Forms and Methods as the Basis for the Development of the Operational-Managerial Component of Leadership Competence in Operational-Level Officers within the System of Professional Military Education

Abstract

The transformation of professional military education in Ukraine under the conditions of full-scale war, the growing requirements for the quality of operational command and control, and the orientation toward NATO standards necessitate a reconsideration of the methods and forms for developing the leadership competence of operational-level officers. Under current conditions, decisive importance is attached not only to updating the content of educational components, but also to building an educational environment in which the development of leadership competence is carried out as a purposeful, continuous, context-driven, and practice-oriented process. The article substantiates the methods and forms for developing the leadership competence of operational-level officers in the system of professional military education of Ukraine, taking into account contemporary combat experience, NATO approaches to professional military education, and international research in the field of leadership development. The study employs analysis and synthesis of scholarly sources, comparative pedagogical analysis of Ukrainian and foreign approaches, content analysis of NATO reference curricula and guidance documents, generalization of professional military education practices, as well as logical and structural modeling of the system of methods and forms for developing leadership competence. It is proven that the development of leadership competence in operational-level officers is ensured through the systemic combination of the methodological foundations of teaching military-special disciplines, the competence-based approach, subject-subject interaction, active learning methods, independent work, war games, the modeling of practical situations, field internships, as well as control, assessment, and monitoring of results. Among the most productive methods and forms for developing leadership competence are case-based analysis of professional situations, scenario-based learning, tactical decision games, wargaming, command post exercises, peer coaching, mentoring, after-action review, reflective debriefing, as well as the combination of classroom-based and extracurricular independent work. It is separately established that modern educational technologies, in particular simulation-based, blended, and distance learning, as well as the flipped classroom, enhance the effectiveness of this system provided that they are integrated into practice-oriented methods and forms of training. The effective development of leadership competence in operational-level officers is possible provided that active, context-approximated, reflexively oriented, and practice-oriented methods and forms are integrated into a unified system of professional military education. A promising area for further research lies in the development of pedagogical conditions, criteria, indicators, and diagnostic tools for assessing the effectiveness of the proposed system.