Category: Leadership
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Is Leadership the Ultimate Pyramid Scheme
Over the past several months I have been researching different forms of self-employment or “side-hustles” for a project I am working on. Routinely, I would come across the warning that a particular business is a pyramid scheme. It got me thinking about how leadership chains work in many organizations and if their structure resembles that…
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Happy Father’s Day
With Father’s Day being right around the corner, I can’t help but reflect on some things my father taught me and things I hope to be able to pass on to my children. One of those vital lessons came to me around my 15th birthday. He told me, “You are a man now. What you…
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Eye contact matters
Today I watched a squadron commander work out with his first sergeant for 45 minutes. Within this time, several members from their small unit filtered in and out of the room; none of these individuals were spoken to, or even acknowledged by their leadership. There was no eye contact, and they demonstrated avoidance by turning…
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Dealing with Changes in the Air Force: Where’s My Cheese?
I remember as a young Airman being told, “The only thing constant in the Air Force is change.” The things and processes that have changed over the years is something I couldn’t quantify if I tried. However, I don’t recall ever seeing the scope of changes with which we are dealing with right now. I…
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FITS: Faith In The System
“You have got to have faith in the system, Joey,” was something told to me a few occasions as a young NCO/SNCO. The little blue book (core values book) that used to circulate along with the little brown book had mentioned this phrase under the section for Service Before Self. To be honest, I always…
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After Reading this, You Might Want to Unfollow Me
Over the past year, we have all seen a post on social media that starts off like this or with a “I am ready to clean up my friends list soon.” I see statements like this as pure buffoonery. Nothing more than the childhood version of ‘play my game or I am going home.’ I…
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Metrics Don’t Motivate
I was recently standing in a formation when the speaker said, “We met several of our key metrics…”. Things trailed off after that because my mind wandered to other matters of the day. While that may have motivated others in the formation of probably a few hundred people that day, I suspect it had the…
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Are Leaders Puppets?
The recent inauguration of our 45th President, Donald Trump, has brought about a mixture of opinions of what type of a leader he should be or the type he will be. Many say our elected officials are just puppets who should be toeing the company line and doing what the majority of the population wants.…
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Don’t Miss The Moment
I’ve always been a fan of a good story; that is probably why I’ve always loved to watch and collect movies. A movie with a good story creates a sense of nostalgia in us that makes us turn to our own lives and begin to look introspectively at our life’s course. What makes the story…
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Raising Awareness: Really?
“I am raising awareness”…seems to be the rebel yell of the day. We change our profile pics on Facebook, write posts, troll political sites, share clips of news debates, etc. all in the cause of “raising awareness” for some cause or social issue. But what are we really doing? Nothing. Making noise, at best. We…
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