ABSTRACT
In his book Men Against Fire, Marshall (1947) told the history of the impact of organizational structure and leadership style on soldier performance. One of his villains was the organizational structure known today as “remote command and control”. Marshall reported that soldiers found it stressful to obey orders from an unknown and remote leader. Soldiers were also less likely to complete a command issued by a remote leader than by a collocated leader. These findings are fully consistent with Social Impact Theory which holds that the impact of a source (e.g., a platoon leader) on an individual (e.g., an infantryman) is a function of the perceived immediacy (proximity) of the source.
