Are Professionalism and Integrity Only A Myth?

Integrity is complete honesty in any situation We must determine what is really right and really wrong. Right even transcends the violation of regulations. You must oppose what is wrong and support what is right even if it costs you your life or your career.¹

Lieutenant General John P. Flynn

Should we emphasize leadership and management?Do we really believe in the importance of this subject? Do we honestly care about the feelings, goals, or aspirations of our people? These questions are simple enough, but the answers are more complex.

Historically speaking, the termination of hostilities in Vietnam and changes in the attitudes and values of Americans demanded some revamping of our military management. Reductions in manpower and money, recruitment of volunteers, and the need to increase productivity prompted USAF Chief of Staff General David C. Jones to seek improved methods of leadership to motivate our people. Experts representing a cross section of the Air Force served on study groups for the improvement of people and resources management. The consensus of these studies indicated that there was room for improvement in leadership and management throughout the Air Force, which resulted in a new initiative, the establishment of the Leadership and Management Development Center (LMDC) at Air University. Its objective is to provide a central focal point for research, development, and education in this area. Instruction is under way, and lesson plans are available to provide a progressive exposure to leadership and management thought and application in professional military education (PME) programs at all supervisory levels, Several traveling teams have been formed to serve as management consultants and leadership education specialists in the field.

A step forward for leadership and management? One hopes so. A catalyst for better human relations, productivity or supervision? Perhaps. Any chance of large-scale adoption by leaders and supervisors? Perhaps not; the ballots are still out. Unduly pessimistic? Not at all! Consider the 1970 statement by General Jones when Commander of Second Air Force for Strategic Air Command:

Are we saying anything different now? By the same token, are we doing anything different? Complaints about standards and discipline, dissent incidents and alcohol/drug abuse are indications of our organizational health. To be sure, USAF is not fully responsible for societal ills mirrored in our organization. The classic error in management is to ignore those ills, but, if we are to cure some of their less desirable manifestations, we must practice the leadership principles we preach. Our inconsistencies in supervision and command cause some of our people to perceive themselves as unimportant merchandise and to continue to breed dissatisfaction and discontent in the most highly qualified and educated military force in our history.

At this point you may ask why I have bothered to bring up the subject of leadership and management. As Director of the USAF Commanders' Seminar, now a division within LMDC, I observed and listened to many Air Force commanders. In addition, I have been exposed to many chiefs for more than 20 years, and I have taken the time to speak to many followers. My remarks are based on personal experiences and perceptions, candid conversations, and seminar discussions with wing and base commanders, interviews and rap sessions with military personnel of all ranks, and the findings of Air Force management consultants. This article is a conscientious effort to explore concepts that have received much coverage in Air Force education programs, much lip service, and some practical applications.

Notice that we are discussing leadership and management. They are not the same. Leaders work primarily with people in using resources to reach a goal. Managers deal with things to accomplish a goal. Leadership describes those persons who, by force of example, personal talents, charismatic qualities, or some special trait of personality, play a directing role, wield command influence, or cause people to follow. Management is commonly defined as "the art of managing; a more or less skilled handling of something; the conducting or supervising of something."³(Italics added.) Last year Admiral Thomas H. Moorer suggested that managers are necessary but leaders are indispensable.⁴

Herein is our dilemma. We understand the need to promote self-fulfillment and job enrichment for our people while we encourage them to accept a selfless dedication for mission accomplishment. We also perceive a personal need to overshadow the masses through errorless management, which is more selfishly oriented, In order to outrun our tough competition for the scarce, prestigious jobs. we are strongly motivated to manage our people to satisfy our goals before we worry about satisfying theirs. It would seem that many leaders, at all levels, are looking upward while leadership and management theories encourage honest responsiveness to lower echelons as well. My experience indicates that many of us are fine leaders while we occupy lower echelon positions and can easily relate upward and downward in the chain of command. As the competition for promotion and command responsibilities becomes critical, we tend to become much more conscious of self-advancement, especially at the squadron and base levels and special category assignments. While the chief emphasizes increased concern for the welfare of our people to promote greater productivity, many individual leaders seem to parrot the right words while they seek to fill the right squares in the right jobs to impress the right people in the right place at the right time. Our more perceptive personnel, especially the younger ones, who are more adept at reading body language, see through the double standard sham and lose faith in the integrity of the leader. I have yet to find a unit that is completely devoid of self-serving people, and that includes LMDC, which should be a living model of the leadership and management theories being stressed throughout the Air Force. Several factors surface as possible causes of this dilemma. Our professionalism. integrity, and ethical standards are sometimes questionable. Our evaluation programs, promotion system, and command selection process are far from perfect. Communications are often ineffective. We appear to have sacred cows, which we dare not challenge or change.

Professionalism consists of "the conduct, aims, or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or professional person (a moral code is the basis)."⁵Lieutenant General John P. Flynn, USAF IG, probably best described the Air Force profession as "a specialized calling that requires detailed skills that are self taught or promulgated by experts within the profession. The calling answers to some ethical code. However, ours is an unwritten code that has survived through tradition and the integrity of our people."⁶

With no written code of ethics and no specific rules for leadership, many leaders attempt to follow a style that has been successful for them in the past or has been used by successful star-rank officers regardless of possible conflict with people programs and mission accomplishment. For example, autocratic leadership is a valid style of managing in an "immature" or "failing" organization, to accomplish the mission in the short run. Commanders are generally assigned to jobs for a short proving period, so it is easier to manage for short-run success despite serious consequences in the long run. How many commanders have been fired for inheriting a condition that began under the misguided leadership of a previous commander?

We do not openly criticize our commander for poor leadership if we perceive that such criticism would be disloyal. Also, we arc painfully aware that he has review authority for our effectiveness report; therefore, it is easier to survive a short period of mismanagement rather than criticize and possibly suffer some career setback. Perceptions of the followers indicate that "the man" is trying to make a name for himself. Although not a universal perception, it too often appears that upward mobility is more motivating than commitment to organizational goals. If the leader's commitment to his job is shallow, how can we expect followers to become selfless and dedicated? We decry the eight-to-five job attitude of young officers and airmen; yet, our long hours of duty are often based on 'impressing the colonel'' (regardless of the burden on our people) or on being "seen" hard at work for personal recognition.

I do not intend to imply that this is true of everyone. Many leaders who are concerned for their mission and their people are unsung heroes, who may or may not be recognized for their outstanding achievements. However, just as the scandalous minority achieve national notoriety in our publications, so are our poor leaders held in irreverence much longer. When they are promoted and given greater command responsibilities, an important reaction (rightly or wrongly) seems to be that nice guys finish last while the politicians and maneuvers get ahead. We have been told that a professional is one who determines what his boss requires to accomplish the mission and then gets it done. Many who work in this manner are duly recognized by the boss in the overall rating, promotion, job-selection systems, but some do get overlooked or taken for granted. We find it easier to notice self-serving people who spend a great deal of time and effort pandering to the commander's ego needs, because several have appeared to move ahead more rapidly than some of their mission-serving peers. Even in the elite organizations, this type of behavior exists to cause peer friction, poor morale, and feelings of futility for those who "play it straight." When asked by commanders why I included leadership and management principles in the Commanders' Seminar, the highest level course for commanders prior to selection for general officer rank, I replied: "You may know the theory, but inspections and visits to the bases sometimes indicate that very little of this theory is being applied; therefore, we must assume that some of you are not aware of your leadership options and management style alternatives."

In an academic situation covering leadership and management principles and theories, the general response of commanders seems to be, "I know all this. I've heard it all before. I need solutions for dealing with dissatisfaction, not theory." We claim to know all about good leadership, yet we do not practice it in our concern to be "mistake free" in the eyes of our boss.

The following comments are typical of remarks made by commanders in a nonthreatening academic environment:

These are all very real perceptions and concerns in our quest for success. If we treat our job as a steppingstone to greater things, how can we really practice what we preach? Can we really demand selflessness from our people when our own priority system is warped? Could the following statement by General Jones indicate that the management "tail" is wagging a leadership "dog"?

The priorities espoused by General Flynn are God, country, mission, service, organization, fellows, family, and self.⁸This is nothing new. It was taught in military leadership manuals in the '50s and '60s. Unfortunately, too many of us practice a priority system where self-concern is uppermost. Some younger folks tend to place family or self above organization or mission. Do commanders place higher priorities and greater emphasis on excellence in accomplishing an EWO mission or on passing the ORI, which is more likely to occur during their tour of duty? This is no far-fetched or isolated problem, Our measuring tools are management oriented. We tend to look at what gets done, rather than who does it or how much money, people, and materials we use to do it. It becomes a real dilemma for commanders, who have seen others get fired for failing to meet inspection requirements. Our emphasis on management becomes so pervasive that there is little time or motivation available for concerned leadership. Rather, there is a real concern for protection of self. Perhaps some specified quotas for innovative project failures would reduce our paranoid concern for appearing to be "perfect" at any cost and permit us to become more selfless.

By selflessness, I do not mean a saintly giving of one's self to the service of others. Enlightened self-interest is a normal and healthy thing. We want to succeed and get ahead. We are selfless leaders when we choose to succeed via a primary concern for the mission goals and the needs of our people rather than using the mission and people for our own self-aggrandizement. Professionalism also connotes good "followership." As our boss selflessly leads to satisfy mission goals, he deserves our full effort in his behalf. If he leads selfishly, he still deserves our full effort to satisfy mission goals, but individual integrity will determine whether we will pander to his "ego trips." The selfless professional is the one who continues to give total commitment to his job without seeking constant visibility, recognition, and camaraderie from the boss or supervisor. We do have many of these people in our units, and they do help to keep the mission going. This is why the Air Force has been effective as a service. Good followership not only means that the mission is accomplished happily with good leadership but that it is still effectively accomplished in spite of poor leadership.

Currently it is fashionable to display concern for our people because the chief and key leaders have stressed the issue. But, the egotist who preaches thoughtfulness renders discredit to the sincerity of those leaders who really care. We are far better served by those individuals who announce to the world that they are task oriented and will use people to achieve their goals than we are in having to work for leaders who merely say the words on cue.

General Flynn's statement--"You must oppose what is wrong and support what is right even if it costs you your life or your career"--is repeated for emphasis.

All leaders should display such a selfless commitment to integrity, but it is much easier to bend the standards into a "do as I say, not as I do" mold to avoid conflict or confrontation with the boss. Lieutenant General James R. Allen, Superintendent of the USAF Academy, told a U.S. Senate subcommittee:

This statement was used to support the perpetuation of the Cadet Honor Code, which states, "We will not lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does." Nontoleration is not to be equated with tattling. Rather, it is the backbone of the code, "recognizing that each cadet, like every Air Force officer, must place his responsibility to the Nation above his loyalty to an individual."¹⁰

Ask almost any officer if he believes in the code, and you receive a fast affirmative. Ask these same officers if they think their superiors feel the same, and the response may not be so rapid nor so positive. Do we really believe what we preach? Is the Honor Code valid? We would like to think so. It is an attainable goal we can live by. But does our society really think this way? How many of us can say that we have never compromised our integrity because of misplaced loyalty, fear of reprisal or censure, or even personal dishonesty? How long can a new and impressionable young officer continue to abide by this rigid standard of integrity when he sees senior people "pencil whipping" status reports, flying documents, training records, etc., to fill squares? He hears management speak strongly for equal opportunity on one hand and then boast of filling two squares with one body by hiring a black woman. A seat-belt safety program is subverted when a commander sends a large group of his personnel through the checkpoint to keep the organization average up after someone in the unit was recorded as not complying. This is doubly damaging because the safety program suffers, and the people who played the game recognize the lack of integrity of their leader. The double standard is communicated clearly. "The ordinary high standards expected of any officer are even more imperative for a commander." ¹¹

None would argue with that statement, yet how many senior people have learned to work with the "real world" and often tend to use the double standard? Recently, a group of 35 commanders assembled in a seminar session concerning integrity were arguing forcibly that we were not compromising our standards. On being challenged to be completely open and honest in all their command responsibilities, a commander very candidly remarked, "Commanders are not martyrs. We did not make it this far by telling it like it really is." The most shocking aspect of this statement was not its brutal honesty but the fact that not one single commander of the remaining 34 objected or challenged this attitude. Command acceptance of "small breaches of integrity" promotes dishonesty, distrust, and egocentrism throughout the force.

Simply consider two perceptual problems generated by a misunderstanding of the real ethics of our priority system. First, a survey of Squadron Officer School Class 74-D, which elicited some 617 responses, indicated a significant lack of faith in the integrity of Air Force management and leadership. Some common examples cited were:

These practices are not universal. Then, again, these perceptions are not especially exaggerated. When I sought advice on this issue, I was told that these perceptions of our young officers were no longer so prevalent. Hooray! I recently learned from a most reliable source that a young officer in SAC advised his commander that aircraft were being inspected and switches were being left in improper settings in anticipation of a no-notice inspection. In this case the commander ordered an immediate halt to this procedure, but how many leaders arid supervisors condoned this effort? We still pick up some "great" perceptions when we see people receiving end-of-tour awards that are more prestigious than what is really deserved. Despite the "looser" requirements for retirement medals, we still see the Legion of Merit or Meritorious Service Medal being given when the Commendation Medal would be more appropriate for the service rendered by the retiree. We have all seen such incidents actually practiced or supported. It is neither a new phenomenon nor one of which we were unaware. In 1971, according to the Air Force Times, the Air Force Inspector General criticized commanders for being less than honest in reporting accomplishments or for failing to report discrepancies they knew existed. ¹³

A second serious problem in the realm of integrity is our perception of the new Officer Effectiveness Report, a system conceptually good and effective, but can we believe the people who use it? The up-or-out promotion system fuels inflated reports. The "nice guy" syndrome tends to prevent us from telling it like it is when, in fact, the integrity of the OER should make expectations realistic. These facts would be openly stated for the ratee to see. He would not create a self-image of "water walker" only to have his morale crushed when he is not selected for promotion or for special assignment. The lack of trust in our fellows or superiors tends to make us inflate reports to protect our good people because we know "others are doing it," and the boss will probably "downgrade it some to promote his favorite people." Thus, fears and inconsistencies occur, and personnel become obsessed with proving themselves rather than cooperating for the benefit of higher priorities such as unit or mission.

Our biggest failing is our tolerance of the expectation that a minority will try to beat the system. We have heard that some five percent or less of the OERs could be a less-than-accurate picture of the ratee. This sounds good until one perceives himself to be in that fifth percentile. If five percent are cheated by the system, then another five percent benefit unduly. Those who are overrated receive the promotions that rightly belong to others. In the long run, the damage done affects many more than the five percent or less initially cheated. Statements like, "It may hurt a few but overall it's a good system," is not an endorsement of our OERs; it's a denunciation. A senior officer told me that a people-oriented program that "hurts a few" is a nonprogram. I agree. It is an invalid approach and an abomination. The lack of trust generated by perceptions of our people makes the job of leadership and management more difficult because it influences our credibility in all areas.

Sincerity and integrity are definitely required to make our good organization better. We must assume the position that "I will not compromise my integrity" and "the buck stops here," regardless of the consequences or the difficulty of the situation. If we individually adopt the higher professional ethic of acting to serve nation and mission before self, the chances of judgment errors and breaches of integrity will be minimized. Additionally, this sincerity will be honestly reflected in our actions and concerns for people programs and in our efforts to say exactly what our body language communicates. If our management style is to be autocratic or laissez faire, it should be thus communicated to the world. Merely "talking" good people programs quickly exposes the leader as insincere and egocentric.

My one regret in this article is that I have mentioned a preponderance of negatives in our system. It is not my intent to prove that the Air Force is self-serving rather than mission oriented. On the contrary, I sincerely feel that our programs, systems, and people are superior to those of other large organizations. However, in any system as big as ours there are loopholes. We generally promote effectively, but several losers have seeped up through the cracks at various ranks. Our leaders are generally highly qualified, but a few bad ones may have been more noticeable than the majority of good ones. Some questionable performers are selected for professional schools and special-category assignments. However, we can still improve our system, which is basically good and effective.

The "bottom line" solution is a total, personal commitment to practice good leadership and management regardless of our position in the organizational hierarchy. Top Air Force leaders can assist greatly by influencing changes in some of the following areas:

Despite the utopian undertones of these suggestions, the message clearly states that we must practice some form of childlike honesty and enthusiasm. If not, it is unlikely that we will alter our politically motivated management procedures for a more ethically oriented style of leadership by example. We must start it ourselves. We cannot wait for "them" to do it. If we are not going to change, we should stop preaching Honor Code, integrity, people programs, and all the rest. Talking about these good things without visible actions to support the words merely causes frustration and disenchantment within the force.

If we do not promise personalized attention, our people will more realistically expect the impersonal treatment they are likely to receive. If we are going to continue publicizing good people programs, then we must honor our promises.

1. Major General John P. Flynn in an address to USAF Commanders' Seminar, Class 76-A, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, 20 January 1976.

2. Lieutenant General David C. Jones. The Commander's Hotline, no. 1, Barkdale AFB, Louisiana, 1 April 1970, p. 2.

4. Admiral T H. Moorer, USN, "Leadership and Management," TIG Brief, 28 January 1977, p.15.

9. Statement by Lieutenant General James R. Allen. Superintendent, USAFA, to the Subcommittee on Manpower and Personnel. U.S. Senate, 22 June 1976. Taken from the Supplement to the Air Force Policy Letter for Commanders, AFRP 190-2, October 1975, p. 27.

12. Major Peter Henderson, "What the Captain Really Means Air University Review, January-February 1976, pp. 97-98.

Lieutenant Colonel Raymond F. Hamel (M.B.A., Ohio State University) is Chief of Social Actions, 347th Tactical Fighter Wing (TAC), Moody AFB, Georgia. He has been a B-47, B-52, C-47, C-130, and AC-130 pilot as well as a Minuteman Missile Combat Crew Commander. He established the AFROTC unit at Valdosta State College, Georgia, where he served as detachment commander, and he was Director of the USAF Commanders' Seminar at Air University. Colonel Hamel is a graduate of Squadron Officer School, Academic Instructor School, Air Command and Staff College, and Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.