COMMENTARY>>The way it’s supposed to be

By Col. Archie Frye
Detachment 1 commander

This article focuses on the most important and infallible tenants of leadership, leading by example and the use of a merit based system as a means to select the best of the best for recognition, reward and promotion.

By not following these two tenants, you cheapen the Air Force Experience for all those duty bound to follow your lead and contribute to our mission. The negative effect of unfair leadership will kill morale, which will increase the likelihood of accidents and turn our Airmen off. We hire the best America has to offer.

The majority of our members join with an expectation they will be part of a great organization and will be able to realize their professional goals. Our Airmen deserve great leadership and a fair, unbiased system for recognition and advancement.

Fortunately and unfortunately, we are allowed to have different leadership styles when we begin our supervisory and leadership portion of our careers. We all have what we think is the right leadership style, but we should realize not every situation or person fits just one style. Additionally, we should be aware, in our perfect world, we are the only person who can be perfectly happy.

We’re all very busy in today’s Air Force, but we need to try our best when we make decisions affecting the lives and careers of our Airmen and their families. We need to put ourselves in our subordinates’ shoes before we make decisions, particularly if we are emotionally charged.

I consider developing our Airmen and pushing them toward their goals as the most important and rewarding aspect of leadership. Leaders need to inspire our Airmen to move outside their comfort zone so they grow beyond their own expectations. We need to encourage a small degree of calculated risk, while providing oversight to safeguard from mission failure and more importantly, irreversible consequences, such as injury or professional setback. We need to be willing to take responsibility for our Airmen’s failures and help them learn from mistakes versus fearful to make them.

The Air Force consistently gets rated as the most respected profession in our country. Our uniform is acknowledged with respect and our Airmen are paid gratitude by the people they protect. We recruit the best and brightest young people from all walks of life throughout our country.

We, as leaders, need to keep the promise of our heritage and visibly lead by our core values. To not hold ourselves to a higher standard than we require, hurts our unit and is not the way it’s supposed to be.