A633.9.3 Polyarchy Reflections

    Hierarchal and oligarchy systems of leadership have their reason and purpose for implementation.  In some cases, these types of leadership are logical like war or primary education.  This type of system has been around since man starting to organize (Obolensky, 2016).  These systems mean that a few or one person leads the organization or institution.  One could even argue that there are systems that exist in markets or in top companies that dominate over the Fortune 500 (Melville, 2011).  These companies are so massive and so large that other companies struggle to compete without the capital needed to overcome.  When the conditions are right to drive an organization to use these type of systems, there is usually a demand for more directive leadership and trust and empowerment is restricted to a few instead of the whole.  

   While these systems could be logical depending on the situation, the world is increasingly complex, and companies are so large that these systems cannot be sustained by the few.  These conditional and redundant systems need a fresh look on leadership and development of the organization.  Good modern leaders recognize the need to adapt, to empower, to entrust and to allow the complex to grow.  These leaders set the conditions instead of the conditions setting the company.  They create the boundaries and set the limits rather than the environment establishing the norms.  Leaders recognize a need to "let go" and prevent micromanagement.  Large organizations should consider looking at the whole and ensure that the processes are complete rather than doing (Obolesky, 2016).   Companies can now centralize management into just one of many nodes throughout the chaos.  

   Throughout the last few weeks there has been extensive study in poligarchy system applied to complex adaptive systems.  In this model, I have learned how to react to nodes throughout the complex.  I absorbed the idea that leaders establish the conditions and allow the forces to execute.  This is a long time coming in my leadership development.  I have recently, changed my lexicon from I to We in my organization.  Learning how to use those nodes that help me lead such as my family node, my problem-solving node, my peer group node, and my team nodes, all provide guidance when I need it.  Over the past two decades, my definition of leadership has changed.  This realization has enabled me to understand what my position of leadership means.  I am not alone, and leadership is not done in a vacuum.  This class is the first of many in complex adaptive systems. I hope that this program will help me understand the nodes in my complex and rely on them when the organization needs their help.  Over the next three years, I will retire from the Air Force, the relationships that I establish today will matter tomorrow.  Today is a new start in my development.  

   My strategy going forward is to establish my own molecules of influence to pull from.  To establish my own conditions of leadership and bounds for my team to operate in.  I hope that I can inspire, motivate and mentor those around me in the CAS model.  Leadership is not a solo project and is not restricted to the few.  As I enter the next phase of my life, my complex will grow and my leadership in uniform will dwindle.  It is up to me to figure out how to change the balance.   

References

Melville, A. (2011). Oligarchy. In B. BadieD. Berg-Schlosser & L. Morlino (Eds.), International encyclopedia of political science (pp. 1739-1742). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781412959636.n399

Obolensky, N. (2016). Complex Adaptive Leadership. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Ramos, J. (2017). Oligarchy. In F. Moghaddam (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of political behavior (pp. 555-558). Thousand Oaks,, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781483391144.n250

A633.8.3 How to better enable leadership

Enabled leadership through conversation

Over the past few weeks, I have explored what makes a good coach. What made them remarkable and why. Coaches, leaders and mentors of mine that I remember throughout my life all pushed me to go further.  These selective few stand out because they made me think about my own reflection.  They pushed me to reach my own goals.  They worked with me to create my own action plan through carefully narrowing my focus, collecting my reality, and helping me make informed decisions.  Throughout our lives we remember coaches and leaders that motivated, drove, guided and mentored us. These leaders knew how to help us achieve our goals.  They adapted their own style to help each individual reach their goals while accomplishing the overall strategy of the institution.  Open-ended questions help guide the leader and the follower into and through their action plans.  These questions concentration the follower and help shape the goal, establish origins of reality, develop individual plans and tug at the willpower of the follower. Goal setting is the first step for any good leader and follower, this helps establish the initial vector in the complex (Obolensky, 2016).  The follower must also understand their origin on the path to accomplish that job. Working together the leader and the follower develop options that help provide the magnitude of the vector. With a good vector and strong magnitude, the players’ morale and willpower to accomplish the principle direction could remain high.  

As mentioned in this week’s assignment, at my current organization, there are a lot of senior leaders that hesitate to give the nodes in the complex empowered and coached leadership, yet it is desired.  The military as a whole is designed to be a hierarchal society and there is often little room for self-driven goals.  In my observation, the organization and the workforce are performance driven by the leader and the organization and it is not common to find individually motivated goals.  There is a constant competition to be better than the next and to have the next rank or title.  This could be in part because of the very nature of the military society is hierarchal leadership and promotions are often performance based not individual self-actualization.  The strategy of workforce is narrowly and linearly directed on the mission and then the people.  Strategy development is conceived by ranking military and civilian leaders instead of flowing from the bottom-up.  The impacts to this linear performance goal and task orientation could be the willpower, morale and motivation of the followers. 

 Everyone from frontline supervisors to senior staff are encouraged to want to achieve this mission, sometimes at great cost.  One of the most difficult challenges for leadership is to have the courage to admit strengths and weakness, shortcomings and talents (Leadership reality, 2014).  Situational leadership drives the goal of the team rather adaptive path-goal for the individual in a complex environment.  Therefore, in my military opinion, many supervisors at all levels “fake it to you make it” and the word “no” is seldom heard, even if the leaders knows that the follower is not prepared to accomplish the goal.  The follower and the leader have to be able to master the courage to investigate the goals, reality, options and willpower to succeed (Scott, 2014).  Leaders at all levels need to coach their people with high self-driven expectation through ambiguous task characteristics (Northouse, 2016). 

In my role as the Senior Enlisted Advisor, my mission is the people first and mission always.  I can lead, guide, and mentor the people that work for me.  More importantly, I hope that I can inspire them to reach their own goals.  There are so many people in the organization that it becomes almost a default position for deliberate planning with checkpoints along the way.  In this case, my role becomes more of a guiding light to ensure that they are reaching their maximum potential.  While to some this might seem as an lazy approach to leadership it actually becomes motivational for the follower.           

References

How to see your current leadership reality (2014). . Fountainebleau: INSEAD. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/1582289286?accounti    =27203

Northhouse, P. (2016) Leadership; Theory and Practice 7^thEdition. SAGE Publications. 

Obolensky, N. (2016). Complex Adaptive Leadership. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Scott, S. (2014). The reality in leadership. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 114(5), S28-S29. doi:10.1016/j.jand.2014.02.026

A633.7.4 How do Coaches help

Have you ever interacted with a coach that is so memorable that twenty or thirty years later you still reflect on lessons?  We walk through the halls of leadership schools and academia and there are motivational posters and meme's online that are all inspiring and emotional.  This is a coaches job, to enable us to push through the problem (key word--US).  A good coach is a mentor and trusted advisor, a good , someone to push us to improve to GROW, someone that pushes us past our own limits to solve the problems  (Northouse, 2016).  Take for example, my high school track coach.  When I was fifteen, I was afraid of him, until I got to know him, I would follow this man into war if he asked.  I admired him with all the strength I could muster.  Though he was tuff, he led me, he pushed me to "run my race", to "race yourself" and finally "there is no one else but you on that track."  These immortal words still haunt and pushed me.  This is the coach I remember, this is coach that demanded yet cared. 

Now several decades later I am reminded of qualities of a good coach.  A good coach is about building the follower to accomplish long term capability (Passmore, 2010) or "coaching is the long game."  A good coach should inspire, create the momentum toward the vision and help the follower see the strategy (Hicks, 2011).  A good coach asks the tug questions, what is the goal, what is the reality (current), what are the options and what is your will to achieve these goals (Obolensky, 2016). This is how we move through life, this is what we remember.  For example, during my track years, I had a goal of running a sub-ten minute two mile, this was my goal.  I trained everyday for years, I trained everyday during the summer.  I knew that my reality was I needed to run faster after the first 800m.  I needed to learn to sprint the segments.  My coach put this into options for me, he broke it down in bite size pieces.  He used what skill and will I had and turned it into an evolution for me.  We set our sights on the long game and risked the short game (the week by week results) into a journey towards this evolution.  It was not until my senior year, that I broke the ten minute mark and set the school record.  I worked for four years to break that record. 

 A coach needs to understand how to push and pull the relationship between the reality and the end game.  My coach took my reality and created strength points, create a long game to improve what I already had, he used my willpower to plow through the task.  He sharpened my options to allow me to achieve the goal.  This is what arching is all about.  This GROW "coaching" method can be used over and over again throughout leadership.  This is why we remember our coaches, not because of their attributes but rather our own seen through their eyes.     

References

Hicks, R., PhD., & McCracken, J., PhD. (2011). Coaching as a leadership style.Physician Executive, 37(5), 70-2.

Northhouse, P. (2016) Leadership; Theory and Practice 7^thEdition. SAGE Publications. 

Obolensky, N. (2016). Complex Adaptive Leadership. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Passmore, J. (Ed.). (2010). Leadership coaching : working with leaders to develop elite performance. 

A633.7.3 RB leader-follower relationship

As I feared all along, I needed more leadership skills and development through my military career.  During the past few weeks.  I have had a wonderful opportunity to study complex adaptive system (CAS) and its application to leadership.  Leadership is an art form, that takes years of study and complicated research to apply the right brush stroke to the right canvas at the right time.  Throughout the study of CAS, I have learned about balance in Ying/Yang, balancing the delicate paint brush on the canvas hard when needed and softly when necessary.  In the quiz at the beginning of chapter 10, in Obolensky's book on CAS, I scored almost straight across the top half in Involvement leadership and Selling (2016).  This is neither right nor wrong, it is just my application to fit my leadership currently.  This quiz is a building block applied to the Situational Leadership model developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard.  This model has four quadrants of leadership styles depending on the purpose or situations (Vecchio, R. & Thompson, G., 2017).  Situational leadership is about letting the situation drive the approach and staying flexible enough to do so. (Northouse, 2016) When overlaid with the Ying and Yang model, I score well in Involvement and Selling however I score low in Telling and Devolving.  This could mean that I work too hard and am more emotional connected to the people and not the mission and have a hard time disconnecting from the problems.  THIS IS TRUE!!!

Throughout the past few years, my emotional connection to the problems have led to difficult marriage, a rocky relationship with work and a separation from friends.  I worked hard so that no one else had too.  I gave my heart and soul into project development and research at my own risk of will.  While my team and I had a high skill sets we just simply ran out of will.  In the CAS model it would behoove us to adapt, to change the pull relationship to a balanced push and pull.  Since I took my current leadership position, I had to reference this over and over.  Reminding myself that life is about balance, find a strength in character to endure through the storm, know when to paint with depth and know when to paint with breadth.  This is what I have learned over the past few weeks.  That it is not about how much energy you are spending towing the line but rather how much energy you spent keeping the balance in the system (Sorry, so many bad puns).  

I believe that my scores in this quiz are less about why this leadership model applies currently to me but rather the deeper definition and contributing factors that lead to this.  I am tired, my mind, body and soul has gone through so much that it is hard for me to actually WANT to do a project.  In the CAS model, I need to balance this relationship, to remind my motivation and get to a point where I can let go.  Let go of the stress, let go of the informational and positional power and spend time polishing not policing.  This is where I need to be, and this is where I need to go.   My work will increase in perfromance and where I am in strategic leadership will hopefully produce more sound doctrine to set the stage for the future.    

Balance is hard for me but needs to occur for work, for my family and for my mind.  

References

Northhouse, P. (2016) Leadership; Theory and Practice 7^thEdition. SAGE Publications. 

Obolensky, N. (2016). Complex Adaptive Leadership. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Vecchio, R. & Thompson, G. (2017). Situational leadership theory. In S. Rogelberg (Ed.), The     SAGE encyclopedia of industrial and organizational psychology, 2nd edition (pp. 1446     1447)

A633.6.4 Circle of Leadership

The vicious circle for leaders as described by Obolensky describes my military career, my ups and downs and my cycle of willpower.  The cycle is a harsh dose of reality for many senior leaders as well as any level of follower. It is a cycle that haunts the rooms of the Pentagon and sours productivity in local business.  The cyclical process is repeated over and over again, the follower produces, seeks advice, the leader gets “concerned” and gets more involved and the followers confidence is lowered and repeats.  This is because the follower is not empowered and entrusted with return and the leader decides to get more involved.  This is negative leadership and followership is stuck (Obolensky, 2016).

            This has happened to me to a point where my morale, my love for what I was doing and my expectation in myself was affected. The cycle is permeant until either the follower or the leader breaks the momentum.  This is especially true in the hierarchal system of the United States Military, it is relentless, impacting morale welfare and lives.  This played true in my life and career over and over again. In my current organization, this cycle continues, and followers are held captive by this cycle.  Division chiefs are continuously getting involved and the followers are asking for direction instead of the follower presenting new ideas and routinely updating the senior staff.  This authoritative leadership approach is micromanagement at its finest, it is intervention instead of positive reinforcement.    

       Another model to observe the relationship between the leader and the follower could be allowing the leader to give constructive feedback to the task at hand.  A different approach could be leadership models that allow for adaption from the leader to the follower like those described my Northouse (2016).  Path-goal theory (PGT) is a leadership approach that adapts to the changing needs of the follower.  PGT gives the leader and the follower directive, supportive, participative or achievement orientation through follow-up/feedback (2016).  The leader needs to be adaptive, flexible and give trusted followers feedback in this adaption.  Given this a new example of a cycle orientation/feedback and adaptive followership is listed below:

     This diagram has both the leader and follower empowered to make independent decisions.  It presumes that the leader and the follower are organized, trained and equipped to accomplish the task/mission/work without directly intervening.  This cycle enables both the leader and the follower to “follow-up” and provide feedback across the complex.  It provides a way to achieve Level V followership through routine feedback from the leader and the follower.  It is not micromanagement and neither is it laissez-faire, instead it is involvement with empowerment.  This cycle could be formed in any leadership and follower work center and across all work centers, it is agnostic to the division of labor or the amount of people involved. It is hard to accomplish this cycle but I have seen this in action.  I have witnessed this guidance-to-assessment work and easies the burden of leadership while empowering the follower.     

References

Northhouse, P. (2016) Leadership; Theory and Practice 7^thEdition. SAGE Publications. 

Obolensky, N. (2016). Complex Adaptive Leadership. New York: Taylor & Francis.

A633.5.3 RB Reflections on Chaos

Chaos theory in leadership is a result from a mathematic equation applied to a complex process.  Chaos theory can be applied to anything and any field.  This theory broken down to its lowest form is basically a non-linear, unpredictable set of occurrences that if viewed from the random seem unrelated when observed from the whole are interconnected and interwoven (Singh, H., & Singh, A., 2002).  For example, the universe or the big bang, of even the way coffee looks in a cup.  Chaos theory in the information and digital age creates a place every-more "chaotic" then the all other models.  Traditional hierarchal and patriarchal leadership models no longer describe what the environment of society looks or acts like (Ates, 2015).  The application of chaotic methods comes close to describing modern markets and how everything from the producer to the consumer is connected, even the smallest of changes in the markets can have ripple affects throughout the globe.   

A simplified drill of chaos in motion with the application of adaptable leadership is to gather 50 people or so in a large room and ask them to equally separate from 2 other people equally spaced.  While this seems relatively impossible, eventually an adaptive leader, evolves.  Most of the populace will scoff at this experiment and its complexity but somehow with a few minutes the puzzle is solve (Obolensky, N., 2016).  If at the end, we were to look down from the ceiling to the heads of the individuals we would see nodal crossings and interconnected webs fabrics, while the individual might only see those next to him.  Next try drawing an intersect lines from each of the participates heads.  We would find a very complex organism with interconnections and no single origin, this is chaos, it has patterens, shapes yet are only observed as a whole.  It is this experiment that shows how confusing chaos can be (initially) yet it also demonstrates how adaptive the theory can be when a leader lead through the experiment.  

An subset of chaos is the butterfly affect which goes something like if a butterfly flapping its wings in Argentina causes a tornado in Kansas.  While this is far fetch, chaos mathematics allows this to happen, it is what shapes strategies or national policies, from the highest forms of government to the connected foundational enlisted.  Chaos in leadership is just as complex in the miltiary and requires that leaders and followers adapt to the environment that is always changing around them.  Take for example a stupid prison guard snapping a picture in a far prison, this same picture and the actions of a few change the face of global policies and treatment of non-combatants.  It directly attributes to an upheaval in local violence and is debated in the halls of the United Nations (Bakir, 2017).  This picture changes the way that American forces react, it changes the ideas of the war, with a simple jpeg.  My entire idea of chaotic strategy changed.            

A good leader adapts to the complex chaos instead of trying to exert authority or situational leadership over it.  Peter Northhouse describes this as Adaptive Leadership, he defines this type of leadership as follower centered.  He emphasizes how followers can solve problems in their own nodes.  It is best suited for chaos because it requires followers to respond to the environment rather than being instructed how in a linear way.  Illustrating the same experiment as earlier applied to a massive Fortune 500 company like Apple or Wal-Mart.  That same 50 people becomes thousands spread throughout the world.  The price of lithium in China is interconnected to the American consumer battery repair, the system adapts to this change and chaos flourishes.  Chaos theory is complex, but it is not complicated.  It is up to the adaptive leader to learn how to navigate through the unknown.  I use chaos theory everyday sometimes without knowing or without understanding.  Chaos theory is an outstanding view of how the National Space Defense Center operates everyday.  

References

Ateş H. (2015) Managing Successful Projects to Prevent Chaos and Complexity in Organizations. In: Erçetin Ş., Banerjee S. (eds) Chaos, Complexity and Leadership 2013. Springer Proceedings in Complexity. Springer, Cham

Bakir, V. (2017). Abu Ghraib. In P. Joseph (Ed.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives (Vol. 1, pp. 1-5). Los Angeles: SAGE Reference.

Northhouse, P. (2016) Leadership; Theory and Practice 7^thEdition. SAGE Publications. 

Obolensky, N., (2016). Complex adaptive leadership: Embracing paradox and uncertainty. Burlington, Vt;Farnham, Surrey;: Gower

Singh, H., & Singh, A. (2002). Principles of complexity and chaos theory in project execution: Anew approach to management. Cost Engineering, 44(12), 23-32.   

A633.4.2 RB Changing Dynamics of Leadership.

   "Energy is the carrier wave of change (Pater, 2015)."  Leaders modulate the carrier wave to move the organization through the spectrum.  This modulation requires change and pulse energy for the company to produce, that is a leader’s job.  This change is both necessary and continual.  A constant shift in consciousness strengthens our capacity to adapt, it unlocks the complexity of leadership, supporting our new adaptive strategies.  

   This shift in consciousness gives leaders today a complex system even before they "take the seat."  Forming a new modulation to the wave form, becoming adaptive to the spectrum.  Adaption of modern leaders is essential for survival (Wayne, 2018).  New leaders today have instant communication with virtually any subject matter expert they might need.  In the past, leaders did not have this instant relationship power.  Author, Annabel Beerel writes in her book, Leadership and Change Management, that in order to survive companies should ensure the relationship power (Beerel, 2009).  Relationship power can come in many forms one of those is change and change management in new leaders.  Leadership in the modern era is not a single "King" commanding the monarchy rather it is living organism that contains many different components of the network (which of course could be guided, mentored and driven by a senior person).  

  Leadership is no longer contain in a vacuum and in order to unlock the potential leaders need to recognize that they are not alone, leaders are held up by others.  Leaders build their webs throughout their life, those trusted advisors that support them.  Even the highest office in the United States government is not "ruled" by one single person, the president office of the United States has gone through many evolutions from leading the 13 colonies to leading in the 21st century.  The presidency is larger than just one person, the president is the director, the facilitator, the chief adaptor and national representative through complex process of government (Wayne, 2018).  Theories of leadership have varied greatly over the last few centuries that have tried to encompass this paradigm shift, one of the newest theories is Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS).  Future leaders, high school, colleges students, and even new military recruits apply this theory everyday (unknowingly).  They are weaving, forging and molding their complex system.  

  Strategies are inherently complex, adaptive and carried out by leaders that thrive in that environment.  Strategies that allow for new modulation scheme are more relevant, prevalent and inspiring.  Companies have to complex strategies that are open-minded and malleable to the demand signal.  For example, Apple for example was a a small computer company in 1976, and struggle to get out Microsoft shadow.  It did not hold a corner of the market and leaders seemed to be one step behind.  It was not until 2003 timeframe, when the company reinvented itself and became the world leaders in mobile digital music.  Steve jobs, broaden the scope of Apple, he opened the world to new ways of mobile music, smart phones and tablets (Air, 2012).  Companies like Apple and Jobs work together to create a giant company that is interwoven in the fabric of this century.  

 While I do not purpose that the I will ever run a company as large as Apple, I can use visionary leadership to shape the consciousness of my own organization.  I can rely on the complexities that do happen to help guide, mentor and develop my own replacements.   For example I recently went to the Senior Non-Commissioned Officer Academy (SNCOA).  During my time there, I meet new people and expanded my social network of leadership by 25%, in fact to put this another way, my LinkedIn network increase by 125 people.  I almost immediately started to reach out to those folks cutting my list to those "could help" and those "that just wanted to connect."  In regard to the former, we did not even make it back to base before we started to rely on each other’s values, opinions and advise.  Social networks give me virtual boards of directors from finance to operations, I realized how important that social strength was to me and my leadership growth.  I am bombarded with opinions and can instantly reach out to subject matter experts to help with any situation.  This does not make me a weak leader instead it puts me in a position to drop the charade of leadership and accept better ways and feedback. The energy of an organization is a wave, that is begging to be modulated.  

References

Beerel, A. (2009). Leadership and change management. Retrieved    from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Nair, P. B., & Leng, Q. A. (2012). The sweet and sour apple: Thecase of CEO strategies at apple inc. Vidwat, 5(1), 21.

Pater, R. (2015). Advanced culture change leadership. Professional Safety, 60(9), 24-26. Retrieved from 

http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/1709999607?accountid=27203

Wayne, S. J. (2018). Presidency, the. In S. Bronner (Ed.), Encyclopedia of American studies. MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/jhueas/presidency_the/0?institutionId=951

   

633.3.3 Complex Adaptive Systems

Most of the Fortune 500 companies, are arguably complex systems that require different leadership styles.  Companies like Morning Star, Apple, Wal-Mart and Amazon are complex organisms that are not simple linear diagrams.  A good company model that demonstrates the CAS model is number 18 on the Fortune 500 list, Kroger (Fortune 500, 2018).  Kroger is one of the nation's largest grocery retailer.  This giant company was founded in 1883 by Benard Kroger, a loud mouth entrepreneur who wanted to lower the price of groceries (Mancini, 2015).  It is now the top twenty Fortune company that owns everything from Kwiki-Stops and Littman jewelry stores.  The Kroger Company owns 38 manufacturing plants and has coast to coast partnership with other grocery companies.  This is a complex system that requires key strategies to focus down from the large mega-company to the store owners.  

    The current CEO of Kroger Rodeny McCullen was named as one of the best CEO's in 2014 by CNN.  His humble demeanor and customer first strategies have made Kroger a War-Mart competitor.  McCullen was the first to introduce loyalty cards for customers, enticing them to come back.  Kroger and McCullen introduced a new culture, forging new strategies but focused on the fundamentals.  Kroger's empire is not just about the bottom-line, on their main home page the Kroger company is committed to the the customers health, the environment and ease of the experience, in an attempt to be different in their strategy.  Kroger has also made way for technological adaptions in their grocery stores like ClickList (on-line shopping and pickup service) and grocery delivery (Factbook, 2018).  In fact, just this morning I used ClickList and then bought gas at a discounted rate from a Kroger store. 

    The Kroger values include, honesty, diversity, integrity, value (pricing), and inclusion.  These terms as a fundamental plane stabilize the shopping experience. They keep the associates grounded in moral responsibilities inside of the complex.  The strategy that Kroger has defined is uniquely different from that of other discounted services in that it wants the customer feedback and accepts the challenge to change from the normal and the known to the unknown and the different.  

    In my experience in the Air Force, change is not fast and the roadmap did not allow for logical off-ramps and strategy was built in stove-pipe linear systems and programs.  Change was made slowly and different is an anomaly.  The military does not do different fast, changes in strategy is made very slowly, especially in Air Force Space Command.  The scars of paralysis by analysis still torment the command’s functionality.  This is further illustrated in Martin-Reeves TED talk, he discusses the highly insufficient strategies that are narrowly focused, and are not adaptive, visionary and stagnate.  For example, it was not until the post-9/11 world that AFSPC stop having a Cold War mentality about acquisitions, this continued for decades.  Until recently, AFSPC had been a supporting role in others domains, a sudo service provider.  Since 2016, AFSPC has been trying to change its image, to change its mentality, to change its culture.  AFSPC is trying to establish a new “roadmap” to ensure deliberately develop new Airman and new systems in the new domain (Space, 2016).

  In conclusion, Complex Adaptive System is a new leadership model that applies advanced mathematics to new modern markets.  Modern technological leaps have catapulted companies, militaries, governments into complex organisms with multiple touch points are cross, bend and intertwine.  Arguably all of the Fortune 500 companies fall into the CAS model.  Companies like Kroger, whose reach includes everything from manufacturing and produce to jewelry companies.  The Kroger Company as a whole attempts to stay ahead of technological advances, consumers and even environmental trends by building stores and values that are centered on these three things.  The company has short and long term strategies that guide around these three things in a SMART manner.  The US military, specifically AFSPC did not move like that.  The strategies took time and caught many people off guard, the results meant that the systems, people and logistics did not keep up with the adversary.  I hope with a new outlook and a adaptive strategy we will be better prepared for the future.  

References

"Kroger Company." Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History, edited by Thomas Riggs, 2nd    ed., vol. 2,Gale, 2015, pp. 698-699. Gale Virtual Reference Library, 

                        

Facebook, Kroger (2018) https://www.thekrogerco.com/wp     content/uploads/2017/08/TheKrogerFactBook_2016.pdf

Fortune 500: Number 18 Kroger http://fortune.com/fortune500/kroger/

Mancini, C., Salamie, D., & Steinke, R. (2015). The kroger co

Space Command Public Affairs. (2016). Hyten announces space enterprise vision. 

    (). Washington: Federal Information & News Dispatch, Inc.

A633.3.4 Complexity Science

    This weeks blog is the evolution of the complexity in the U.S. Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) enterprise.  As the youngest Major Command in the Air Force, Space Command has rapidly expanded its mission and support from a predominately supporting command to other war fighting domains to only recently over the past 2 years, given this trajectory, the command will evolve in that mold over the next ten years.  Since I joined space operations in 2005, I have seen the ups and downs, the convergences and divergence of ideas, missions, strategies, complexities, and yes, even complicated issues.  I have had the awesome privilege of working in key development and leadership positions to set in motion some of command's evolutions.  Even today, I worked as the Senior Enlisted Leader, in the very beginnings of a new Task Force.  I have witnessed new space centers develop, new weapon systems created and missions change.   

  During the early years of the Space Command, the Regan Administration, the Command was preparing to fight in a nuclear exchange with a near-peer nation.  Then the technological boom of the 90's put in motion a posture putting AFSPC in a more supporting role to the combat Air Forces.  Then 9/11 changed everything for the entire military, AFPSC could no longer could take the back seat.  We started to deploy sometimes without guidance and strategy.  I deployed several times during these years, without a strategy without training.  Modern warfare was complex and without strategy it was complicated.    

   AFSPC needed to transform rapidly, without an accurate and measurable strategy for many years to keep up with the demand.  AFSPC got caught in bureaucratic processes and became stale (Stumborg, 2006).  It needed to transform into something else, something more streamlined, something with a vision statement that compliments the modern complexities.  Recently, the former commander of AFPSC now the Commander Strategic Command, wrote in 2016 that AFSPC needed to re-posture and re-orgnaize in a war fighting mentality, changing its culture (Johnson-Freese, 2016).  When I participated in the writing of the construct we received direct feedback from Combatant Commands, wing commanders, squadron commanders and senior enlisted advisors that we were behind, we needed to evolve.  Feedback from commander revolved that AFSPC had become stagnant and stuck in its own process    

  This feedback was felt from the White House to a tactical commander.  This new construct drives the culture, set the pace, and establishes new acquisition strategies to match.  AFSPC could no longer depend on process to catch up.  We developed systems faster than ever.  The space operations crews transformed with this pace, we trained differently, we engaged differently, we deliberately developed.  General Hyten published a new vision developed from feedback, called the Space Enterprise Vision (Space, 2016) .  This developed the origins that we needed, created a principle direction and fundamental plane.  Now AFSPC had a coordinate system to build a new architecture.

  Since then, we have moved an pace I have never witnessed.  We developed our own Joint Force Space Component, we developed our own center for defense, we have streamlined the acquisition framework.  While slow to build up steam, the enterprise is slowly starting to move.  I think in the next ten years, we will have a solid space defense plan, we will have trained personnel to engage in "in-blind" wars, we will see space as a dominate domain   Space warfare is coming and we will be prepared, through solid strategies and constructs to hang our new framework on.  I am training young troops now that will be in command in ten years, to make crucial timely decisions and deliberately plan for the worst contingencies.              

References

• Johnson-Freese, J. (2016). A space mission force for the global commons of space. The SAIS Review of International Affairs, 36(2), 5.

• Space Command Public Affairs. (2016). Hyten announces space enterprise vision. (). Washington: Federal Information & News Dispatch, Inc.

Stumborg, M. F. (2006). Air force space command: A transformation case study. Air & Space Power Journal, 20(2), 79

A633.2.3RB Butterfly Effect

    Everything we as leaders do, say, and act upon has consequences that are measurable in short, immediate and long terms and interwoven into the complexities of the organization.  An order to chaos is the butterfly effect, where a poor butterfly in brazil could cause a tornado in Texas (Lorenz, 1972). Edward Lorenz wrote this theory in order to better study meteorological events however it is used across the fields today.  Leaders are both the butterfly and the tornado.  We remember the leaders that led greatly, but we also remember the leaders that led poorly, we are distilled with the fingerprints of our leaders.  We adapt to repeated qualities and adopt dependable qualities or as Johnson writes "coded".  We focus on extremes and strip away the details.  I cannot tell you what my first supervisor in the military looked liked or even remember his last name.  I can tell you how he treated me and what I learned from him and then reflected on my own troops years later (and one supposes that the pattern continues and continues).  Small changes impacts peoples/organizations futures, "yield large results (Oboloensky, 2016)."  Changing the simple initial conditions can have huge effects on the results (Lorenz, 2017).  This simple yet chaotic effect is absolutely true in leadership/follower-ship.  The impacts that a leader has on followers will provide dividends and dividends both positive and negative.  

   The military is a great example of the butterfly effect.  It demonstrates how a simple legacy adapts and the experimental leadership model continues everyday and every day we are influence by those before and those after us.  Leaders in the military are hyper focused at first then broaden their views eventually (well hopefully).  A leader, especially one in a power position, will influence the culture of the unit.  The leaders set the tone, this reflects from the lowest to the highest rank and has profound affects on the morale of the institution.  For example, a few units ago, my morale was tanking, my pride, purpose and motivation lacked every day, it soon poured over to my home life.  I eventually started to need to go get counseling.  Then one day, while in a large meeting, my Group Commander came into the room and announced that she had relieve my Squadron Commander of his job.  Just like that my mood, personality and alcohol dependencies diminished.  She later briefed us that the culture of the unit was eroding the ability to accomplish the mission.  The Squadron Commander and his attitude decimated the morale of everyone.  I still remember this day but I cannot remember all the details, the point is that his leadership impacts me even today.  Years later at my first command assignment I walked in expecting to find a well oiled machine that had been around since 1917 but instead I found something different.  I found a single cancer that impacted everyone around her.  She was setting such a negative tone that folks around her started to need further help.  And just like that I had witness how leadership still affected me.  I immediately fired her, improving the impoverished.  

   Another example of leadership in chaotic motion is in my current command assignment.  I see folks wandering the halls, establishing social tribes, and living autonomously to their assignments.  During my earlier years I had seen this before, when I had the enormous task of establishing a new weapon system and the associated unit.  I recruited some of the best minds in the business, handpicking them, each with a unique skillset, each interwoven into the makeup of the initial cadre.  Right off the bat, I put everyone in the same room, knocked down two feet of extra walls, removed all the doors and centralized the social table.  I needed them to focus on each other and their skills.  I removed all tribal barriers and social distastes.  We went from a cadre of ten to a squadron of 200 in a matter of two years following this same model.  Fast forward back to my current command, I see the tribes, I feel the misunderstanding and the misappropriation of personnel.  Folks are dragging and not communicating; reducing our mission effectiveness.  (Apply butterfly effect).  I need to make considerable changes in the culture of the organism to ensure that we are all moving to the same beat, removal physical barriers that hinder cross-communication and restore pride purpose and motivation to a struggling organization.   Remembering the lessons of the past to reflect on the culture of tomorrow.    

   In conclusion, the butterfly effect is a theory that proposes that small changes yield giant results. This axiom remains unchanged since it was created.  We apply it in computers, business models and leadership.  It is the never ending bow waves of leadership that impact the everyday lives of both the individual and the organism.  Leadership can profoundly impact peoples lives, morale and welfare, it can shape an attitude and in my business get people killed.  Leadership is evolving yet I remember how now almost two decades ago, my first leaders yelled at me to buckle my belt.  The military is a great leadership experiment that in my opinion continues to practice the butterfly effect as the ripples of yesterday are felt today and will continue to tomorrow.  The lessons that I learned so long ago are just as empowering today as they will be tomorrow.  



References

Johnson, B., Lorenz, E., & Lundwell, B. (2002). Why all this fuss about codified and tacit knowledge?. Industrial & Corporate Change, 11(2), 245-262.

Lorenz, Edward Norton. (2017). In P. Lagasse, & Columbia University, The Columbia encyclopedia (7th ed.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/columency/lorenz_edward_norton/0?institutionId=951

Obolensky N. (2016) Complex adaptive Leadership; Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty. Routledge Tylor & Francis Group, London and New York

A633.1.2RB Leadership Gap

In preparation for my next role in the Air Force as the Senior Enlisted Leader, I have spent the last few weeks reading and exploring different leadership books and bibliographies.  As this new class in my education opens up this week, I am presented with key questions that define my evolution in leadership development.

1) Has your own attitude to leaders changed in you life and is so how?
2) If we take as a starting point the attitude to those in authority/leaders as held by your grandparents and then look at those attitudes held by your parents and then by you and they by the younger generation is there a changing trend? if so what is it?
3) Why do you think that this has occurred? (Obolensky, 2016)

     Reflecting on these questions in this blog, I explore my journey of a humble Cajun development to a mildly successful military career.  To set this stage, I grew up in a oversize trailer on a farm in south Louisiana.  I did not grow up wealthy nor had simple advancements like cable or dishwasher, my family did not need them. We hunted and grew our own food well into my early years in the military.  My culture was different, my adolescence years were focused on survival and values and as a result family was close, forming bonds that transcended the "modern family."  We were a collective of people that formed its own tribe and had very much tribal leadership in my mother.  We lived by our own Cajun values instilled since birth.  In Logan, King and Fischer-Wright's book "Tribal Leadership", they describe this inherent behaviors as central to the development of the tribe, "a principle of without which life wouldn't be worth living (Logan, King, Fischer-Wright, 2008)."

    During my teenage years, we visited my grandparents as often as we could.  They lived in Florida, so any opportunity, my mom loaded up the truck and we drove for eight hours.  My grandparents were also poor and had less modern convinces then we did.  My mom's mom for example only had a hand pumped for running watering.  The sub culture extended straight from her.  She work in the tobacco fields until she was in her seventies, raising whatever money she could to buy herself a new Bible.  I have more respect for this meek woman than I have for any four-star that I might meet.  My evolution in the leadership attitude begins with my relatives.  James Allen wrote "those who give little accomplish little; those who give much accomplish much; those who give the most become the greatest (Allen, 1902)."  This motto embraced my attitude towards the leaders of my tribe.

Then....the great cell-phone age!

   When I joined the military in early 2000, this was my attitude towards leaders, Cajun principles and tribal leadership guided me and helped US survive.  My attitude was simple, do not yell, do not cuss, do not drink and do not go to bed angry.  Now why this might seem easy enough, trust me the first few days of the military all bets are off and all of these values and many more that I held so tightly in Cajun country now seemed unappreciated and insignificant.  There was an instant leadership gap in my own values, principles and structures.  How was I supposed to follow people that did not know my name or even cared to know?  My attitude as a follower took a nose dive, I did not understand why people felt the need to ridicule and bully subordinates instead of developing and forming a bond?  For what cause?  My attitude, morale and motivation plummeted into misfortune, mishap and misunderstandings with the leadership.

   My tribe was broken, my mother passed away in 2006, my sister passed away in 2011, all of my grandparents pass in the last ten years.   The complaining, the crying, the lack of ownership all things I did and admittedly still do not understand.  Fitting into this new tribe is difficult and presents its own hazards of leadership.  My grandparents did not even have running water, of course I do not understand how the Run-DMC does not compare to Lil'Wayne.  The leaders of today, have more information in the palm of their hands then any Cajun ever will.  We can literally access the entire world instantly (my dad is still trying to figure out the difference between DVD and DVR).  I think that reason why leaders of today are uniquely different is because of this.  They have access to millions of people at once for concurrences and non-concurrences, likes and dislikes, they get the entire globe to agree or disagree with 150 words, conflicts can be started over a Twitter.  My Cajun tribe would just go to the feed store and ask Mr Tommy what feed was good.  The tribe of social media creates of the global collective versus survival on the local tribe.

  Leaders of today are faced with this leadership gap challenge, closing this gap is hard, I know I have heard the hard way.  I look at "young" leaders of today and am still trying to figure out what they stand for, what they fight for and what are their guiding motivations.  Leaders of today's followers have to be prepared for the "why" question and cannot just shout orders and expect people to follow.  They cannot just simply say the stove is hot they have to slow down and explain the points of why the stove is hot.  Leaders have to continue educating themselves in the origin of task and restoring what I to call PPM (pride, purpose and motivation) in their followers.  I often as my troops a very simple question that leaves them pondering the cosmos "what is your motivation and I can I help you anchor yourself in that"?


References:
Allen J., (1902). As A Man Thinketh, 21st Edition [Amazon Kindle E-Book]

Logan D., King J., Fischer-Wright H. (2008) Tribal Leadership, Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization. [Amazon Kindle E-book]

Obolensky N. (2016) Complex adaptive Leadership; Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty. Routledge Tylor & Francis Group, London and New York