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The three pillars of leader development—institutional training, operational assignments and self-development—define and engage a continuous cycle of selection, education, training, experience, as­sessment, feedback, reinforcement and evaluation. Learning, experience and feed back provide the basis for professional growth . Throughout their Army careers, leaders develop steadily and care-fully as this cycle repeats in a logical, progressive and continuous sequence. Successful platoon leaders, for instance, often become key support platoon leaders, executive officers or assistant staff officers, and then continue schooling and assignments that further prepares them for company command. Overall, the leader development proc­ess enhances leader capabilities to assume positions of greater re­sponsibility. The needs of the Army, the unit and the demonstrated potential of the leader remain the primary focus. The over-arching priority of the leader development process is to develop leaders of character and competence who act to achieve excellence and who understand and are able to exploit the full potential of current and future Army doctrine.

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Above information derived from Army Pamplet 600-3