Leadership
By: J. Lee Graves
Tags: Leadership, Leadership Development, Air Force, Nonfiction, Leadership Skills

Leadership

You cannot lead without first learning to follow. This is an Air Force leadership concept taught to the enlisted force. I was not an officer, I spent twenty-three years among the enlisted ranks, so I do not know if the Air Force taught this concept to young lieutenants or if they taught young lieutenants to just say this to enlisted members. Either way it is relatively true.

I learned to follow before joining the Air Force as a fire fighter and recreation crew technician for the U.S. Forest Service. I had very good mentors during my three years with the USFS, mentors who taught me skills I did not have. Skills like listening, communicating clearly, as well as the basic skills that came with the two jobs.

I was never a handy kid so when it came time to build a pavilion or fight a forest fire I needed to be taught.

I know…this article is about learning from bad leadership. Be patient, I’m getting there.

The Forest Service crew I worked with understood leadership might be required from any one at any moment. Understood that everyone had skills regardless of age or experience. You learned to follow and did not even realize that it was happening.

When I joined the Air Force I first heard ‘You cannot lead without first learning to follow’ in Basic Training and I thought check, got it. We were then taught how to be Airmen through the ineffective tactic of yelling instructions enough times the words must imprint themselves on the mind through sheer force of will. My Military Training Instructor was my first idiot Air Force leader. He yelled, screamed, and barked in your face, but failed to do one thing: communicate.

Communication I have since learned is not as simple as one might think. Communication requires there to be feedback or it is just sound with meaning. My MTI did not seem to understand he needed feedback to know we understood his instructions. His throat would have likely appreciated it if his brain knew that concept. I left Basic Training fully understanding yelling was not effective.

My first duty station was filled with idiot Air Force leaders. Fortunately there were some junior officers and enlisted who knew a thing or two and were the real unit leaders or I would have never made past my first enlistment. It was here I learned the concept of leading from the rear.

Leading from the rear does generally take a strong personality but that is not a requirement. As the senior leaders of my first duty station bumbled their way through the day those junior officers and enlisted translated the intent of orders and left many of us to figure out how to fulfill the order. As an intelligence analyst that could mean a variety of pathways. Without clear direction I learned the importance of delegation.

Delegation is a concept many bad leaders do not like. Several of my leaders throughout my career were terrible at this. One even went so far as to assume credit for everything positive and hand out blame for everything that went wrong. Delegation is important for growth in a workforce’s skill set but recognition must be given were credit is due.

Recognition is important for morale and job satisfaction. Recognition comes in many forms and everyone likes to be recognized differently. Personally I did not like the fanfare of award ceremonies but many of my supervisors insisted on them. My job satisfaction came from the job itself but I watched others let their production slip to avoid the limelight. Recognizing your people effectively means knowing your people.

Knowing your people is a must for good leaders. Football coach Bill Parcels once said ‘some players need a hug, others need a kick in the ass.’ Knowing your people is paramount to understanding how to communicate with them, recognizing learning techniques (visual, textual, etc), motivations, and strengths. If a leader fails to know their people they cannot effectively lead them. Period. So many of those who led me failed to know the people in the unit.

Through my twenty-three years as a follower and observer of leadership I learned the most from those who failed at it. In my time as a leader I my voice rose to a yell maybe twice — three times at the most — for impact and it worked because I was not one to raise my voice. I delegated and taught, teaching analysis becoming one of my favorite things to do and my Airmen went on to become officers or lead analysts. I knew my people and recognized them based on their comfort level, pushed them to be better based on their motivations and skills, I taught them based on their learning preferences and delegated based on their strengths. I did what I asked of them because to lead they must see you as one of them and know you are not only capable but willing to stand beside them. Sometimes behind them as well.

I have always said leaders do not stand on the shoulders of their people; leaders lift their people on to theirs.

Eventually bad leadership led to my retirement. Yes, twenty-three years is a long time but I would have happily served for thirty if I saw any positive changes in Air Forces leadership but sadly I saw regression.

My hope is someone somewhere reads this and is inspired to be a leader. Someone who understands leadership is not glorious. Leadership is hard and the glory goes to those you lead. That in itself is the glory of leadership.