Leaders wake up running Published Aug. 4, 2009 By Maj Stephanie Halcrow 436th AMXS commander DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. -- Would you believe me if I told you there are almost 20,000 books with the word "leadership" in the title? I performed a search online for books about leadership and yes, there are more than 20,000. There are books about the Leadership Engine, the Leadership Moment and yet another about the Leadership Pill - which must be a cure for bad leadership. There were books revealing the leadership secrets of Attila the Hun, Colin Powell and even Santa Claus. If you wanted to pare down your reading list and just read books on Air Force leadership, you'd have a mere 74 to choose from... I had to ask myself, why all the books? Do the character traits of leadership still elude us? A leading authority on leadership, James MacGregor Burns thinks so. He once mused, "Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth." So it follows that we all have our own ideas and thoughts on leadership, and I'd like to share a few of these thoughts with you. My first thought is to "Lead like you would want to be led." This is simply the Golden Rule, but apply this to leadership and this translates to a leader being clear about purpose, ensuring everyone has the right tools and training to do the job, enforcing standards with consistency and rewarding superior performance. It also means providing for the health of the team members: physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. For me, remembering to lead like I would want to be led goes a long way to ensuring I set the right climate for the organization and it makes the tough decisions easier. Just as important is to "Do the job right the first time ...but do it better the next time." I don't have to tell you the challenges we face: high ops tempo, reduced budgets, troop draw downs, etc. In today's world, none of us have time to do rework. This applies to all levels of the organization from ensuring the parking brakes are set on flightline support equipment to processing supply paperwork. So to maximize our resources, we must do our jobs right the first time ... but we must also do them better the next time. To me, doing it better the next time equates to continuously improving the way we do our business, a concept already embraced by Team Dover. Dover leads the Air Force in continuous improvement efforts and this is one of the reasons I love being part of Team Dover. However, even though Dover was named the number one base in the Air Force, we can't be satisfied - we must rally the team to find even better ways to accomplish the mission. And it's the entire team that is required to generate the truly innovative ideas that make a difference... Which brings me to my final leadership thought: "one team, one theme." One team, one theme emphasizes everyone working together for the same goal. It takes teamwork to get the job done right the first time and it takes the team to find a way to do it better the next. And let's not forget, teamwork applies not just within the squadron, but to the team members in the group, across the base and yes, even other bases. One team, one theme keeps us focused on the important challenges - like winning the Global War on Terrorism. I'd like to close with one final leadership thought, specifically about a leader's attitude. A picture hanging on the wall in my office illustrates this thought. Let me describe it for you. The scene is the plains of Africa, in the foreground is a lion and in the background a gazelle. At the bottom of the picture there is a caption that reads: Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. And every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. The point is - it doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle ... when the sun comes up, you'd better be running. It doesn't matter whether you are the hunted or the hunter, the most senior leader in an organization or the most junior leader - if you want to make a difference - you'd better be running. So when the sun comes up tomorrow morning - let's wake up running.