Marine Corps Leadership Lessons for the Workplace: A Case Study

Abstract

The United States Marine Corps is a military organization and institution recognized for the past 236 years as the nation’s finest fighting force. Their structure, traditions, and approach to leadership are emulated worldwide as the model for military excellence. Although a military and government entity subject to bureaucracy, the Marines always seem to operate in the most efficient and effective manner possible. When the management principals, core values, planning, and decision making processes of the Marines are applied at different levels of the civilian business world, can cultural change occur resulting in a highly efficient and effective work environment? The challenge of this field project is to provide some recommendations that may or may not work at the plant, which is a real business unit that provides high rate, low technology products for the U.S. military at a local federal facility.