What is a Leader’s Recon? – Learn from the Military

A leader’s recon is the short way of saying a leader’s reconnaissance. A reconnaissance is nothing more that taking a look at something. 

The actual tactical definition is: “a mission undertaken to obtain information about the activities and resources of an enemy or adversary, or to secure data concerning the meteorological, hydrographic, geographic, or other characteristics of a particular area, by visual observation or other detection methods” (JP 2-0).

US Doctrine describes several variations of recons;

• Area Recon
• Civil Recon
• Counter Recon
• Electromagnetic Recon
• Environmental Recon
• Infrastructure Recon
• Special Recon
• ISR or Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance
• Route Recon
• Map Recon
• Leader’s Recon

As you can guess… the leader’s recon is done by the leader – so that the decision maker can see first hand… what the situation is.