Commentary Search

  • Leadership Lessons: Success through motivation

    Leaders are in a constant struggle to determine how to drive people to feel personal satisfaction from accomplishing their job resulting in highly productive workers. One concept to accomplishing this goal comes from author Dan Pink in his book Drive. He investigates the relationship between high

  • Reserving a new spot in the Air Force

    Do you remember your very first job interview? I remember mine; when the interviewer started asking me questions about what qualities I bring to the table, I could feel a sudden rush of nervousness run through my veins. I try to stay calm by breathing, but I can sense my Filipino accent trickling

  • Leadership Lessons: We are all more than our uniforms

    This past December marked the 100th anniversary of the Christmas Truce of 1914. On Christmas Eve and Christmas of 1914, only a few months into World War I, thousands of British, French, and Belgian soldiers, and the opposing German soldiers, laid down their weapons, emerged from their trenches, and

  • Leadership Lessons: What does being an NCO really mean?

    When you go to any Professional Military Education, whether it is Airman Leadership School, the NCO Academy or Senior NCO Academy, you must remember that everything you learn is applicable, but it doesn't all apply at the same time. As a former PME instructor, I used to tell all of my students:

  • Leadership Lessons: Think Different

    When people think about diversity, differences in race, ethnicity, religion, and gender typically come to mind. While these traditional categories are important, the Air Force's definition of diversity is much broader. AFI 36-70 defines diversity as "a composite of individual characteristics,

  • Leadership Lessons: Authentic Leadership

    "Extroverts make the best leaders" -- words spoken by an instructor to my cadet class in officer training. An introvert myself, I did not understand exactly what my instructor was trying to teach us. Was he saying that introverts had no hope of being the "best leaders," or was he insinuating that

  • Leadership Lessons: Failure IS an option

    We have all heard the phrase failure is not an option. Failure is certainly an option, and one we need to become more comfortable with. Today's climate is one of diminishing resources. Sequestration and force management have cut our ranks and our checkbook while deployments tax both. To meet our

  • Leadership Lessons: Communication and Collaboration

    Growing up on the east side of Indianapolis, I never dreamed I would be an Air Force Chaplain, or a military officer. The nuns who taught me in elementary school would have said the next stop for me was prison. It is a privilege to wear the Air Force uniform. My personal successes in the Air Force

  • Leadership Lessons - Focus on the Heart

    It was the spring of my freshman year at the Air Force Academy. Finals had been taken, seniors were preparing to graduate, and everyone was looking forward to being one year closer to leaving that place. I'd had a pretty rough year. I was fighting accusations of an honor violation, which eventually

  • Native American Heritage Month: a legacy of honor, commitment

    During the month of November we pay tribute to the contributions of Native Americans throughout history. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush approved a joint resolution designating November as National Native American Heritage Month. To this day military installations across the nation celebrate the