Since 9 October of 2003, being called up in front of the squadron, saluting my DCC and then being awarded the Mitchell award by Board of Governors member Lt Gen Charles Searock, USAF (Ret) my leadership style has undergone a marked change. During this time I have worked with many leadership styles and even more now as an officer. I learned from people like Lt Gen Searock about leading the right way. He showed me that an order should never be an order. You should never have to tell someone they have to do something; they should volunteer because they trust you as a leader. After I became a Cadet Second Lieutenant I resigned from my job as Flight Commander from the Air Victory Composite Squadron to pursue a more challenging job as a commander as well as an advisor to the Deputy Commander for Cadets and Squadron Commander. This helped my leadership style to become more of hands off kind of style. For example; instead of telling subordinates that they're on the way to doing something wrong I would let them figure out the problem for themselves and slowly let them into finding the solution.

In my squadron I became a Renaissance man, sort of a jack of all trades. In my time as a Cadet Non-Commissioned officer I was regularly practicing an authoritarian style of leadership. It was the only way, at the time; I knew how to get my point across the way I wanted to get it across. But, as an officer I became someone who was just there for everything, I changed my style to be more of a laissez fare style. I wanted to keep somewhat in control as I used to, but not have to enforce it. I wanted to let people be and learn to be self-discipline for themselves.

As a C/2d Lt and a C/1st Lt I had to become the most self-discipline person ever. The problem was that there were no other officers in my squadron that promoted and I had to figure out everything for myself. In this time I also acquired the position of Wing representative of NJCAC. This was the first position that I had that proved my leadership qualities. As a C/SMSgt or a C/CMSgt I may have thought about just one mission of the council which I favored and taken that to the next echelon. Now, instead, I had the outlook of 26 other representatives and I had to manage many points of view and be a leader for fellow leaders. My outlook on leadership changed immensely so that I could fathom many points of views.

In Civil Air Patrol you run into all sorts of people. Some can be good influences and teach you everything there is to know like Lt Gen Searock did for me and then some can be bad and teach you what kind of person you shouldn't be. The words, I order you, should never be uttered by a true leader. If someone is saying that, they're using the wrong style of leadership and in turn a bad leader. I have done my best over the years to be the leader I was taught to be as well as the leader I want to be. In Civil Air Patrol or in life I will take the lessons I know now and use them in any situation because I learned in my time how to be a leader and this came from the Civil Air Patrol Cadet Program.