Leadership, good morale, welfare and discipline – no excuses

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. John Krieger
  • 52nd Maintenance Group
SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, Germany --  Part of being a leader is ensuring standards are complied with. Everyday 99 percent of your flight, squadron, group and wing comply with Air Force Instruction's, standards and all other flight, squadron and wing level guidance -- all the time. Some do not. If the 99 percent see that 1 percent getting away with not following regulatory guidance, why should they? This destroys morale and degrades discipline across the board. I see some supervisors today who do not want to give paperwork as a corrective action; nobody wants to be the "bad guy."

Now am I saying leadership should give paperwork for everything? Absolutely not! A verbal counseling from the supervisor, SNCO, chief or OIC has made a difference in many an Airman's, (and I mean officer and enlisted in the word Airmen), career for the better. And often this is all that is needed.

But for repeat offenders, verbal counseling does not work. For minor infractions, I use the rule of three. Once is a one-time incident, twice maybe coincidence and three times you have a trend and a problem. Some things, because of the magnitude, do require instant administrative action because if you let it go in our business, someone will get killed or equipment will be destroyed.

There is another reason to do a memo for record or letter of counseling, admonishment or reprimand. It gets people's attention. Our job as leaders is not to kick people out of the Air Force. It is to make highly capable, well-trained Airman to employ Airpower around the world. If you do not get their attention and someone gets hurt or something gets destroyed, that troop will be facing an Article 15 or possibly a court martial.

So, Air Force leader and supervisor, are you doing your job to keep your Airmen on the right track? Or are you being the nice supervisor who does not get their attention and lets them get into real trouble?

One of our supervisory responsibilities is discipline and we need to document those actions. Supervisors need to take the time to document actions and get them on file. It is easy to put discipline and documentation aside because of the tempo of operations. However, we can't fall back on "we're busy," "it's too hard to do," "it hurts morale," "people are scared to do a task," "but they are good Airmen" or any of the other convenient excuses. Everyone has to keep their appointments, complete their training, follow sound procedural practices, be medically ready and avoid drugs, alcohol incidents and criminal activity. It is all part of being in the Air Force.

We have to do our job as supervisors, and whether we like it or not discipline is part of our job. Supervisors need to step up to the plate and do their job, then it is up to the commander, first sergeants and flight leadership to sift through the facts and determine the appropriate action to take based on the documentation.

So why is good morale, welfare and discipline important? The mission we do day in and day out is hard work. It takes motivated, highly disciplined teamwork. We are a nation at war and when other Americans call for Airpower in the area of responsibility, there is no excuse -- there is no "we are too busy," "it's too hard" or "they are a nice person." That Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine who called for an airstrike trusts that a bomb will fall from the sky and kill the enemy when they call for it. That does not happen without highly motivated, disciplined teamwork and there are no excuses.