The 21st century military is placed in an environment with extreme changes and confusion due to the variability of the fourth industrial revolution, uncertainties, complexities, and ambiguities. The military is very important for not only competitiveness according to real internal and external environmental changes, but also because it acts as a core element for the future national defense competitiveness. For the past half-century, the military completed its missions excellently as the bastion for national defense, and it also provided the foundation for achieving economic income growth and development. But recent developments in information science technologies have rapidly changed the mode of war and the military force should be prepared to respond to the new environment.
In reality, however, the military is still being maintained in a large standing army system focusing on troops, which has increased inefficiencies for national defense management that must convert quickly according to the new changes. Among them, the authoritarian leadership that still takes up a big part of the military life culture is a huge factor as it creates a stiff army organizational culture. Generally, the success or failure of an organization is related to whether effective leadership is exhibited. Therefore, the concept of leadership should be discussed in a broad spectrum and requires ongoing research, but the opinions or hands-on workers are almost never consistent. In order to construct an advanced national defense operation system that fits the status of the Republic of Korea, leadership that can establish and present visions and directions to respond to the new changes is essential.
The military organization is also constructed of social and cultural environmental elements affected by the internal and external environment, and it is influenced by mutual communication. In particular, the inflow of new soldiers from the young generation that have individualistic, anti-authoritative, liberalistic, and socio-cultural values is affecting the value system of military culture. The socio-cultural value conflicts of the young generation is a trend of the times and it would be unwise to force and coerce the traditional cultural values of the military on them. It is difficult to control conflicts of values resulting from changes in the times. Therefore, in order to solve issues, efforts should be made to create military life cultures suitable to the dispositions of young soldiers. Furthermore, new plans should be studied in order to best utilize the strengths of the young generation.
The military life cultures are the consciousness, norms and formative elements related to the overall service of soldiers and it includes comprehensive and innovative concepts related to the overall service environment. Therefore, personal human rights should be sufficiently respected as the military life culture is built upon all military activities. Such impact has the same effect as fostering a healthy army and building an army with strong military power. The social and military awareness on military life culture is also gradually improving. This is in part due to the mutual communication method of junior commanding officers having an impact on improving the military life culture awareness. Junior commanding officers are those who come into direct contact with soldiers closest to them. Accordingly, they can take part in operational missions, as well as participation in training, organizational teamwork, and cohesiveness missions. The will and practicing of mutual communication of junior commanding officers can make it possible to easily identify the problems with military life culture, and also plays a direct role for effective execution. However, some junior commanding officers are still repeating the authoritarian traditional leadership of commanding and ordering as per conventional training. In order to effectively improve the advanced military life culture, the most essential prerequisite is a change in leadership of junior commanding officers.
The military needs strong fighting power in order to quickly transition to changes of the times and to rapidly respond to urgent crisis situations. Changes to instill passion among young soldiers through advanced military life cultures are also needed. A change in the leadership paradigm of junior commanding officers is a crucial factor for this. The military life culture cannot be reformed with traditional leadership that has been customary in the military such as commanding based on authoritarian, controlling, coercive, and one-way leadership. The mutual communication abilities of junior commanding officers can help soldiers adapt to military life culture, and motivation can have a sentimental effect for improving the group's capacities. Humanity can take part in group life only within interactions with others. The cognitive role of the current military has been rapidly changing from its role defined for the past several decades. Military organizations are now more like the corporate organization model. It has become much less likely for the military to participate in fall-out war like the past, but on the other hand, it is focusing more on peace-time operations such as preventing terrorism, low-intensity disputes, and advanced technology intelligence wars. Furthermore, it is transforming into a multi-functional organization in closer link with the society. The role of the army is in part to be operated through active contact with non-military organizations or specialized organizations.
Younger generation soldiers are mainly highly educated youths who received autonomous and open education. They grew up amid changes while pursuing social and cultural equality and autonomy, as well as reasonability. They are exposed to computer technologies from young ages and they quickly and comfortably accept changes. They are motivated by technological progress and they have good comprehension and are acceptive of different cultures and society due to education. Most are highly motivated and they are also assertive to develop their skills and abilities. Meanwhile, the young generation beliefs that it is their duty to raise questions against traditional authority and do not receive orders blindly. They feel that the right thing to do is to ask questions about the suitability, clarity and justification on commands given to them. This generation is not defined by some official procedure, but by the people who actually make up the generation. Such social environment can serve as the cornerstone for developing military missions in an effective and positive aspect if sentimental communication with the younger generation is possible. The military's current national defense reform plans are being pursued noticing that the human resource issue that is gradually decreasing as an important issue to address. The human resources of the military are at the core for the growth of the military organization and national competitiveness, and it has a huge impact on forming social and human resources. Accordingly, a military life culture is now being built to give the opportunity for self-development even during miliary service, and therefore, it can reduce the society's opportunity costs, and it is thus elevating the utility of human resources. Human rights issues, which were one of the biggest issues within the military, are also being address through military life culture innovation by expanding legal and institutional devices. In order to efficiently manage such institutional support, tow-down sentimental communication between soldiers and junior commanding officers is imperative.
But while the leadership of junior commanding officers is not a justified vindication of having to in a certain way like a moral proposition, it is still necessary to improve the capacities for mutual communication through setting examples and character internally, and setting goals and presenting directions externally. It may not be easy to break away from traditional conventions and have junior commanding officers directly practice leadership of sentimental communication. That is why it is necessary for junior commanding officer leadership to be dealt with in-depth together with military life culture reforms. Changes of leadership adapt to changes of the environment or circumstances to evolve. Definition of leadership and theories also change continuously. A new mixture is needed for the paradigm for the leadership of junior commanding officers.