Where We Stand

Position-Centric vs Momentum-Centric Leaders

By CPT Nikolas Baldwin

July 1, 2026 | Infantry, Summer 2026 Edition

Read Time: < 21 mins

On Bananas
He who fails to keep turning the wheel here set in motion wastes his life in sin, addicted to the senses.
--The Bhagavad-Gita1

"Good luck man, you’ll need it.” With those parting words, fellow platoon leader 1LT Brave left me at the base of the imposing ridgeline. He had received the same task during the previous iteration of the culminating exercise. In less than 12 hours, my platoon would participate in a second, final force-on-force scenario, during which we would defend the brigade tactical operations center (TOC). Before he left, Brave helpfully guided me across the ground where his platoon was wiped out the day prior. It was not hard to see why — there was too much ground for one platoon to cover with direct fire, and heavy foliage paired with steep, unpredictable elevation changes offered an approaching force plenty of cover and concealment. In fact, the more I inspected the terrain that would become my engagement area, my chief concern became how easily the enemy might bypass us and head straight to our TOC. My Strykers and their crews would have to remain in hide sights at the base of the ridgeline. I asked my platoon sergeant to stay with the trucks to communicate with higher headquarters via the Joint Battle Command-Platform (JBC-P). I was left with two squads and two gun teams to defend a ridgeline system spanning about five kilometers.

If I evenly distributed my combat power, it would be impossible to sufficiently cover each likely enemy avenue of approach. If I broke down my platoon into smaller elements to cover additional avenues of approach, they would lack the capability to destroy or even fix the expected enemy platoon. We would not be able to find, much less defeat, our enemy if I arrayed my forces with the intent to fight from static positions. I distributed 3 three-man observation posts (OPs) across the ridge system where they had the best observation and direct-fire capabilities on avenues of approach. My orders to them were to fire only when found and to call for fire to cover their retrograde. The rest of my Soldiers were concentrated with me at the centermost position of my element — this would be my mobile killing force. My OPs would find the enemy and determine their route, which would allow my mobile element to rapidly posture to conduct a hasty interdicting ambush. The nearest OP, likely located behind the enemy, would move to support the mobile element with reinforcing fires upon the enemy’s flank or rear.

After hours of waiting, around 0200, one of the OPs made visual contact with the enemy. We spotted at least two squads heading straight down what we had assessed to be their most likely avenue of approach; they would pass by less than 600 meters from our mobile force’s position. I radioed my platoon sergeant to tell our company commander via the JBC-P that I had found the enemy and was ready to engage.

My radio-telephone operator began to scan my face with a worried expression. A recent graduate of the Stryker Leader Course and Infantry Basic Officer Leader Course, I had only been a platoon leader for two months. Our commander was a great leader and combat veteran. Despite my limited experience, he never micromanaged me and fostered a climate where I could be confidently autonomous. But the last platoon who fought the same element on the same ground was destroyed, and my element was overextended and vulnerable. There could also be more enemies elsewhere in my area of operations that I had not found. Waiting would allow me to collect more information on the enemy’s composition and route. I would be able to call for a fire mission or call back my other OPs to mass more combat power from a consolidated defensive position. If I had taken more time to think all of this through, which I admittedly did not, I might have concluded that waiting was the right move.

I felt a bit queasy. I knew that at any moment my platoon sergeant could inform me that the battalion scouts we were expecting to relieve us were on their way. But I was not on that ridgeline to get the best view of the enemy as they bypassed me. I was there to stop them, and the only way to stop them was to engage them. We silently rushed to gather what we needed and set off to the ambush point. The enemy would walk straight up out of a valley into our squad, arrayed along the spine of the ridgeline. We opened fire when the enemy got within 30 meters. One of my squad leaders led his OP team back and fell upon the flank of the enemy 30 seconds after the initial burst. We completely destroyed the enemy with only two casualties; we retained control over the ridgeline and protected the TOC until relieved by the scouts.

Werner Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle states that the more precisely you determine a particle’s position, the less precisely you can determine its momentum.2 More simply, you can measure a particle’s position or its speed, but not both. There is always great danger in applying scientific theorems beyond prescribed bounds. A platoon is not a particle of light, but just as a particle has both position and momentum, so does a Soldier. Soldiers are given a task and purpose. The purpose informs the task, but the commander’s intent cannot materialize without action. There was no position I could have taken or piece of information collected on that ridgeline that would have accomplished my task. The only way to win was to find the enemy and destroy him. Merely orienting oneself towards reality cannot achieve victory. In the clash of wills that is warfare, reality must be shaped with action.

Risk-averse cultures and technological advances encourage leaders to be position-centric. But warfighters must be momentum-centric, empowered to act aggressively and creatively in the face of immense risk and the reasonable expectation of fast-approaching new information.

Many Army leaders have heard of “analysis paralysis” or the OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) Loop, coined by Air Force fighter pilot John Boyd.3 Much of Boyd’s work centers on his belief in the superiority of Sun Tzu’s military theory over Clausewitz. Whereas Clausewitz focuses on minimizing one’s own friction or “fog of war,” Sun Tzu focuses on maximizing the enemy’s friction. According to Boyd, “Sun Tzu tried to drive his adversary bananas while Clausewitz tried to keep himself from being driven bananas.”4 Clausewitz and Sun Tzu understood that warfare is a rapid series of overlapping conversations, each with their own rhythm. Whereas Clausewitz focused on what is exchanged within one’s own army (mission command, etc.), Sun Tzu focused on what is exchanged with one’s enemy. What we articulate to our leadership, peers, subordinates, and ourselves is ultimately irrelevant if we fail to articulate to our enemy that they are defeated. The simplest way to let an enemy know they are defeated is by killing them, but one can also accomplish this by disintegrating their will through maneuver. And all maneuver, whether physical or psychological, is momentum made manifest.

There are two types of leadership: position-centric (PC) and momentum-centric (MC). Position-centric leaders prioritize orienting towards reality with information. Momentum-centric leaders prioritize shaping reality with action. Position-centric leaders view the enemy as an obstacle to navigate around, while momentum-centric leaders see the enemy as a target to shape. Risk-averse cultures and technological advances encourage leaders to be position-centric. But warfighters must be momentum-centric, empowered to act aggressively and creatively in the face of immense risk and the reasonable expectation of fast-approaching new information.

The Slow and The Whipped
My center is yielding. My right is retreating. Situation excellent. I am attacking.
— Ferdinand Foch5

On 27 July 1861, a 34-year-old George McClellan assumed command of what would be dubbed the Army of the Potomac to immense public enthusiasm.6 Within three months, he would become general-in-chief of the Armies of the United States, tasked with defeating the Confederate armies and compelling the rebels to surrender. McClellan graduated second in the star-studded West Point class of 1846, a third of whom would serve as generals in the American Civil War.7 Before McClellan had even reached Washington to accept his appointment, the press lavished him with praise and support. The public called him “the Young Napoleon,” his troops loved him, and President Lincoln congenially called him George.8 McClellan was a charming man of boundless energy, as well as a genius organizer and logistician. He never stopped working and radiated an infectious calm, cool competence. In a matter of months, he transformed the ragged, unmotivated, and undisciplined Army of the Potomac into a highly drilled and confident military force ready for war. Yet McClellan would not be the general to lead these men to victory. Lincoln would remove him as general-in-chief by March of 1862 and then from command of the Army of the Potomac that same November. McClellan would come to be widely regarded as one of the worst, if not the worst, Union general.

How did such a brilliant, energetic, and personable leader’s military career end so disastrously? McClellan was far from perfect, but his worst quality was summed up best by Lincoln himself: George had “the slows.”9 McClellan had immense reserves of knowledge and personal discipline but routinely struggled to make bold or aggressive decisions. His intelligence and eloquence allowed him to justify indecisive or timid strategies. McClellan’s leadership during the Peninsula Campaign from March to July 1862 best illustrates his endemic overcaution and failure to take initiative. He planned to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond by moving his army by water to the Virginia Peninsula, landing between the James and York Rivers and then marching 50 miles northwest into the city. This plan to take Richmond sounded aggressive, but it completely relied on unrealistic Confederate passivity.10 The amphibious landing would ignore a Confederate army under General Albert Johnston only 25 miles away from D.C. in Manassas. McClellan hoped to reach Richmond from his landing site before Johnston could retrograde his army south to reinforce it.

Lincoln and many other generals wanted to fight Johnston’s army head-on, but McClellan justified his plan by hugely overestimating Confederate manpower. His spymaster Allan Pinkerton reported that the rebels had 115,000 men and 300 field guns in Manassas. In reality, there were no more than 60,000 men. McClellan always accepted the most pessimistic reports without performing additional reconnaissance, and therefore assumed the enemy was more than twice its real strength.11 McClellan’s preparation for his amphibious operation took so long that Johnston was able to withdraw from Manassas to a stronger defensive position unchallenged. When he heard the news, the Young Napoleon drew up his magnificent new army and marched them into Manassas as though they had captured it through force of arms. They found neither the imposing earthworks of a 115,000-man army nor remnants of formidable artillery positions. Instead, they found “Quaker guns” — wooden logs painted black to resemble cannons because the confederates had so few.12

Over the next two and a half months, the Army of the Potomac landed at Fort Monroe (the original landing site was no longer tenable due to Johnston’s new position) and began plodding the 70 miles towards Richmond. Yorktown was the first major rebel town obstructing their path, held by approximately 15,000 Soldiers under General John Magruder. McClellan’s chief engineer found a vulnerable seam in the Confederate defenses that would afford Union forces an avenue of approach to Yorktown relatively free from cannon fire. Incredibly, McClellan had made up his mind to not attack even before his reconnaissance had returned, writing “I must use heavy artillery & go through the preliminary operations of a siege. The reconnaissances of tomorrow will enable me to form a pretty correct judgement of what I have to meet & the best way of overcoming the difficulties before me.”13 The reconnaissances of tomorrow are always foremost in a position-centric leader’s thoughts. It is easier to think about future thinking than it is to make a decision. McClellan refused to assault a force less than one-fifth his size and inferiorly equipped (though they had plenty of Quaker cannons). The rebels themselves were surprised McClellan refused to attack. Johnston dryly remarked that McClellan “seems not to value time especially.”14 McClellan would have gawked at this; after all, he did more in each day than perhaps any commander of the age! But McClellan ultimately failed to see that he was preparing to prepare instead of preparing to fight.

McClellan was brilliant at everything in war except the business of fighting it. One could imagine his immaculate biweekly situation reports. Lincoln was at first too new to the presidency and especially military strategy to push back against the Young Napoleon. Eventually, McClellan’s compounding failures to defeat the Confederate army and exploit opportunities gave Lincoln the confidence to fire him. Lincoln realized with horror that McClellan’s position-centric mindset had begun to infect his staff officers and Soldiers: “General McClellan is responsible for the delusion that is intoning the whole army — that the South is to be conquered by strategy.”15 It would take the President another two years of brutal, inconclusive warfare before he would find a momentum-centric leader that suffered no such delusions.

A year before McClellan rode triumphantly into the capital to accept his appointment as general-in-chief, another man walked with his typical no-nonsense stride into the leather goods store where he clerked for his younger brothers. In 1860, 36-year-old Ulysses S. Grant was nearly destitute, selling leather in the shop run by his younger brother Orvil.16 Grant had graduated from West Point in 1843, ranked 21st out of 39 in his class. He went on to serve brilliantly in the Mexican-American War, but demoralizing post-war assignments and a struggle with alcoholism led him to resign and enter civilian life by 1854. For the next seven years, Grant struggled to financially support his young family, failing at multiple business ventures. Eventually his father offered him a position in his leather goods business, where Grant served customers, handled paperwork, and collected bills up until the Civil War’s outbreak. Less than four years later, on 2 March 1864, Grant would take McClellan’s old job as commander of all Union armies; he would accept the Confederacy’s surrender just 13 months later.

Grant’s first major victory in the Civil War, the siege of Fort Donelson, proved a definitive showcase of what made him capable of leading the Union to ultimate victory. Midway through the battle, Confederates under Generals Gideon Pillow and Simon Buckner launched a surprise breakout which collapsed the Union right flank.17 Instead of ordering a withdrawal, Grant immediately rode to reorganize the retreating Soldiers and assess the enemy’s intentions. Many of the rebel Soldiers who were part of the breakout attack carried haversacks with three days’ rations. Grant correctly ascertained that the rebels wanted to cut their way out and had no intention of staying to fight. Historian Ron Chernow suggested that Grant’s background of failure left him finely attuned to the mentality of defeat.18 Grant acknowledged the low morale of his own forces, but he told a staff officer “the enemy must be more so, for he has attempted to force his way out but has fallen back; the one who attacks first now will be victorious, and the enemy will have to be in a hurry if he gets ahead of me.”19 Grant believed that rebel strength on the Union right meant rebel weakness on the Union left and ordered a counterattack that routed Confederate forces back into the fort.

What could Grant do that no other Union commander could? That is the wrong question. Grant did not crush the Confederacy by doing what no one else could do. Grant crushed the Confederacy by making choices that others could but were unwilling to make. Union Colonel and quartermaster James Rusling once observed Grant approving a request for a major expenditure after almost no time to think. When Rusling asked if he was sure, Grant said that he was not, “but in war anything is better than indecision. We must decide. If I am wrong we shall soon find it out, and can do the other thing. But not to decide wastes both time and money and may ruin everything.”20 Adam Badeau, one of Grant’s staff officers, wrote of his decisiveness during the May 1864 Battle of the Wilderness. If Grant was confronted with an incredibly important decision, “it was made and uttered instantly, and unflinchingly, though it involved the fate of a corps. At these supreme moments, the dullest perceived his intensity, the most unwilling admitted his power.”21 Grant was willing to make enormous decisions on very little information and nearly no time to think. Not because he was glib, careless, or reckless, but because he understood that leadership is about deciding what to do, not finding a piece of information that makes the decision for you.

Momentum-centric leadership does not come without cost; many of Grant’s campaigns were incredibly bloody and full of momentary failures, mistakes, and carnage. Yet Grant never let a mistake or setback divert his focus. A Confederate soldier wrote in his journal that in Grant they had “met a man this time who either does not know when he is whipped, or who cares not if he loses his whole Army, so that he may accomplish an end.”22 Grant refused to be intimidated by his enemy and sought to demystify the formidable reputation of Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army. When a Union general began babbling in Grant’s presence about Lee’s prowess, Grant leaped to his feet and chastised the officer: “Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do… Go back to your command, and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do.”23 Momentum-centric leaders are willing to risk and suffer significant injury or failure in pursuit of victory and understand that before death, all defeat is psychological. That is why Grant consistently made decisions with the primary intent to impose a psychological effect, rather than McClellan’s focus on physical positions. Position-centric leadership can look incredibly reasonable, seemingly effective, and popular. The only thing it cannot do is win. Conversely, momentum-centric leaders can look reckless and bloodthirsty. Unfortunately, war is not a sober clash of sensibilities. Victory is not predicated on who has the most refined perception of circumstances, but on who is most able and willing to shape circumstances in the absence of time or certainty.

Comparing McClellan to Grant highlights a key difference between position-centric and motivation-centric leaders: their understanding of the relationship between risk and trust. Position-centric leaders believe trust is something given in spite of risk, but momentum-centric leaders believe trust is something given because of risk. In other words, risk is a prerequisite to trust, not an obstacle. People who see risk as a prerequisite to trust can operate boldly and creatively, while those who see risk as an obstacle to trust can only pursue victory “to a point,” that point being the safety of an imperfectly calculated risk threshold. But the safest course of action in a crisis usually appears the most dangerous. The safest way to climb a breaking wave is head-on. Yet history is replete with brilliant minds who would save face at the cost of time and blood.

Risky Shift: What Story Are We Telling?
The grip for combat and for sword-testing is the same. There is no such thing as a “man-cutting grip."
— Miyamoto Musashi24

Leaders in our Army today confront a battlefield of immense and ever-increasing complexity. I believe this fact is hammered into our officer corps ad nauseum not because it is an uncomfortable truth, but because it is an extremely convenient deception. In military terms, it is a demonstration, a show of force to the truth without engagement. Only a fool would deny that the modern battlefield is more complex than ever; it takes a bigger fool to accept the ever-encroaching implication in our military culture that the primary purpose of leadership in warfare is to reduce complexity. It was often very useful to have the Soldiers of my platoon understand what we were doing, and it was even more useful the handful of times I understood what we were doing. But the effect my platoon would have on the enemy is not defined by our self-knowledge or our knowledge of anything in particular. Our effect on the enemy is ultimately determined by what we manage to project, not what we manage to perceive.

That is why the ultimate purpose of leadership is to tell a story. In war, the ultimate audience for your story is the enemy. The story we should be trying to tell in war is called “I am here; you cannot be.” It is a simple story; it can be told with a bullet. For many years, it was chiefly told with a stick. There are many new variables on today’s battlefield — new technologies and domains, but the story has not changed. It is the same story McClellan failed to tell with parades and Grant articulated beautifully with gunpowder. McClellan failed to tell the story because he was only ultimately ever talking to himself: “I am here, and soon I will be more here.” Position-centric leadership is seductive because it is subtly and comfortingly egotistical. You are the author and audience. Momentum-centric leadership is uncomfortable because it is obnoxiously social and therefore unpredictable, abrasive, and messy. Grant was always reaching out to touch his enemy in whatever way he could. General William Sherman once said that while most generals attack the front porch, Grant attacks the kitchen and bedroom.25

Grant’s risk-positive attitude allowed him to exploit opportunities that position-centric leaders would never see from the front lawn. His assaults would sometimes fall upon the enemy’s physical center, but his target was always their psychological flank. It is natural to focus on the physical circumstances, both the disposition and composition of opposing forces. Humans pay attention to the borders most readily apparent, whether those be lines on a map or the end of a battleline. But whereas position-centric leaders focus on developing or discerning obvious physical borders, momentum-centric leaders focus on destroying the enemy’s will to fight and are willing to accept immense risk to do so. These leaders understand that hitting the enemy’s psychological flank often necessitates exposing your physical flank. In a violent clash of wills, this is a good trade.

Today, many Army leaders are primed by their organization to be risk-averse and favor timidity over aggression. For example, deliberate risk assessment worksheets (DRAWs) are a good forcing function to make sure leaders are mitigating risk with due diligence. But the effect of a DRAW, particularly on platoon leaders who in peacetime are evaluated largely on the safety and smoothness of their assigned operations, primes them to minimize risk, not mitigate it. Many platoon leaders receive their company commander’s Command Supply Discipline Program (CSDP) policy at the same time as their initial counseling. The counseling which outlines a commander’s priorities, vision, and leadership philosophy is usually around two pages. The CSDP is usually at least twice that long. Junior leaders are thereby immediately cued to prioritize protecting equipment instead of employing it. This also primes leaders to feel that stewarding property is of equal importance to leading Soldiers. Our job as leaders is not chiefly to minimize risk — our job is to train and lead our force so that it defeats our enemies on the battlefield. We should rather endure a financial liability investigation of property loss (FLIPL) than the thought that our Soldiers are less lethal because we reduced the scope or complexity of training in order to minimize risk or maximize our officer evaluation reports. But leaders must be able to say even more than that; they must be able to accept an elevated risk of Soldier injury or death in pursuit of combat readiness. It is easy to pass the burden of realistic preparation on the future wartime leaders. It is easy, it is cowardly, and eventually, it will prove deadly. Every group determines its own risk acceptance threshold. As one becomes accustomed to certain conditions, one considers them less risky, a phenomenon known as “risky shift.”26 We need to execute a risky shift in our Army. Our risk acceptance threshold is at direct odds with the task we are preparing for.

It is immensely comforting to believe that the “right” answer is findable through information, because information is increasingly within reach. Of course, some elements of a military force should be oriented towards position (information collection). But the frantic speed of information flow on the modern battlefield creates a reasonable expectation that more decision-shaping information is just around the corner, one JBC-P message or MAVEN layer away. This naturally incentivizes leaders to delay decision-making and allows less aggressive or decisive leaders to justify not moving. The increasing volume of information available to leaders thereby acts as a paralytic instead of an enabler. Leaders will know that if they choose to attack now, their decision could be invalidated by new information any second. Additionally, the permanent nature of digital information flow will show a clear record with which to bury leaders if their decision ends in failure or casualties. Leaders must beware of the word “efficiency” and especially “optimization.” There is nothing optimized about choosing the scared private first class to throw a live grenade from the prone at a bunker entrance during a live fire. It is the inefficient, DRAW-phobic behavior of a formation that seriously prepares to defeat their enemy.

One can rest on a bed of nails, but not a nail. If we are told our problems are countless, it absolves us of the responsibility for counting them. We will simply find something to do the counting for us. Technology does this well, but in the frantic rush to simplify our choices with technology or doctrine, we must not “streamline” or “optimize” the choice out of our choices. The only thing worse than abdicating our decisions to the future is to abdicate them to an outside algorithm. We can fire the next McClellan, but once we are ready to entrust machines with choices of mass life-or-death, will we ever be ready to reclaim them?

Napoleon’s soldiers would brag that he won battles with their feet; they never mentioned his maps. Doubtless his men appreciated the sophistication behind his planning, but their boast revealed an intrinsic understanding of what truly made Napoleon and his army special. Victory in war is found in the way things move, not the way they stand. But in an army that ceaselessly demands Soldiers report where they stand, leaders are increasingly invited to believe that the greatest mistake is to lose one’s footing. In fact, they will not be leaders until they lose their footing. We lose our footing each time we take a step.

Notes