The Army Mission Command Center of Excellence (MCCoE) recently unveiled Project Athena Self-Development Tool, the “Army’s premier effort to provide leaders feedback about the skills, capabilities, and tendencies they possess and how those individual differences relate to being a strong leader.” There are several reasons for soldiers to be concerned if this effort is the best that the Center for the Army Profession and Leadership can put forward during a period of challenges in recruitment, retention, and public opinion.
What’s in a name?
The Army’s use of the name Athena ignores the contextual rationality society has associated with the term. It is especially tone deaf in the wake of the #MeToo movement and recent events at Fort Hood. In naming Project Athena after the Greek goddess of war, wisdom, and learning, MCCoE overlooked the pre-established popular use of Athena as a symbol closely associated with women’s movements.
For example, leadership researcher and author Martha Mertz founded ATHENA International in 1982 as a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to building a global pipeline of women leaders to help create a worldwide balance in leadership voices. The University of Memphis’ Athena Project, founded in 2009 by psychologist Dr. Gayle Beck, provides evaluations and treatment for victims of domestic violence. Founded in 2012, the Athena Project, out of Denver Colorado is focused on “Envision[ing] a world with gender equity where women’s voices are valued and amplified in the arts.”
Athena Village is a women-led collective of artists, authors, coaches, healers, makers, teachers, and collaborative-minded entrepreneurs who want to gather in community, build heartfelt connections, and contribute to meaningful conversation. Athena Village was itself inspired in part by 2013 New York Times Best Seller, The Athena Doctrine: How Women (and the Men Who Think Like Them) Will Rule the Future” by Michael D’Antonio and John Gerzema. Of direct relevance to the Army community, in November 2020, Army Lt. Col. Scott Stephens and a community of soldiers worked together to develop Athena Thriving, a guide designed to serve as an educational resource for leaders to better understand gender discrimination and issues women face in the Army. Athena Thriving has prompted a popular social media following and Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston personally highlighted the contributions of Athena Thriving on Twitter in November 2020.
Missing the Mark
While the image and idea of Athena is not copyrighted, it serves as an icon and symbol for women’s empowerment and leadership. This is an issue of immediate criticality, made obvious from recent discussions about the value of women in the military. Naming this survey tool Project Athena destabilizes an existing social identity and image. It undermines efforts even within the military to promote women’s empowerment and redress decades of sexist and misogynistic organizational culture.
Project Athena is still in its pilot phase. It is not too late for the Army to return to the drawing board and rethink its naming conventions. Keeping the Athena name carries several problems. Principally, it diminishes the historic and cultural significance the name has within established international social movements for women’s advancement. This contrasts with with the Army’s work towards the recruitment, development, and retention of talented Soldiers. Leader’s must pay more attention to social movements, cultural narratives, and popular trends in sense-making. The Army can begin by changing the name of this survey and declaring unequivocal support for women’s empowerment and leadership.
Missing Content
Project Athena is not a project but a web-based survey that lists a series of leadership competencies and asks the respondents whether they consider the competency important and whether they possess the strength or need to improve it. Most of the constructs and competencies are straightforward. However, some terms such as “cognitive maturity” or “social expressivity” may be more abstract to users. Unfortunately, in its current phase the platform does not offer definitions or examples of the terms for self evaluation.
After completing the five minute survey, the platform offers users the chance to select up to four areas of improvement. The survey provides no logic as to why only four areas may be selected at a time while the same user can select an unlimited number of strengths to review. The system then delivers an action plan with a series of questions which can be downloaded for future reflection. The webpage offers “training” opportunities for users to address areas of improvement. Unfortunately, the offered training videos feature computer-like voice overs with dated graphics. These videos are reminiscent of the mandatory training videos Soldiers are already familiar with.
Where’s the Survey Feedback?
Feedback is important for individual, organizational, and system improvement. It is important that the MCCoE project developers collect information on the user experience and basic functionalities. This is especially important for a project in its pilot phase. Additionally, it is also important that the feedback is anonymous. The Army is piloting Project Athena in the classroom environment, possibility limiting opportunities for candid developer feedback. Despite being a system emphasizing the role of feedback for professional development, the website as of 19 May 2021, does not feature help links or organizational contact information.
Broken on First Try
To test the system, I did a “Self-Awareness Individual Differences Inventory (SAID-I)” self-assessment. The offers only two options for users of the inventory:
Strength I Possess: Is this a strength or characteristic you already possess?
- Area I Need to Improve In: Is this a developmental need you have or a characteristic you don’t currently possess?
The tool does not define “developmental need,” thus failing to provide meaningful guidance on how the user should best evaluate where they fall on the spectrum of specific leadership skills. Frequency of behavior represents a more useful method of measure. This can help the user better understand where they are on a spectrum understanding and employing leadership constructs or competencies. Instead of asking whether a user has or does not have a competency, the tool should ask how often the user employs the skill, for example:
- Always
- More than 50% of the time
- Less than 50% of the time
- Never
As a self-confident student of leadership, I rated all constructs or competences as important and stated that I possess all of them to an extent. Because I noted that I possess all the constructs and competencies, the system was unable to identify areas of improvement. With no areas of improvement, I was unable to view an action plan even for my strength areas. This meant I was unable to reach the final page of the assessment, rendering the activity moot.
Conclusion
The Athena Project in its current form is an example of resource waste and top-down driven project development. The tool is not unique nor innovative in its approach. The Army constructed an assessment tools that’s one-dimensional and limited in breadth and complexity. Proponents of this project demonstrate lack of humility and reflection by calling it “premier” even in its pilot stage. Maneuvering the Army to meet new demands for professionalism and leadership must start with senior leaders asking serious questions about the reality before us. Leaders must critically challenge current assumptions and priorities, identify systemic problems in the current construct, and apply data analysis and testing to design meaningful user-oriented interventions that will meet stated goals.
Stacy Barnett is a Reserve Officer serving with the 75th Innovation Command as a Talent Management Officer. She has over ten years of experience in Military Intelligence and Logistics. Stacy is a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar Alum (Ghana ’05) and alum of the Public Policy International Affairs program at Princeton University. She has a M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown University and a M.S. in Strategic Intelligence from National Intelligence University. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate at Vanderbilt University in the field Leadership and Learning in Organizations and was recently selected for the Boren Fellowship.