This week's leadership moment is on the value of competence. If you are going to be a leader, the key element starts with competence in your primary duty and expands from there.

Leadership is influence, and if you want to start influencing others, you have got to start with all the elements it takes to learn your job, consistently do your job, teach others your job, and then be an advocate for your job, duty or mission. If you look deeply at all the greatest leaders in the Air Force or military history, they started off in a single, specific "career field" if you will, did exceedingly well, were recognized for it, and moved on to bigger responsibilities. Rickenbacker, Mitchell, Doolittle, LeMay, Kenny, Marquez, Vandenberg, and Fogelman all started as enlisted or junior officers who went on from there because they were extraordinarily competent at their first duty.

Look around this unit at the people who are leading and you will also find that before they became leaders, they had to become experts in their fields - be it flying, transportation, supply, maintenance, contracting, command and control - all of our 16 AFSC's have competent experts in them and that is primarily why we are successful.

Today we won, for the first time ever, the 86 Airlift Wing unit FOD Prevention Award and the FOD Prevention Award for the Individual category (TSgt Scott Tewmey). This is just another indicator of the competence of this unit. Winning the FOD award means NOT having to replace expensive engines on our aircraft which are now engaged in combat - significant. The "brass ring" is not the plaque we won, but the combat capability we preserved. SSgt Mike Hutcheson was also named Wing Training NCOIC of the Quarter - for the second time in a row - competency and excellence personified! Again, we all win because we are all more combat-ready from the training he drives us to accomplish.

Another great example of competence in our Contingency Response Group is our very own Deputy Group Commander, Lt Col Appler. On Dec 20th, 1989, he was on an AC-130H gunship crew selected to attack Rio Hato Airfield in Panama for Operation Just Cause. His mission was to attack and destroy seven active AAA pieces just prior to the U.S. Army Airdrop of paratroopers assigned to seize and hold the field. Keep in mind he had to fly over 1,000 miles through bad weather, at night, in the days where we had no GPS or INS systems that were reliable, position the aircraft to air-refuel, fly low-level under some radars for part of the mission, then be in place just before the airdrop to hit all the targets. Lt Col Appler had a TOT (time over target) that was measured to the second and he had to identify and destroy all the targets within 90 seconds, while they were firing at his aircraft, and then clear the C-130 formation to do the airdrop. They were in cloud cover most of the time, but at the last moment the sky opened up and the AC-130 proceeded to hit all the targets - on time. All AAA pieces were not completely destroyed, and a few of the C-130's did take some hits and sustained minor damage, but the airdrop went as planned and the field was taken with absolute minimal casualties to American forces. The attack was a success because all the players knew their jobs. This is a tremendous example of competence under fire and under enormous pressure to succeed. Lt Col Appler, our unassuming Deputy Group Commander, is a quiet professional who knows and shows the value of competence. It took years and years of training and practice to make this happen.

How can you become a more competent person in your job and become a leader? John Maxwell has a simple five step theory;

1. Show up every day. Come ready to work every day no matter how you feel about what you are doing, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how difficult it may be.
2. Keep improving. Competent people continually search for ways to keep learning, growing, and improving. The person who knows HOW will always have a job. The person who knows WHY will always be the leader.
3. Follow through with excellence. Performing at high levels of excellence is always a choice for you. Follow through. Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intentions, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.
4. Accomplish more than expected. Highly competent people always go the extra mile. Just good enough is never good enough for competent people. Leaders exceed expectations.
5. Inspire others. Highly competent leaders do more than perform - they inspire others to perform at high levels also. Leaders depend on competence and people skills to inspire others.

Some other known thoughts on the value of competence in leadership;

"In war, there is no prize for the runner-up." General Omar Bradley

"It is no use saying 'we are doing our best'. You have go to succeed in doing what is necessary." Sir Winston Churchill

"There is no type of human endeavor where it is so important that the leader understands all phases of his job as that of the profession of arms." Maj Gen James C. Fry

"What is the use of running if we are not on the right road?" Old German Proverb

"The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators." Edward Gibon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776

"A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the contrary an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops." General John J. Pershing, My Experience at War, 1931

"It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity." Publilius Syrus, 1st century, BC

"It is not the big armies that win battles; it is the good ones." Marshal Saxe, 1732

"Our object ought to be to have a good army rather than a large one." Gen George Washington, 1780

86 AMS, our nation is now counting on our competence in this war on terrorism. Sometimes it may be hard for you to "connect the dots" from the events of Sep 11th to your day to day jobs here, but make no mistake about it - what you do every day matters to many. When we have to move forward again, all of the things you are doing now to prepare will make a huge difference to you and the forces we will be counted on to support. Challenge yourself to learn something new about your job this week and then teach someone else about it. Become competent, become confident - become a leader.