Today was an exciting day for me. I finally got the cast off my right foot.
Here are my top ten reasons to celebrate:
10. The foot is healing well. The screws are in place, and the bones seem to be growing together into one mega-bone of awesome invincibility.
9. I get a sweet inflat-o-boot that has a pump like the 80s Reebok shoes. I’ll be slam dunking basketballs in no time.
8. Just took a bath and got my foot wet, and I didn’t even care. (Actually, I did care, because if you aren’t familiar, after wearing a cast for a while, you get all this dry, dead skin that you’re very eager to remove. Sorry, it’s super gross.)
7. I can show off my Frankenfoot. I had a huge scar on the right side, but now I have a a train track across the heel and a white-picket-fence of scar tissue on the left side. Super creepy! I’m ready for Halloween.
6. No more crutches.
5. I don’t feel guilty for putting weight on my foot. Over the last week or so, the foot has felt so good that I have occasionally set it gently on the ground in the cast, for added balance. Don’t tell the doctor!
4. My cane is stylish and makes me feel like House. Maybe I’ll develop his hypersarcasm too. Fingers crossed, here’s hoping!
3. I can start walking again to work towards actual exercise. That means Nike+ Kinect and Dance Central 3 are right around the corner!
2. One of my classmates needs ninjin’. Every morning, as I clomp clomp my way into the building on crutches, I hear him call out, “HERE COMES DAVE.” Now I will be silent, swift, and deadly, with my inflat-o-ninja-boot and assassin cane. Brace yourself, Erik, Monday is coming!
1. Driving. That’s all I’ll say, lest my wife assume I’m implying something. Which I’m totally not. At all. Promise.
Hope your weekend is starting as well as mine did.
So, I have some excitement ahead, and I am looking forward to it.
A to Z Blogging Challenge
It’s Blogging A to Z April. So it’s a time to exercise those writing skills and push out some additional entries on the blog in a fun challenge.
But I’m not doing A to Z for this blog.
I’m going to be attempting an A to Z for the fitness blog I co-author, Fat Guys Vs. Gym.
I’m also going to be writing an A to Z for the worship blog I author: Chasing the Storm.
I am not doing it for this blog, nor am I doing it for my creative writing blog.
I’m excited about what this challenge has to offer, and I hope you can take some time to see the results.
On top of that, I’m going back to work on Monday (boo!) and I’m starting a 4 week Chinese-Mandarin refresher course. Then I’m going to be finishing up some professional education and maybe CLEPing a few college classes. Oh, and I’ll be trying to get into shape since I get my cast off in two weeks.
Ancient Greece had four cardinal virtues: temperance, prudence, courage, and justice.
The Church has three: faith, hope, and love. Alternatively, some look at “the fruit of the Spirit” Paul put down in his epistles: love, joy, peace, patience, kindess, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Buddhism has its Noble Eightfold Path, Hinduism its Dharma or moral duty, Islam has a long list derived from the Quran, and so on.
Even Ben Franklin, no particular bastion of religious devotion, had his own list of moral virtues.
The key to virtues is that, without fail, they are meant to be practiced regardless of how someone else behaves.
We treat others with love even if they are hateful. We respond with kindness when someone snaps at us. When others would be arrogant, we strive to be humble; when others prove unreliable, we demonstrate diligence and faithfulness. Self-control and temperance do not depend on how wild or disciplined someone else may be.
We practice these virtues because they help us be our best selves. They give us the tools to respond to life’s struggles and difficulties with grace, maintaining dignity in spite of opposition.
Now our society is dealing with the debate over same-sex marriage and whether to recognize it as a right in America. Pitting long-standing religious traditions against the ability to openly express love and fidelity – that’s not just a spark near the fireworks. That’s a nuclear meltdown in progress. The trouble is there’s also a lot of prejudice and ignorance on the religious side, and there’s a lot of defensive lashing out due to past hurt on the same-sex marriage side – understandably so. On top of all that, there seems to be enough hate on both sides to go around.
Which is especially sad since we’re all supposedly talking about expressions of love.
There will always be political disputes and debates, but there doesn’t have to be so much vitriol in our rhetoric.
That brings me to this popular virtue I keep hearing about, called Tolerance.
Tolerance has come to mean that we must not only accept differences in others but also approve of them. When we speak of tolerating a thing, we simply mean acknowledging it, accepting the fact of its existence. I have pain in my foot following surgery. I can tolerate the pain. That doesn’t mean I approve of it. Even the term “acceptance” gets used as if to say “endorsement.” I accept marijuana is used throughout the United States and is even legal in some states. I do not endorse its use.
Equality means treating everyone with respect.
Treating each other as equals means tolerance is not a one way street.
If tolerance is indeed a virtue to which we should aspire, then it cannot be limited to those with whom we agree. We cannot demonize the other side as if everyone is either Westboro Baptist Church or NAMBLA. We cannot jump to conclusions and rush to judgment about what motivates supporters or opponents of same-sex marriage.
No, I don’t believe the activists are out to destroy the families. Most of them are just trying to have a family of their own. And no, I don’t believe most of the opponents think anyone is less than human or not worthy of dignity and respect, contrary to popular belief. Yes, there are too many bad apples. We tolerate their right to speech, even ignorant speech. And we counter their ignorance with prudence, temperance, and respectful disagreement.
We cannot justify intolerance and hatred toward others because “they were intolerant first.”
That’s not how virtues work.
“Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?”
Likewise, if we only tolerate the tolerant, then what sort of virtue is it?
We’re always going to have important discussions in America, on subjects where both sides are very passionate. We owe it to ourselves to focus our energy on the viewpoints, not the participants… on virtue, not venom.
To the great friends, family, and strangers who have followed my writing on this site:
One of the lessons I’ve taken from recent writing conferences and discussions with my fellow writers is the idea that a blog is usually meant to be focused on a few key topics. This allows the readers to easily discern what they’re going to get out of the site without slogging through a bunch of stuff that’s of no interest.
I’ve written about a lot of different subjects, and from the very start, I said I’ll just write about whatever I want here. Hey, it’s my blog. I can do that.
But what serves the readers is more important to me than getting “my” way.
With that in mind, I’m separating out some of the topics I normally write about here. What’s moving?
Spirituality
Most of the posts about spirituality and worship are going to move to a separate blog focused on the joys and challenges of pursuing God.
Creative Writing
The short stories and posts related to my long-term writing projects are going to move to a page specifically focused on prose, poetry, and inspiration for the craft of writing.
Fitness
I’ve always made it clear I’m no fitness expert. I do have some formal instruction (former certified spin instructor), but more importantly, I have the experience of being a pudgy guy trying to get and stay fit. With my upcoming process of recovery from foot surgery, that journey is going to provide lots of fun and food for thought. I’ve set up a blog for sharing motivation and mutual commitment to fitness with readers interested in that material.
So what’s left?
This blog will stay active, with any of my posts about life and leadership in the military (most of which are the popular tirades), cultural and political commentary, and the quirky stuff my kids are doing to give me more grey hairs.
I sincerely value every click on the “Follow” button, every “Like” and every comment on any posts. But I understand that not everyone came to this page for the same reason, so I wanted to be clear about where to find the topics that may most interest you. This change should work out so that I’ll be writing as much as usual, but readers will be able to find more of what they’re looking for at the new pages.
Time flies when you’re having fun… or raising kids.
I recall looking down at a crying pink mass of baby as a brand new dad, unable to fully grasp all the changes about to take place, wondering how much I didn’t know, unsure of how I would become the father my daughter deserved.
It’s a natural reflex… but it still hits right in the feels.
Then, in a hesitant and uncertain effort to help keep Deborah still while the nurses cleaned her up, I gingerly took hold of her hand. And she wrapped her tiny finger nubs around one of mine and held tight. And her cries started to quiet down.
That was over thirteen years ago. “Almost fourteen,” Deb would say.
She soon became a big sister to our first son, Jonathan. When we discussed baby names for boys, I thought of David and Jonathan in the Bible – the friendship and closeness they shared. While I know that a parent is not always able to be their child’s friend instead of disciplinarian, I still focused on the hope that my son and I will enjoy a healthy relationship as he grows into maturity.
A few years after Jonathan, Justin was born, his name meaning “Righteous” and “Justice.” And two years ago, we welcomed Judah into our family, whose name means “Praise.”
Life easily becomes a blur of day-by-day responsibilities. Exhaustion sets in, and by the end of a busy day, it’s too easy to get caught up getting the kids to bed and catching a breather before going to sleep to face the next day. Individual days often go by slowly, working at the office or in the home, taking care of dinner and the children’s needs, trying to carve out family time, finishing all the chores and responsibilities, and ushering kids to bed.
But the years flash by when we’re not paying attention.
About a week ago, Deborah was playing Rock Band 3 and some of the various Guitar Hero games. And I discovered she had switched over to Hard difficulty. The jump from Medium to Hard is significant as it incorporates more buttons to press, more notes to hit, and all at a faster pace. Yet she was performing songs smoothly, something of which she never used to be capable.
We played some songs together, challenging each other to see who could get the best performance. She kept up and beat me several times. Then we switched to Street Fighter, and once again I was surprised to find that she put up a fight. In fact, unless I was playing one of the two characters I’m best with, I was really working hard to win.
The bear is one of my favorites if I’m just messing around… because, come on. A BEAR.
If you’re not familiar with the old-school Street Fighter games at the arcade, whenever a second player puts in a quarter and starts a game against the current player, a message pops up with a shout saying, “Here comes a new challenger!”
That’s what I was hearing in my head as Deborah defeated me a few times.
I can’t wait to get out of my cast and take her on in basketball, which has rapidly become her other favorite game.
Jonathan is no slouch, either. But his strengths are more mechanical. He loves building things, whether with Legos or with various electronics he takes apart (with supervision). Yes, he loves destruction too. He regularly surprises us with new constructs, and briefs us on the multiple special features and components he builds in to each one.
His favorite video game is Plants Vs. Zombies, but he still has that problem-solving mechanical eye when he watches me play. I was working my way through the new Tomb Raider, and at several points where I would be stuck considering how exactly to solve a puzzle, he walked in, looked it over, and pointed out the solution as if it was the most natural and obvious answer. Humbling, for sure.
Justin’s biggest strength seems to be living up to his name, as the family “Fairness Police.” Maybe it’s middle-child-syndrome rearing its ugly head, but Justin definitely protests any imbalance in chores or in rewards. He balances that with giving the most hugs ever (like constantly), so I guess it all works out.
Even Justin has some mad skills with his favorite games. We recently loaded Sonic Dash onto the iPad, and Justin started playing it with glee. It took me several days to get to the point where I could even match his high score, and honestly, that’s probably because I used the coins you earn in-game to upgrade scoring abilities. Justin hasn’t played in a bit; I’m afraid to see what he’ll do with the new powers in game.
Judah is still pretty young, so I’m not sure what skills he’s going to demonstrate. He sure loves to dance and sing to music – fitting based on his name and based on his parents’ musical abilities. He absolutely loves to sit at the piano with me and play (read: pound) notes… but that’s probably true of any two-year-old.
I don’t yet know what to expect from him. However bittersweet it may be, I know that the years will go by in a flash, and in no time, he’ll be showing us where his strengths lie. I want to say I can’t wait to see it, but “almost fourteen” years have flown by already.
I can wait and take it slow, one challenge at a time.
It’s Spring now, officially. That calls for some getting outside and special activities!
Of course, I’m on crutches post-surgery, so that limits our options a bit. But there’s always an excuse to give up, stay home, and do nothing. As tempting as that might be, sometimes convalescing means getting out and enjoying fresh air.
We packed up the kids into the van and drove off for parts unknown – at least to us.
Yes, it’s “Spring,” but it was also a chilly 34 degrees yesterday afternoon when we went out. (I was planning on posting this all day today, but I spent quite a while with a two year old wrapped around my face, so I was further delayed – not such a bad thing!)
It was snowing in the morning yesterday, thankfully none of that stuck around long. Three more potential excuses shot down! “I don’t want to be out in the cold, I don’t want to be in snow in a cast, I don’t want to slip on ice while on crutches…”
We headed through the base after some errands, and I snapped a couple pics of the Offutt parade ground. Most of my co-workers won’t care, because they’ve been to Offutt at one point or another. But many of you will never have that chance. So here’s a pic:
The line of trees along the road next to the parade grounds. I need to get a picture in Autumn!
There are several houses on base that have stood for over a century, dating back to the early days of Fort Crook. At the parade ground pavilion, there are pictures of Army infantry and cavalry formations from the 1900s, with these houses in the background.
One of the houses near the parade grounds – over 100 years old!
My wife loves the architecture, so we snapped a couple pics.
More Offutt history – now converted to visiting officer quarters.
From there, we headed off base and got onto the highway, heading east into Iowa. Jami’s family had a tradition of stopping at the border of new states and taking a picture at the “Welcome to (fill-in-the-blank)” sign. Unfortunately, we crossed a bridge on Highway 80 over the Missouri River, so there was no chance to pull over and snap a picture. But here’s Judah enjoying the ride:
Judah smiles at his big sister as she entertains him on our trip.
Going fifteen minutes down the highway into a neighboring state might seem like no big deal, but for our family, it’s a new concept. We spent eight years on the small-ish tropical island of Okinawa. The freedom to drive around the States is almost overwhelming in comparison!
We took note of a few places to visit in the near future, enjoyed some Blizzards from DQ, and checked out songs from the new Passion and United albums. (I may have also taken advantage of technology to claim a bunch of gold from auctions in World of Warcraft.)
Once we got home, Jonathan went to his friend’s house, and the rest of us walked (crutched) down to the park in the bowl behind our house. It’s enough of a walk that our neighbor even sent out her daughter to tell me I’m crazy for crutching around that far.
Deborah has been excited about playing basketball with her friends, so we took the opportunity to check out her skills.
Deb practicing three-pointers.
Judah got out and ran around, and Justin rode his scooter around the court.
Justin on his Cars scooter
I even took a couple shots. Ok, I took several. It’s surprising how much you need your feet for support.
Our dachshund, Grasshopper, enjoying the outing
I chased Judah a bit – even on crutches, I can catch him on cement, but he beats me on the grass.
Off with a dash, Judah makes his escape.
Dinner time arrived, so we trudged back up the hill to end a very busy day. It may not have felt like warm spring and sunshine, but it was still a great excuse to get outside.
The hill as we headed back home… coming down was easier!
It’s 2 AM and I’m thinking, “There’s still all that writing I planned to do today… I should get it done.” I wanted to post some pics of the family getting out to enjoy the first day of pseudo-Spring… I wanted to post about motivation to get or stay fit, and some of the tools that I’ve found helpful… I thought about getting started on a creative writing piece, and some reflections about how fast my kids are growing up.
Forget all that! Video games! Facebook! Distractions!
I won’t apologize. I hear it’s one of those pathetic blog posts, to say “Oh sorry, I know you all couldn’t live without my meaningless banter all this time. I’ll write more.” I have a life, and so do you. We’ll catch up when we get the chance, digitally or in person. I’m cool with that. You too?
That said, apologies are amusing to me at the moment. Right now, a $60 video game is downloading onto my computer, courtesy of Electronic Arts. When they launched the newest rendition of SimCity – the perfect playground for anyone with a God complex – they screwed the pooch. EA set it up as a dedicated online game, but failed to prepare enough servers to handle the large amount of customers on launch day or in the weeks that followed. They misled their fans about the requirement for constant online access to run the game, claiming it was necessity when in fact their claim has been proven false. The creators turned off a number of features in order to keep the game running, but it was still such a mess that Amazon stopped selling the game until all the problems could be resolved.
This looks about right…
Needless to say, it was less than ideal.
To make up for this failure, EA offered a free digital download out of a selection of games from their portfolio. They put up Battlefield 3, Mass Effect 3, Bejeweled 3, Dead Space 3 (so many 3s!), Medal of Honor: Warfighter, SimCity 4, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, and Plants Vs Zombies.
I won’t go down the list of how many of these I already own on the XBox, but I settled on Dead Space 3. I figure instead of playing it on the XBox with the volume turned down too low for the kids (and thus, me) to hear any of the swearing and screaming, I can pop in headphones and play it on the PC, and I’m paying nothing for the added flexibility.
EA is still the devil. But if it might be a little while till we next catch up, it’s their fault.
Normally I have a Thursday Tirade – usually about some facet of leadership and management in the military.
This week, my tirade was DENIED by my Chief Enlisted Manager, our squadron’s Chief Master Sergeant whose job it is to fight for the needs and interests of the enlisted folk.
I’ve been waiting to get some surgery done on my right foot, and the operation has already been scheduled and postponed once due to the needs of the Air Force. For a month or so, the rescheduled surgery date has been awaiting approval. That approval did not come until 7 PM on the night before the surgery was scheduled. And it did not come except for the hard work and effort of my Chief to fight on my behalf.
I anticipated delaying surgery “one more time,” which I’ve learned usually means “several more ‘one more times.'” I even typed up a lovely rant about it. The vent post was sitting on my iPad, ready to publish as soon as I knew for sure that the answer was “no.” But then, after multiple trips back-and-forth to speak to squadron leadership, my Chief walked in and gave a double thumbs-up.
She read the rant and said, “I’m very glad you didn’t have to post this.”
Me too.
In the past few days, I’ve seen a lot of good news about the Air Force, not just related to my self-centered needs. Though I have said in the past that I fear that there is a general decline in the quality of leadership, there are glimmers of hope. While I’ve seen managers who are unwilling or ignorant to the balance between accomplishing the mission and taking care of people, there are still compassionate senior leaders out there.
Last week, we found out who was selected for Senior Master Sergeant, and I saw a friend’s name on the list. Chris is one of the smartest people I know as far as our job is concerned, and he has always been quick to fight the trend toward silly or unsafe decisions in flying operations. He was one of my first supervisors in the Air Force, and he is definitely one of the few who demonstrated that they cared. He did not accept mediocrity, but he also mentored me to show me how to improve.
Another Senior Master Sergeant selectee is a former co-worker and supervisor from my time at Kadena. Steph is also one of the hardest working people with whom I’ve served. She knew how to push our office to succeed and yet ensured we could relax and have fun when mission requirements permitted it. She exemplified our squadron’s unofficial motto of “work hard, play hard,” and she led our office and our squadron to some amazing accomplishments as a result. On the personal level, she fought for me and my needs, but she also fought against my procrastination and laziness to force me to be a better NCO.
My neighbor across the street is also on the selection list. When my family moved across the world from Okinawa to Nebraska, we had no sponsor, no official welcome or assistance with how to find our way around a new base. We moved into our new house on base, and our next-door neighbor literally turned his back and pretended like he did not see us. But not Charlie. He saw me struggling a few days later with the ice and snow that had built up in our driveway, and he immediately came out to help with an ice-breaking tool. He’s the guy who pushes a snow blower around the neighborhood, clearing out driveways and sidewalks for about ten families in addition to his own. In the back of his house, he has a virtual farm of fresh produce growing through the warmer months, and several times this year, he has brought over extra fruit and vegetables to us and to other neighbors because “Hey, what am I going to do with all of this?” He genuinely seems to enjoy helping others.
And yesterday, while sitting with my foot in a splint, I hopped on Facebook to discover that one of the best officers I’ve had the pleasure of serving under just got selected for Colonel. In my experience, John was a no-nonsense leader who knew how to get things done. But more than that, he knew how to prioritize what needed to be done in order for us to succeed, and he tried hard to keep us from dealing with time-wasting projects. He showed great leadership and yet remained approachable.
Is everything great in my little corner of the Air Force? As we deal with sequestration and budget cuts, with aging airframes and low retention rates, with an ever-decreasing pool of experience, it’s definitely become more difficult to keep up with demands. When we get managers that seem to care about nothing more than their next performance report, it’s hard at times to remain motivated.
So it’s with great pleasure that I see some of the future leaders we’re raising up, and it gives me hope.
I don’t have a rant today, and yes, Chief, I’m very happy about that.
Here are some words you probably didn’t hear in the news recently:
“Some kids had some automatic weapons they didn’t need.” – First Lady Michelle Obama
The quote comes from an unedited version of an ABC interview. In context, she’s talking about the tragic death of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendelton in Chicago.
This sounds like a problem! Good lord, why would we leave automatic weapons in the hands of children? Isn’t there a law against that? Can’t we do something to stem the tide of automatic weapons flowing into the hands of our sweet children?
Thankfully, ABC was helpful (like all good unbiased media should be, right?). They edited the interview “for time” before airing it on Good Morning America. By “edited for time” I mean that they took out seven seconds of words from two segments lasting over eight and a half minutes. And the seven seconds were the quote you see in italics above, helpfully removed mid-sentence with a visual cutaway to cover the edit for viewers at home.
Ain’t technology grand?
The context of the quote, from the Fox article: “She was absolutely right. She did everything she was supposed to do. She was standing in a park, with her friends, in a neighborhood blocks away from where my kids grew up, where our house is. And she was caught in the line of fire. I just don’t want to keep disappointing our kids in this country. I want them to know that we put them first.”
The original unedited quote was “she was caught in the line of fire because some kids had some automatic weapons they didn’t need.”
First off, yes, it’s a Fox News article that’s drawing on a piece from the Washington Times. I can guess what my liberal friends are thinking. “Right wing agenda! Tea Party propaganda!” And I fell for it! Oh noes!
Wait, how is it a Right wing agenda to point out that ABC happily covered up a glaring error in the First Lady’s understanding of this tragedy? Was it Right wing propaganda to point out edits made to Romney campaign speeches in order to paint him as an out-of-touch buffoon? Were we falling for the deceptions of the Right when we learned about NBC editing the 911 call made by George Zimmerman?
And isn’t the whole point of the media (of whatever stripe) to report the actual facts (as if there are other kinds of facts), not their particular slant and their edited made-for-target-audience version of events?
Is Fox guilty of stuff like this? Probably. I’m sure they like making the Right look good, just like ABC and others try to put the Left in a positive light. I’m no Fox clone, unable to see their position and their bias in reporting. You’ll note that I also linked to a CNN political article in this post.
What I’m saying is, I expect it to be a rule of media that they report what actually happened. If the facts and the tapes don’t tell the story you want, that’s too bad. You don’t get to edit the evidence to paint the picture of reality you want.
(Likewise, dear White House, you don’t get to threaten the press when they report the facts. I guess I can see why ABC would be so eager to edit the interview and help the First Lady save face.)
Technology gives us tremendous tools to get the word out about a given event at unprecedented speeds compared to how news traveled throughout history. But with that power comes responsibility to stick to the truth, not edit it to suit our whims.
You too can create an artistic masterpiece… or not.
A while back, my wife was buying arts and crafts supplies for our children, and she found a Paint By Numbers kit that lets the user create a rough copy of a famous artist’s masterpiece. It was an interesting project for my daughter, who loves all sorts of art. And I appreciate the idea – you can enjoy painting without requiring amazing skill as an artist. Paint By Numbers isn’t “real” art in the sense of something the artist completely creates. Everyone knows that, so no one minds.
But if you try to pass off a Paint By Numbers project as indicative of your artistic talent and creativity, now we have a problem.
A former Air Force intel officer and a current economist, Kane looks at what the military does right in developing leaders, and what it does wrong in managing its people. The basic point is that the best and brightest of the military officer corps are leaving at higher rates than anyone expects, and the assumption is that the same is true of the enlisted. Kane makes the case that while the military is attracting better recruits than ever, it is at the same time hemorrhaging them out as soon as the minimum commitment is up.
I can’t imagine why.
There are two problems with the sort of “leadership” that often gets promoted in today’s military. We emphasize big numbers over real accomplishments, and we demand that future leaders conform to the mold of the past. Paint inside the pre-made lines, please. Don’t worry, we gave you 100% more paint colors than you had before.
We look for metrics and spreadsheets to tell the story of our success, which inherently leads to quantity over quality. Everything must be quantifiable. A “smart” leader knows this, and does whatever it takes to improve key numbers, even at the expense of quality. An upwardly mobile leader knows how to walk the fine line of avoiding by any documented decline in quality while doing everything possible to increase the numbers further. I don’t want to rehash old posts, so… moving on.
Performance reports are functionally useless. The smallest effort can be spun into an amazing “accomplishment” in a report, painting the required pretty picture even though everyone involved knows the individual has no actual talent.
We have a system that encourages checking boxes and telling a good story more than actual decisive leadership and management. There’s a “right” career path, and our young enlisted and officer personnel are told that if you do these things, you will be on the track to swift promotion. We don’t always look back to see the actual performance of the individual. We just look for those key achievements and milestones.
Leaders are judged based on these inflated reports and one-dimensional metrics, but no one considers the human cost involved. Three of the four folks who do my job practically live on painkillers to keep working, because they genuinely love our job. And yet we push harder and try to do more with less. We break individuals because we know we can pull another individual from somewhere else in order to keep getting our quantity and our high rates. Or we ignore people’s needs to meet the mission goal, without realizing that the people are the ones that make the mission successful.
None of this is surprising or new.
And yet the military continues to hang up Paint By Numbers leaders on prominent display in the art gallery. Too often, we reward and promote the managers who do the most harm to their people, because the story the numbers tell looks so good on paper. When the news of an award or promotion creates audible anguish in the form of screams and cries of “WTF” from offices, when individuals at every level question what’s happening and shake their heads in secret, then maybe something important is missing.
Leadership is not a science. There’s no equation for it, no perfect recipe to bake the “leadership” cake. You cannot measure out two cups of reward, plus one cup of discipline, three ounces of compassion and one pinch tenacity.
Leading people is an art form. It takes time and effort to improve. More importantly, it takes compassion for those we lead, and passion for the goal we’re leading them to achieve. Leadership requires vision.
Don’t hang up a Paint By Numbers picture in an art gallery and call it a masterpiece. Likewise, please don’t lead by numbers and call it visionary.
The home of David M. Williamson, writer of fantasy, sci-fi, short stories, and cultural rants.
