Class Updates: Leadership and Research

One Air Command And Staff College class down, about eleven more to go.

I finished Leadership in Command last Sunday, when I turned in a paper discussing my personal leadership philosophy and applied my philosophy to a case study.  For what it's worth, here's my philosophy verbatim from the paper (minus citations).  And yes, the acronym spells out PIDGE.  Nifty, eh?

People matter.  What comes first:  the people or the mission?  This argument has raged since the dawn of warfare; however, through years of NCO and commissioned leadership experience I’ve realized if you relentlessly puts mission before people you will not achieve 100% success, but if you put people before mission they will you give you 110% and more.  You don’t need to be a stockbroker to appreciate the greater return on investing in people.  Does this mean always putting people before mission?  No.  But the person who’s cared for understands when it’s time to put themselves aside for the mission.

Integrity and character.  Our sole client as a service is society, and as such society expects us to represent our nation’s finest qualities.  Indeed, 73% of the American people rank the military as the most trustworthy institution of US government.  Thus our profession is not something we can take off and hang in the closet at the end of the day.  We must be ready 24 hours a day to make ethical decisions, to put society ahead of personal gain and to act right even if no one is watching.  But I am not a “one mistake” commander.  We are all prone to lapses in judgment, and I will always strive to turn honest mistakes into mentoring opportunities.  It’s such learning that builds character over time.
    
Discipline and standards.  As with personal integrity, military service requires us to submit ourselves to standards, customs and courtesies above and beyond civilian expectations.  Paying attention to the details builds cohesion in training, survivability in combat, and a professional image for our society.  Every morning I look at myself in the mirror and ask myself if I’m ready to present myself to my subordinates:  is my uniform pressed?  Am I prepared for class?  Are my personal affairs in order?  But as I am not a one mistake leader on character, I am also an advocate of welding people matter to discipline and standards.  Correcting a subordinate on lapses in discipline does not have to be a butt chewing; rather it is a mentoring opportunity.  When your people know you care they will strive to make you proud!
    
Goal oriented.  The largest threat to mission success besides combat is complacency.  It is very to frame the mission in 0730-1630 terms rather than with a long-term vision.  All of us own a piece of the mission, and we all must look at our piece and ask how it can be improved.  Look past the end of the duty day and ask yourself where you want your piece to be at the end of the week, month, quarter, and year.  But don’t force change for change’s sake: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, but you can still make your goal to become an expert in your mission, or better yet an expert who trains others. Goals apply to the personal development as well.  Have you completed your Professional Military Education or college degree?  I’ve personally taken three college courses while deployed, and can say with experience the mission won’t hamper personal development if you make goals and work with your chain to achieve them.  On my end, you already have my support. “I’m bored and I have nothing to do,” should never be a sentence in your vocabulary.  Set goals for your mission and for yourself!
    
Empowering people.  The greatest strength of the United States armed forces is not our technology, but rather our rich history of empowering people to act in the absence of orders.  Centralized control assures unity of effort, while decentralized execution encourages flexibility, adaptability and innovation down to our youngest “strategic airman.”  To paraphrase Col Henry “Kodak” Horton and referring back to goal oriented, everyone has a piece of the mission rope and is encouraged to tackle more length.  Furthermore, I’ll provide cover for those whose honest risks with the rope result in an unintentional hanging:  I figure once you can breathe again you’ll have the experience to plan your next goal.

What can I say?  I like to look out for people first, and usually look at disciplinary problems as the sympton of something else.  More often than not, if you treat that something else the symptoms go away.  But not always, unfortunately...

Yesterday, though, I started Research Electives I, which is basically Research 101.  Yes, the supposed master of research is now the student, and I must learn all over again how to gather data and create a product.

Or am I the master?

Well, I like to think I'm at least pretty damn good.  In fact I love the research process, especially since it involves drinking copious amounts of coffee.  But I have some bad habits, notably the problem of starting research before I even have the flimsiest of frameworks to start with.  I simply get so impatient that I plow through information whether or not its ultimately relevant to what I'm trying to answer.  Tie in the fact I horde information and am reluctant to scrap anything I find, it becomes apparent that, although I usually create a quality product in the end, my process is quite chaotic and inefficient.  For example, I started researching my "Synthetic Democracy" project before I wrote a thesis statement!

Better yet, ask MOGS sometime what my work output is like when I don't have a mission statement to work with.

Thus I'm looking at this class as a chance to start fresh, to look at my methods and see where I can improve.  Right now my assumption is the best place for me to improve is how to start a project: ask the right questions first so I'm not turning over the wrong rocks or diving down the wrong rabbit holes.

Plus, I've been bouncing around the idea of researching the security implications of virtual spaces.  Since the course culminates in completing a research proposal, I figure I can kill two birds with one stone (not pigeons, of course):  use my idea for the class and then actually write the paper for professional presentation.  I pinch myself thinking I get paid to do this--and drink coffee, to boot!