented and that possible breakdowns in consent are anticipated and addressed.

The mission leadership team (MLT) will reflect numerous concepts and cultures of leadership. Correctly approached and cultivated, this diversity will be an obvious strength for both the MLT and the mission as a whole. It is important to invest in developing and forging a professional, inclusive, committed, dynamic and enduring team. All peace operations generate continuous challenges, surprises and frictions for their leaders, and these need to be tackled and overcome as a team. For the MLT to work well together, its individual members must first demonstrate inter-cultural competence.

Teambuilding should be prioritized, planned and creative. Small and recurring efforts count. The focus should not just be on formal and scheduled occasions, but also on building the team a little every day, and in every encounter within the MLT.

The exact composition of the MLT will vary depending on the specific type of mission and its requirements. Integrated and multidimensional missions are typically led by the Head of Mission (HoM) or Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General (SRSG). This core team consists of the Deputy SRSG (Political); the Deputy SRSG-Resident Coordinator/Humanitarian Coordinator (DSRSG-RC/HC); the Force Commander (FC), the Police Commissioner (PC); the mission’s Chief of Staff and the Director or Chief of Mission Support. It is very often reinforced by other section heads such as Human Rights, Gender, Strategic Communications and Security.

Whatever the chosen format, the MLT is responsible, at the operational level, for implementing the mission’s mandate through the coordinated planning and execution of the many tasks required to achieve the strategic end state – that is, the mission’s overarching vision. To achieve this vision, each MLT member must understand their individual role and responsibilities.

Civilian leaders provide the general and political direction and set mission-level strategic objectives. The uniformed components plan and execute their operational contributions in order to achieve those ends. At the same time, it is important for the uniformed components to be conscious of the dynamics of political priorities and considerations, and to understand that these are not always compatible with preferred operational practices and options. Uniformed leaders need to be sensitive and imaginative within their professional domains and identify ways for the military and police instruments to sustain the political process. In essence, they need to be officers with acute political and diplomatic antennae.

Developing the capacity to lead, then, is about developing the collective level and capacity to produce shared results, whereby everyone engaged must and does fill a leading role in some fashion. Given this, it may also be useful to clarify some aspects that are core to this study. The competing issues which need engagement by senior leaders are sometimes technical in nature, requiring ‘either/or’ technical solutions. More often they are ever-present tensions or polarities that require shared ‘both/and’ attention.