Airman Leadership Philosophy

Colonel Mark Mattison notes, “A leadership philosophy is simply the beliefs, values, and principles that are the foundation of what you believe and how you will lead. When you are faced with an extremely difficult personnel discipline-type decision, you check with the JAG, your commander, your peer commanders, your First Sergeant, your CMSgt and then close yourself in your office. What are the values, beliefs and principles that you will use to make the decision when an Airman's career is on the line? Those values are your leadership philosophy.”1 A leadership philosophy is developed and honed over time and is an essential tool for a leader. In this paper, I will describe what my organizational leadership philosophy is, and how it was developed.

44 It allows leaders to perceive and understand emotional cues, helps them to sense moods of individuals and groups and communicate information in a way that promotes understanding and acceptance.” 45 Caring about your people and understanding issues they may be having.

Vision, “A leader must create a common, shared vision that everyone can comprehend and accept.”4 “A leader who has neither a leadership philosophy nor personal vision is a leader going nowhere.”5 Without vision your organization is rudderless boat. You must be able to define the vision, communicate the vision and direct the organization while holding everyone to a standard.

Fun. Make the workplace fun by empowering your people. Delegate, give people room to explore their ideas. Encourage teamwork, communication and new ideas. “Great leaders are the ones that allow their employees to discover their passions.”7 Create a work environment that celebrates its successes and rewards its people. Empower you people to do more and they will achieve some very high

Ops tempo, Budget issues; operating under a Continuous Resolution (CR) instead of an actual budget due to the inability of our elected officials to pass a budget, aging aircraft, increased military requirements on a predominantly part time force, and retention and recruiting are just to name a few. Any of these pose a challenge to a commander. I ask my commander what he viewed as his most challenging leadership issues. After a brief pause, he stated personnel issues. The personnel issues ranged from selecting individuals for deployments to handing out discipline for rule violations. The reason why personnel issues so difficult to deal with is the effects his decisions could have on the member and their family. Deployments separate families for months at a time, rating downgrades can affect a person’s military and civilian flying career, and judicial punishment, even when necessary, is difficult to quantify. Personnel issues are tough, but as my commander emphasized to me they do not have to be made in a