Cognitive Flexibility

The concept I find most important in our Module 5 required reading is Cognitive Flexibility. “Noncommissioned officers who have cognitive flexibility are able to incorporate different thinking strategies and mental frameworks into their planning, decision making, and day-to-day activities”, stated in our required reading for Module 5, are strategies I already try to apply. This leadership ability is important because, per Albert Einstein’s quote in our required reading, “We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Here Einstein is highlighting the importance in thinking outside of the box and creating effective new solutions to problems. Accordingly, this leadership ability will positively impact subordinates, peers, and supervisors. Subordinates will benefit by having a leader that sees change coming, determines how the change will impact their work center, and create a seamless transition during the change and allowing the subordinates to continue their work unhindered. This prevents the confusion, poor …show more content…
Without someone who creates plans for multiple scenarios, like someone with cognitive flexibility, peers will suffer with a work center’s mission completion as they stop to figure out a way to resolve something they had not accounted for.
Supervisors cannot always predict how their changes will impact the specific needs of every work center, making it crucial to have leaders at my level who can implement their changes in ways that do not detract from mission progress or negatively impact personnel. By not having a leader of my level with cognitive flexibility to plan for change, supervisors may hurt work centers with distracting changes that will become