Topic: AA's Intent for the Incident

What Is Leader's Intent and How Does It Relate to AA's Intent?

Leader's intent originated as a statement of what soldiers must do to succeed and what that success would look like—the end state. Leaders made sure that people executing the plan (the followers) were aware not only of their own leader's intent but also of the leader's intent two levels of command higher in authority.

Leader's intent as described in the IRPG consists of three parts:

Task – What is to be done (objective or goal)
Purpose – Why it is to be done (or "sense-making")
End state – How it should look when done (or expected results, including success criteria and acceptable risk. The desired end state is used to evaluate success.

When followers clearly understand the leader's intent, they are able to make decisions on their own that are consistent with the leader's intent, even when conditions or the situation changes or if the leader is absent.

Watch the Lessons Learned Center video (below) in which Mark Smith describes leader's intent. Click this link to view a transcript of the video.

Good Points

Throughout this course, when the term "AA's intent" is used, it has the same meaning as "leader's intent."