U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Josh Ross went into the Adaptive Leader Development Program, or ALDP, skeptical. He stayed that way for four days.

Over 17 years, Ross has deployed to both combat zones and domestic operations. He's an instructor with the Indiana Army National Guard's 138th Regiment Regional Training Institute, or RTI, and holds a master's degree in executive leadership.

Ross came in thinking he understood leadership. By day two of the program, in 104-degree heat and 50 pounds of gear weighing his body down, he wasn't sure the course had anything to do with leadership at all.

"I really do not understand the purpose of this course. I'm not really getting anything out of it," he said. "I had to take a week off work… I really don't see how this is worth my time."

Two hours into the after-action review on the last day, facilitators fully pulled back the curtain and laid out the "why."

"That's where it started to click," Ross said. "I had more of an epiphany. I get it."

Twenty-six participants - ranging from team leaders to battalion commanders - spent Sept. 13-18 participating in a program that offered something professional military education doesn't: the discomfort of not knowing what comes next and the opportunity to evolve amidst the friction.

This cohort was the most diverse in the program's history: cavalry troopers, infantrymen, engineers, human resources specialists and public affairs personnel, all training side by side for the first time.

ALDP's answer to that discomfort is deliberate: forge leaders who can operate without a script. Not every participant in this cohort got there the same way, or on the same day.

ALDP traces its roots back 10 years, to when then-Maj. Roukas was executive officer of the 2nd Squadron, 152nd Cavalry Regiment, an element of the 219th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade. He built a two-day course modeled loosely after the Asymmetric Warfare Adaptive Leader Program, which he attended, and later commanded an Asymmetric Warfare Group Troop.

Over the years, the program was rebuilt into its current five-day format at the 1st Battalion, 151st Infantry Regiment. In its seventh iteration, the 138th Regiment now runs it as a state-level course.

Col. Roukas has carried ALDP forward at every level of command he's held. More than once, deployments and other assignments pulled him away, and each time the program kept running without him. The program's backbone is the facilitators required for each iteration, drawn from prior participants who return year after year.

Command Sgt. Maj. Alex Nobbe has facilitated ALDP since 2021. "Roukas and I have both taken on new assignments over the years, but the program never skipped a year," Nobbe said. "That's not because of any one person running it. That's because facilitators kept showing up as volunteers, because we believed in it."

He hand-picks the 15 to 20 facilitators it takes to run each iteration. For Roukas, facilitating is phase two of their own adaptive leadership development, the place where what they learned as participants keeps getting exercised.

Roukas built ALDP to solve a problem he'd seen since he was a private.

"I got tired of seeing company-level, battalion-level training occurring without creativity. Simply put, I got tired of seeing boring training," Roukas said. "We were tired of seeing leadership training for robots instead of critical thinkers."

The program is built around the tenets of mission command, and its goal, Roukas said, is building leaders and Soldiers who can think critically, adapt to any environment, and take that mindset home to build better training for their own units.

"This is not a hazing event, selection, or a spur ride," he told the incoming class at the Sunday night welcome brief. "It's the exact opposite, 180 degrees from what you might be expecting."

In return, he asks for trust and an open mind. The program's success, he said, depends entirely on what participants put into it.

The audience is deliberate.

"We focused this program primarily at the company level, but I think it's also applicable to battalion staffs of all kinds," Roukas said.

The five-day program runs participants through a sequence of outcomes-based training events: foundational soldier tasks and situational training exercises. Each is built around deliberate ambiguity.

"There's no portion of a five-paragraph operations order more important than commander's intent," Roukas said. "If we can develop formations, leaders, and soldiers who can find work, anticipate requirements, and operate simply off a commander's intent and a concept sketch, we can win in any environment, against any adversary. We should strive for more. But sometimes, that's all you get."

The program leans on what facilitators call the training threshold.

"We discuss the training threshold. The sweet spot between chaos and order is where people learn," Roukas said.

Capt. Daryl Andrews, an Officer Candidate School course manager assigned to the 138th, said his confidence didn't arrive until the final exercise, after a week of smaller doubts.

"They did a really good job of not giving anything away, which I think is part of the course design," Andrews said. "Normally, when expectation and result don't meet, I can struggle. But it was making me a better leader anyway."

Experience didn't buy anyone a pass. U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ben Ramos, commander of the 38th Combat Aviation Brigade, went through the course himself before deciding whether to send his own Soldiers.

"It's a humbling experience," he said.

Ramos' experience brought perspective on what happened next: rank stopped mattering the way it usually does. In fact, participants wore no rank on their uniforms throughout the program.

"It was nice to see officers take a step back and let junior Soldiers lead and become the subject matter expert," he said. "It was nice for junior Soldiers to take the initiative and become leaders themselves. Seeing them take charge was a blessing."

As the days passed, fatigue started wearing on everyone the same way. What was left was just soldiers-and raw leadership opportunities.

Most participants already knew a facilitator, from a deployment or an earlier assignment. When things got hard, trusting the program meant trusting someone they already knew. Ross had none of that. For him, trust had to be earned from scratch; in the middle of a week, he still wasn't sold on the program's purpose.

U.S. Army Capt. Gary Parks, a logistics officer assigned to the 113th Light Support Battalion, had spent the previous three years attached to Officer Candidate School cadre, the same RTI world the program runs through. He still volunteered, knowing almost nothing about ALDP itself, and bought in early on in the program.

"I think everybody needs to do an ALDP ten years into your career, just to kind of revamp your 'why am I here,'" he said. "This would 100% be something I'd recommend to any leader out there that wants to better themselves. But you have to want to better yourself."

Asked to define what that leader becomes, in one sentence, Roukas answered without hesitation. "An adaptable leader is somebody who can win, regardless of the circumstances or the environment."

ALDP is not for everyone. Program seats remain limited. Resourcing remains constrained.

Participants must be lifelong learners, introspective thinkers, and influential unit members. Unit commanders must be disciplined and discerning in choosing who attends.

Ross went into ALDP skeptical. He left understanding its purpose.