Long Term Leadership

So now you know how to get them to follow you: you motivate them, you alter their behavior, you be the sort of person people want to follow in the first place.

But is that all you need to lead?

Certainly not!

Especially when we talk about "big L" Leadership, we are also talking about managing, teaching, training, briefing, communicating, and planning.

You may have heard the expression "be a leader, not a manager".

I am here to tell you that is the dumbest line I have ever heard.

You can be the most charismatic, motivational leader in the world, and if you waste my time by poorly managing me, I will stop following you after about 10 seconds.

LEADING is getting them to follow you. MANAGING is knowing what to do with them once they are following you. You need to be good at both if you want to make an organization run.

Management

Management is all about directing resources. It involves understanding the mission, using your resources to complete the mission, and developing more resources to sustain the completion of the mission.

At the CAP level, good management is driven by staffing, scheduling, promotions, and budgeting.

Staffing - You need to put the right people in the right jobs. The jobs should fit their unique strengths and weaknesses. One example of a staffing decision is that you will often find strong Flight Sergeants paired with weak Flight Commanders to help balance the staff. You might see a young Airman given a Flight Sergeant position to help develop them and challenge them to grow into it. Poor staffing decisions tend to waste resources, burn people out, and encourage bitterness.

Scheduling - You need to schedule your activities to meet the needs of the troops and the situation. Consider running security at an Airshow with 12 cadets. Should you have all 12 running the security for 48 straight hours? Should you break them into groups of 6 and have them work 12 hour shifts? Should you break them into groups of 4? What is the minimum number of cadets you need to effectively meet the needs of the mission? How long can they work before they need a break? How much overlap should they have in shift changes? How much transit time do they need to get in position? How are you going to get lunch to them? When I see CAP activities turn to chaos, it almost always starts with a messed up schedule.

Promotions - Promotions are actually part of our mission in the Cadet Program. When cadets promote, it really means they are progressing through our educational syllabus. We need to manage our time and resources to make sure cadets actually are promoting. We need to enable them to take tests. We need to educate them so they perform well on those tests.

Budgets - Are mostly transparent to cadets, but they are worth mentioning because they are a huge part of management. Budgeting is all about prioritizing. We prioritize money, time, and effort. What will get us more bang for our buck? Spending $500 dollars on new Color Guard equipment? Or spending $500 on a new Air Conditioner? Also consider how we budget time. We only get about 100 hours a year for training, how much benefit do we get from dedicating 30 minutes a night (25 hours a year) to drill practice vs. spending those hours on career and college preparation or ground school?

Developing your people and your replacement

The Cadet Program exists to teach, train, and develop young men and women to lead. So we need to figure out how to do that.

Teaching

We teach to put knowledge into people's brains. We want cadets to walk away with facts, concepts, and approaches that will help them solve problems.

A teacher buddy told me to teach to the different styles of learning. Teach along every axis - auditory, visual, verbal, action. Some will never learn from a lecture alone, some will never learn from the book alone.

But, more important than that, you have to Teach to an Objective.

• Know what you are going to teach before you teach it. (Know the material well enough to teach it!)
• You must have a clear, stated focus in your teaching. (example: "Our goal today is to learn how to take over the world using only matches, duct tape, and a ball point pen.")
• Know the essential elements to accomplish the objective. (example: Fundamentals of Global Domination, effective use of duct tape, fire safety, and creative writing.
• Emphasize and repeat important points.
• Emphasize and repeat important points.

Our next teaching key is: Teach to Correct Level of Difficulty.

• Know what they can do, don't teach over their heads.(Challenge them, but don't try to teach particle physics to 3rd graders
• Know your audience.
  (Quiz them before you start out, maybe they already know it! And, if there is a range, teach to every level or the upper-middle level.)

Finally, you want to Monitor and Adjust.

• Check everyone. (Test for understanding: "Cadet Bob, what were my main points about the position of attention?")
• Reteach as necessary.(If they aren't getting it, change the way you say it, not just louder and slower)

Training

We train people to react to stimulus. Training is all about conditioning people to act. That action could be anything, it could be training a pilot to relax pressure on the stick if he feels stall indications. It could be training a cadet to pop to attention when a senior officer walks into the room. It could be CPR, or drill, or driving... Any time we want conditioned action we are training.

Training has a lot to do with conditioning.

Training has a lot to do with repetition

Training has a lot to do with repetition

Training has a lot to do with repetition

Briefings

Briefings are short presentations to make people accountable for information. They assume the audience already has some understanding of the topic. When a reg changes, we might give a short briefing to make sure everyone understands the change. When we start an activity, we usually have a safety briefing to get everyone's brains re-keyed to think safety.

Most importantly, in the Air Force, we brief and debrief every sortie. We sit down before we fly and talk about the itinerary, the route, the critical phases, and risks. After each sortie, we sit down and talk about what went right, what went wrong, and what we will do differently in the future, EVERY mistake gets identified without regard for rank or position, in the interest of safety. CAP cadet staffers would be well advised to brief and debrief every meeting among the staff.

Mentoring

This is probably the most important thing we do when it comes to developing young leaders. I can post a thousand articles, we can make cadets read a thousand books, we can give great classes, but none of that comes close to one-on-one counseling and development. Mentoring is an intensely personal thing, it is based on a bond and trust between an instructor and a student. Mentoring is tailored to the individual, it is meant to teach the student all the little lessons you can't learn in class. For example, my favorite mentor once told me: "Naugle, the first rule of looking cool in the Air Force, is when you use the latrine, make sure the arms of your Flight Suit don't end up in the toilet bowl."

(Words to live by. Thanks, Captain! - Ed.)