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Document created: 1 June 2007
Air & Space Power Journal- Summer 2007
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PIREP |
| Editor’s Note: PIREP is aviation shorthand for pilot report. It’s a means for one pilot to pass on current, potentially useful information to other pilots. In the same fashion, we use this department to let readers know about items of interest. |
Lt Col Christopher T. Daniels, USAF*
Effective leadership encompasses various styles and approaches. Experience I have gained not only as a commander but also as a follower has shown me that the best leaders use a multidimensional approach to evaluating the many aspects of a given situation. This becomes necessary in order to draw from the right set of assumptions and make an informed decision. A leader can give no greater gift to our Air Force than treating his or her followers fairly and accountably, thereby creating a healthy environment, both at work and at home. My leadership approach, which I refer to in this article as front-rear-center (FRC, pronounced “frock”), applies the concept of “frocking”—a military term used for an officer who receives a field promotion to the next higher grade. Frocking seeks to meet mission demands. My objectives called for elevating my squadron, based on its past achievements; supporting professional goals; and building on the unit’s established set of core values, all of which would help us through transformational efforts.
During my teenage years, my mother and father would sometimes return home from work not in the best of moods. I always wondered what kind of boss would send them back to their family that way. Did their bosses not respect their roles as parents, nurturers, and models for their son, in addition to their status as employees? Did they really care for or appreciate them? Whenever possible, as a commander, I tried to avoid sending folks home to their families carrying unnecessary stress and burdens.
On my first day of command, I set my vision into motion by clearly defining expectations, realizing, however, that this vision had to be realistic and attainable for the people buying into it. Early on, this gave the squadron an idea of what mattered during the developing and shaping of the organization’s constitution. This commitment tooled and geared the unit into motion, driving it to many victories. For example, our unit climate-assessment grade of 100 percent indicated that our teamwork had reached an all-time high; furthermore, squadron leadership received a grade of 99 percent. Ultimately, because of the FRC leadership approach and unit commitment, we earned a “fully compliant” rating during the command’s unit-compliance inspection.
Commanders must have the competence to lead their organizations. As a contracting-squadron commander, I needed to understand every aspect of the mission for our unit—unique in that it supported the Air Force’s largest F-16CJ fighter base and a numbered-air-force headquarters directly involved in conducting wartime operations in Southwest Asia. I had to comprehend completely the nuances of the wing’s and numbered air force’s mission and vision as they pertained to items as small as a $20 commodity or as large as a $20 million communications system. Transforming our business doctrine didn’t require a great deal of thought, but tapping underutilized resources to streamline processes presented a substantial challenge. The expansion of our client base, realignment of flights, and innovative focus on individual goals set unprecedented benchmarks. The squadron recorded the highest dollar-obligation rates ever, climbing from number eight to number two in the command within 12 months.
My mentors and technical training prepared me well. People within my career field must be careful to avoid limiting their role and focus only to executing the contract action. As a contracting professional, I underwent many years of training to do just that. However, I confronted the task of finding the mechanism to implant leadership empowerment, professional and personal trust, and sound decision making at all levels. Fortunately, I discovered that mechanism—the FRC approach—and used it to lead and instill confidence.
A commander has ultimate responsibility for the success of his or her unit. Success means fulfilling the mission in such a way that members of the unit derive a sense of satisfaction from having done so. Thus, success for the squadron depends wholly on all members’ daily actions and interactions with each other, in the unit, and outside the unit with customers, other base organizations, contractors, and senior leadership. How we act and interact with others directly affects our performance results, ability to accomplish the mission, and capacity to gain satisfaction from our work—ultimately, it determines the success of an organization. The following two sections offer examples of how I implemented the FRC leadership style, using excerpts from my annual letter to squadron members to remind them that accomplishment, from top to bottom, requires a team effort.
I owe it to each of you to make sure we do the right things so that, collectively, we can achieve excellence in all we do. Therefore, I must ensure
• that you have every opportunity to enhance your professional development through attendance at formal training courses, a robust on-the-job training program, job rotation, and full support of those activities that will maximize promotion potential;
• that appraisals and performance reports are completed on time, accurately and fully reflecting work performed and results achieved during the rating period; and
• that various team-building actions and accomplishments maximize our ability to work together and with personnel outside the squadron.
Success is certainly nothing new to you. I intend to do everything I can to enhance your opportunities for even greater levels of success so that you perform the mission well and gain a real sense of satisfaction in the process. Executing our daily activities using core values as guidance puts us on the right path to reaching this goal.
The US Air Force’s core values—integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all we do—provide the proper guidance on how we should act and interact with others. They establish the appropriate standards for success, deviation from which will surely result in failure. The following discussion focuses on my vision of how these core values relate to everyday activities—my expectations and, just as importantly, your expectations of me—as we strive together to achieve success as a squadron.
This core value, the basis for trust, connotes the willingness to do what is right. It embodies the indispensable traits of courage, honesty, responsibility, accountability, justice, openness, self-respect, and humility. We should establish integrity as the foundation of all our actions and interactions. Some important ways in which integrity ensures our success include commitment, communication, and equal opportunity and treatment.
Commitment. A commitment involves a promise to perform an act, often by a specified time. We must be careful to make only those commitments we feel confident that we can keep—and then we must dutifully fulfill them. I understand that on occasion we may come to realize that we cannot fulfill a commitment we have made in good faith; if this situation arises, we must immediately communicate this fact to all involved parties and come to a mutual agreement on how best to resolve the situation. We must remain responsible and accountable. Unfulfilled commitments result in distrust and undermine good working relationships. Don’t underestimate the beneficial effect of successfully keeping even the smallest of commitments.
Communication. Open, honest, and clear communication is not only integral to making and keeping commitments but also absolutely essential to developing, maintaining, and enhancing our professional relationships. We rely on communication to establish expectations, provide status reports on our progress towards meeting those expectations, and then indicate when we believe we have met them. If expectations are unclear, we need to ask for clarification. Effective communication results from clearly conveying a message and ensuring that the recipient completely understands it. We have an obligation to our senior leadership, customers, and contractors to keep them informed, as well as to ourselves to keep each other informed. And I have an obligation to you to listen and respond to your concerns and suggestions. For this reason, I maintain an open-door policy and strongly encourage you to talk with me at any time. If we can solve a problem or enhance our working processes or environment, let us do it—and let us do it now! Effective communication enables us to learn from our mistakes, develop both professionally and personally, and avoid problems in the future. It also allows us to tell our story so that others can understand our challenges and learn of our accomplishments. In short, communication is the lifeblood necessary for success.Equal Opportunity and Treatment. I am an aggressive and obsessive advocate of providing equal opportunity to all of you and treating you fairly and consistently—and I expect you to do the same. I will not tolerate discrimination or sexual harassment, and neither should you. Evidence of such behavior should be brought to my attention immediately; tolerating such behavior will undermine good order and discipline as well as impede our path to success.
This core value tells us that professional duties take precedence over personal desires. It encompasses the concepts of rule following, respect for others, discipline and self-control, and faith in the system. It also embodies the importance of teamwork. No member of this squadron is more important than any other, and no individual member can do everything necessary to ensure the unit’s success. If we do not internally work together as a team and externally partner with senior leadership, customers, and contractors, we will not fulfill the mission and we will not succeed. Teamwork requires honoring our commitments, effectively communicating, and treating every person as we would want to be treated. In addition, it means looking out for each other to ensure our personal safety and the security of our work environment, caring for our families and involving them in squadron activities, and properly sponsoring new unit members and meeting their needs. Teamwork also means stepping up to the challenge and filling in when we have absences due to illness, leave, temporary duty, or the performance of additional duty.
Excellence directs us to develop a sustained passion for continuous improvement and innovation that will propel us into a long-term, upward spiral of performance and accomplishment. To achieve the highest levels of excellence, performance, and accomplishment, we must do the following:
• Maintain professional conduct and bearing in all of our daily activities.
• Sustain and enhance our customer focus, always remembering that we are a service organization. Without our customers, the products and services we provide would become irrelevant. However, we must balance our customer-oriented approach with our responsibility to do the job “right” by being good stewards of taxpayers’ dollars and by following all applicable policies, regulations, and statutes.
• Take care of our physical and mental well-being by adopting a wellness lifestyle. Therefore, I encourage you to participate in physical-fitness activities.
• Shun drug or alcohol abuse and ensure that we provide appropriate assistance and support to those who need help in this area.
• When possible, maintain and upgrade our working environment. We should take pride in our facility’s appearance.
• Continue the formal and informal processes of planning and evaluating to identify those areas in which we can improve, take the steps necessary to implement such improvement, and then measure the results to guarantee that it has in fact occurred.
As outlined above, I try to validate the FRC approach to leadership by strongly emphasizing our core values in order to gauge squadron cohesion and success. In a recent letter to Airmen, Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne and Chief of Staff Gen T. Michael Moseley stated,
As we remember, we must also reaffirm our commitment to our Core Values—Integrity First, Service Before Self, and Excellence in All We Do—which are the bedrock upon which we operate and build our future. We must also resolve to reinvigorate our Air, Space and Cyberspace capabilities. So even while we’re engaged in the current Long War, we’re transforming ourselves into an information age force that will be able to dominate across our domains and have dislocating effects at all levels of war in this relatively new century. We’re building on our history and soaring toward our horizon.1
As leaders, we must respond to this call to action by sowing and cultivating the Air Force’s strategic goals. That will require fortitude and implementation of the FRC concept as we transform our organizations, thus ingraining mission fulfillment and producing amazing results. As commanders push the limits, we need perspective and advice from the people we lead. I have learned that the FRC-leadership skill set must remain congruent with—as well as capitalize and build upon—the leader’s own strengths and talents. Many issues commonly addressed as leadership, learning, or transformational challenges are really an inevitable part of commanding. Indeed, in today’s Air Force, without experience in managing difficult situations, no one can sustain effectiveness for very long. The FRC style of leadership development emphasizes the relationship between a leader and the people whom he or she leads. Is the follow-me leadership model appropriate at times? Or is the give-and-take, person-centered model preferable? Well, it depends—on whether members of the organization are committed and willing to follow their leader. I found that my FRC leadership approach, fused with the Air Force’s core values, proved quite effective because it created an environment of collaborative assistance capable of solving problems and encouraging development. It thus guaranteed success for individuals, the organization, and leadership. For me, frocking held the key to leading and transforming the squadron, executing its assigned tasks, and honoring the people and their families who unselfishly make sacrifices to fulfill our Air Force’s mission.
*
Lieutenant Colonel Daniels commanded the 20th Contracting Squadron at Shaw AFB, South Carolina. He currently serves as an Air Force Secretariat staff officer for the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary (Contracting), Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Acquisition), Pentagon, Washington, DC. The lieutenant colonel is a recipient of the Air Command and Staff College Hesselbein Leadership Award for the class of 2006.Notes
1. Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne and Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen T. Michael Moseley, "SECAF/CSAF Letter to Airmen: Air Force Heritage," 5 October 2006, http://www.af.mil/library/viewpoints/jvp .asp?id=274.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University
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