Command Directed Q3 Q?

[Bigred]

12 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

Exactly that mentality is why military leadership is so bad. What you described is a lack of accountability to the vision. It comes from the mindset in the military that the right professional education and career "broadening" will produce good leaders, when in fact, for a lot of people who make it to Sq/CC and above, they just don't have what it takes.

 

You can't run a huge organization without delegating, and delegating is an ongoing process. Keep cycling through people until you find the right one. But in the military we instead we cycle leaders out every two years regardless and "let [them] loose to figure it out" for that short amount of time. The results speak for themselves. Figuring out how to solve a SQ/GP/WG specific problem as the leader of that organization is great. Figuring out your own interpretation of the executive vision is not. Comply or step aside.

 

An example:

 

https://www.507arw.afrc.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/2409725/colonel-michael-b-parks/

 

This guy got one of the worst climate assessment surveys in the AF when he was SQ/CC. 44 pages of comments of I remember correctly, almost entirely negative. I've never seen such a united disdain for a commander from the whole squadron, even the ones he was pushing for future command. Yet there he is... Rewarded. There are plenty of examples. 

 

Ah, I think I see the disconnect, as I actually agree with you. I’m not saying don’t hold them accountable, if someone is a piece of shit then fire them. The way your previous post read (to me, at least) is we should fire people if they don’t exactly adhere to their bosses vision. 
 

One of the biggest failures I’ve seen (in two different branches now) is an unwillingness to tell someone they suck, and to actually document it. Instead, they write them a glowing evaluation and send them on their way.
 

 

 

[Lord Ratner]

2 hours ago, Bigred said:

Ah, I think I see the disconnect, as I actually agree with you. I’m not saying don’t hold them accountable, if someone is a piece of shit then fire them. The way your previous post read (to me, at least) is we should fire people if they don’t exactly adhere to their bosses vision. 
 

One of the biggest failures I’ve seen (in two different branches now) is an unwillingness to tell someone they suck, and to actually document it. Instead, they write them a glowing evaluation and send them on their way.
 

 

 

Yeah, I think we're just split on semantics. How you execute the vision is up to you, but if your execution doesn't live up to the executive vision, buhbye. There's no time to spend months or years trying to retrain a bunch of generals or colonels to think how you need them to think to execute the vision. That's where Welsh failed.

 

This is one of the ongoing problems with the concept of time and milestone-based promotions. I think that's semi-functional up to lieutenant colonel. But colonels and generals should be promoted based off the job they have, not the jobs they had. That would free up higher level commanders to select exactly who they already know to be the right people for the right job (vision), then promote them to the required rank.

 

Historically this happens anyway during wartime with field promotions. When the stakes actually matter, which they have not for many many years, the ridiculous system of broadening and education to produce leaders is cast aside. 

[Phase4]

22 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

An example:

 

https://www.507arw.afrc.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/2409725/colonel-michael-b-parks/

 

This guy got one of the worst climate assessment surveys in the AF when he was SQ/CC. 44 pages of comments of I remember correctly, almost entirely negative. I've never seen such a united disdain for a commander from the whole squadron, even the ones he was pushing for future command. Yet there he is... Rewarded. There are plenty of examples. 

 

Dude’s bio includes “Cadet” in the list of assignments.

[Sua Sponte]

1 hour ago, Phase4 said:

Dude’s bio includes “Cadet” in the list of assignments.

He’s one of the worst pilots and FGOs I’ve ever been stationed with/flown with.

[BashiChuni]

5 hours ago, Sua Sponte said:

He’s one of the worst pilots and FGOs I’ve ever been stationed with/flown with.

go with stories!

[go_cubbies22]

I also found it weird that for his assignments prior to being a commander he only lists his desk jobs in his duty titles and doesn't include that he's a pilot and which airframe.  I've never seen that before.  Shows what he prioritizes for an Air Force officer.

[Sua Sponte]

59 minutes ago, go_cubbies22 said:

I also found it weird that for his assignments prior to being a commander he only lists his desk jobs in his duty titles and doesn't include that he's a pilot and which airframe.  I've never seen that before.  Shows what he prioritizes for an Air Force officer.

He’s a C-5/KC-135 guy. He sucked at flying both. My favorite story was his wife getting drunk one night and posting on the Squadron Facebook page what a small dick he had and how he couldn’t give her kids. It was deleted within a few minutes.

When he was the ARS Sq/CC he was punishing people for frat and I informed some friends of mine in his Sq how his wife was an Airman when he met her as an Lt.

Rules for thee, not for me.

[StoleIt]

How often do active duty guys end up in leadership positions at a Reserve wing?

[MCO]

6 hours ago, StoleIt said:

How often do active duty guys end up in leadership positions at a Reserve wing?

Fairly common actually

[hindsight2020]

Post TFI, yes. A lot more common than it should be, but nobody is putting that genie back in the bottle. That ship sailed in 2010. Non TFI Guard units are probably the last remaining bastion of discretion on that front, and those days are numbered too, imo. 

 

[Tank]

On 9/8/2021 at 1:47 PM, StoleIt said:

How often do active duty guys end up in leadership positions at a Reserve wing?

Our Wing Vice is always an AD O-6.  

[SocialD]

8 hours ago, hindsight2020 said:

Non TFI Guard units are probably the last remaining bastion of discretion on that front, and those days are numbered too, imo. 

 

Yup!  Non-TFI ANG here...well if you don't count the slew of AD LTs they send our way because the AD can't absorb them.   Anyway, a few year ago, we had an AD guy who was our WG/CC (dual status T10/T32).  After that assignment he went back to the AD.  Were back to ANG bosses, but I suspect that was a test bed and we'll lilely be seeing more that stuff in the ANG as well.  So glad to be bailing soon.   

[brabus]

On 9/7/2021 at 9:28 AM, Lord Ratner said:

But colonels and generals should be promoted based off the job they have, not the jobs they had. That would free up higher level commanders to select exactly who they already know to be the right people for the right job (vision), then promote them to the required rank.

That’s how the guard works - no promotion past O-5 until you’ve been selected for an O-6 job. It generally helps keep the wrong people from weaseling their way into a job simply because they “have to go somewhere for their O-6 job” like on AD.