COMMENTARY >> Leave people and things better than how you found them

By Chief Master Sgt. Thomas W. Lee
314th Operations Group Superintendent

As a young boy scout, I learned to always leave a campsite cleaner than I found it. This usually meant picking up trash left-behind by others. Little did I realize at the time that this was an important life-long lesson: “leave things better than you found them.”

When you leave a room, clean-up if needed, don’t leave it for the next person.

Wipe off the coffee ring on the counter, the spilled crumbs on the table, or take out the overflowing trash can in the corner. Just being aware of these small possibilities to leave things better helps to train us to bigger things.

Such bigger things might include extending this philosophy to areas of life beyond picking up the trash that others have left behind.

What if each of us made conscious efforts to make our relationships better? To improve how we interact in our work centers, neighborhoods, and especially with our families? No matter the relationship (personal or professional), if we all would practice the “Golden Rule” wouldn’t that make the world a better place?

The idea of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” often gets overlooked in a supervisor-subordinate relationship. As supervisors we must be ever vigilant to how our subordinates are receiving our commands, directions, or guidance. Are you just barking orders, or are you building a team-like atmosphere that enhances a good working relationship towards each other and to mission accomplishment?

The Air Force relies on supervisors to train people under their charge and make them better at performing assigned duties than when the members first showed up to ensure a capable force for the future. In order to accomplish this we must embrace the idea of servant leadership. To do this requires not only humility but also being cheerful, self-reflective, and a willingness to move past a focus on “I, Me, Mine,” to seeing the interests of others as equally valuable in the grand scheme of the world.

Being a leader means serving those under you in a manner not only to improve their performance in whatever AFSC they are assigned, but also making them a better Airman and future supervisor.

Ultimately, the practice of leaving things better than you found them is one of cleaning up the clutter and litter of our own minds. It means taking on the humility of being a servant.
As the master teacher once said, “Whoever would be a master among you must be the servant of all.”