I sure am glad for this blog sometimes. It gives me great material to which I can point when I say “I told you so.”
In this case, it’s a message to Airmen from the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force (CMSAF), Joanne Bass, in which she laments a lack of adherence to standards. I’ll admit (as I have in the past), that COVID had something to do with that, but leaders and their policies didn’t help much either. They sat back and watched as a softening of regulations and coddling of Airmen eroded their abilities to enforce any kind of discipline at all. Please believe me — it’s a very short leap from allowing them to walk around with their hands jammed deep into their pockets, to them not caring at all about a myriad of other things either. A classic demonstration of “given an inch, they’ll take a mile” if ever there was.
She says it herself — “the line between average and elite airpower is razor thin” – and yet they were willing to tiptoe over that line by throttling back on the most basic of standards. Duty hours, facial hair, cell phones…even parking. I fear that many would read what I’ve said her and say “Bob, you can’t be serious. There’s no way the difference between an average and elite force is some dude whose beard [putting aside that he has a beard at all] is out of regs.” But that’s not the whole story. When I see these things and several other examples of standards being flouted or ignored, I know that “leaders” see them too. And do nothing. It should be obvious: if leaders don’t have the courage to put a stop to a blatant disregard for the simple things, I can only assume some of that attitude carries over into the more complex. It’s only a matter of time before this leads to a disaster for the nation at the hands of their own defenders. Remember: Razor. Thin.
And the Chief agrees with me: “When any of us walk by or tolerate something below our high standards, we damage our credibility.” I’ve been saying this for months, and of course I’m glad to see her admitting it. I just hope it’s not too late. As it is, I know how having a lapse in leadership for even a short period affects the force for years to come thereafter. The Air Force is constantly developing leaders. As it works out, entire segments of their population are all affected similarly by policy at any particular time in their careers. In this case, many of the Airmen who have risen through the junior ranks during the past five years have already experienced and assimilated a marked lack of accountability and discipline. In another five, they become Master Sergeants, and for some, they go yet higher. What this leaves us with in ten years then is a group who have been so damaged by today’s leaders, they can hardly be expected to become good leaders themselves.
I can only hope their experiences now will help them see how not to do leadership in the future. They have to somehow reach the conclusion that a disciplined fighting force is something worth the work – an organization of which its members can be proud. An organization that can kick anyone’s…rear end when called upon. This is the Air Force in which I grew up – a great organization in its time. So, while it is encouraging to see the Chief trying to put the genie back into the bottle, I know it’s going to take a lot more work than a letter. For some, though, I think it’s already too late.
