Leadership, followership essential and effective

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Craig Theisen
  • 570th Global Mobility Readiness Squadron commander
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  Leadership is an often discussed concept, because it involves so many aspects and angles that it is hard to wrap into one or two coherent thoughts. If you've ever read Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations," you're familiar with the short-answer musings of a leader who thinks a lot about his craft. I like to encapsulate my own thoughts about leadership in the same way, so without further ado: 

1. Recognition and Discipline are two key factors in morale. Discipline without recognition is a dictatorship. Recognition without discipline is anarchy. It takes both to motivate your good performers and bad performers, and to influence the gray-area middle move towards the good. 

2. A commander's budget dollar spent on building mission capability with training or equipment builds morale much more quickly than a dollar spent on facility improvements. Airmen can live without new furniture, and they love to do their jobs with the best tools available. 

3. Leadership by example doesn't mean a bunch of young Airmen standing around watching the SNCOs and officers work. 

4. Courage and integrity are critical. If we lose integrity we've lost the battle, as our decisions will always be questioned for motive. Courage is the strength to do the right thing by the Air Force, no matter how inconvenient it may be or how personally uncomfortable it makes you. In this era of back-to-basics, we're going to have to show even more courage in identifying and providing feedback on what level of performance meets our standards. High expectations demanding high performance creates pride and esprit de corps. 

5. Natural leaders are born that way. If you were one of those kids on the playground who always had the other kids following your orders, good for you! For the other 99 percent of us, we have to learn how to be leaders with the skill sets we were born with combined with those we've toiled to develop. Professional military education at all levels, officer and enlisted, is a great start, but must be augmented with further reading and exploration. 

6. Cynicism is cool for high school but it is a poison for a professional war-fighting organization. The cynic only makes themselves and others miserable and cries wolf so often that leadership turns a tin ear to their complaints, even if they are sometimes right. The optimist gets the best out of every situation and is listened to by leadership when they've truly determined a plan is not feasible. Put a cynic and an optimist in the same situation and one is unhappy, while the other is motivated and looking forward to the next task. Which would you rather be, work with or have working for you? 

7. Air Force service is at the very least a job, and for most of us it is much more than that. Taken at the minimum definition: if you aren't interested in being a part of the team, if you want to waste supervisor's time with foolish behavior, we will help you find the door and wish you good luck in your civilian endeavors. 

8. All our commanders really want to do is trumpet the accomplishments of our people to anyone who will listen! Meet us halfway and we will more than reciprocate. 

9. If you can get everyone to pitch in an extra 5 to 10 percent, it's far more effective than making yourself do an extra 200 percent to pick up the slack. Make the leap from action officer to leader. Use your entire organization. Empower your senior NCOs to run the unit, to make changes and to strategize regarding your future direction. Monitor your master sergeants for overwork and direct your senior NCOs to use the NCOs, and the NCOs the Airmen, so that every level has meaningful work and a feeling of ownership for the unit and no level has the burden of the entire organization on their shoulders. 

Leadership involves so many things, but above all it is an honor and a privilege to lead Airmen in our Air Force. Every level of leadership and followership is critical to ensuring we provide the best fighting force the world has ever seen.