Mitchell Leadership Study Guide

Professionalism

  • Professional is paid for their work
  • Put’s community first
  • Has special skills
  • Holds themselves and peers to ethical code

Standard

  • An established requirement
  • Principle by which something can be judged
  • What’s expected
  • Leader’s example is the most important

NCO

  • Transitioning from being cared for to caring for others

  • From being taught to teaching

  • Creed

  • A formal system of belief intended to guide someone’s actions

  • 7 Responsibilities

  • Epitomize the Core Values

  • Military Bearing - carrying themselves

  • Guide, Instruct, and Mentor

  • First Line Supervisor - oversee entry-level people

  • Support the Leader

  • Reward People

  • Correct People

  • Career Counsel

  • Keep Learning

NCO Readiness

  • AF 3 Requirement for Readiness

  • Technical - know the detail of your job

  • Physical - must be healthy; lead the unit in PT

  • Mental - mind must be totally focused on professional duties

NCO’s Leadership Toolkit

  • Servant leadership - servant of the team

  • Enhance growth in individuals of the organization

  • Servant leader is servant first

  • Servant - help people and is giving

  • Servile - treated like a slave

  • New leader’s vaccine against becoming self-centered or a bully

  • Natural fit for the Air Force

  • Don’t pull rank - is lazy and immature

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Coaching and Mentoring

  • Coaching - process through which leaders try to solve performance problems and develop their people

  • Person to person experience

  • Requires a bond of trust

  • Must be positive and helpful

  • Need coaching when a leader identifies a need to help someone reach a higher level of effectiveness.

  • Elements of Successful Coaching

  • Dialogue - two way conversation

  • Empowerment - resisting urge to jump in and fix

  • Action - producing something

  • Improvement - reaching a higher level

  • Techniques of Successful Coaching

  • Observation

  • Purpose - have a plan

  • Dialogue - very center of coaching

  • Mirroring

  • Questioning

  • Open-Ended = more than a yes or no

  • Active listening - listens intently

  • Validating - acknowledge your understanding

  • Story Shifting - look at it in a different perspective

  • Addressing Fears - fears can stop you

  • Finding the Bottom Line - express it in 1-2 sentences

  • Providing Direct Feedback - positive, constructive, and specific

  • Follow-Up - monitor how well the trainee is doing

Supervision and Constructive Discipline

  • Supervise - observe and direct people in fulfillment of the mission

  • Trust - cornerstone of supervision

  • Fairness - following an impartial set of rules and applying them equally to everyone

  • Need wisdom when distinguishing fair and unfair

  • Punishment - negative; teaches what to avoid, not what you should be doing

  • Constructive Discipline - an opportunity for positive growth

  • Principles of Constructive Discipline

  • Know that Ability Differs from Willingness

  • Praise in Public, Correct in Private

  • Choose the Right Time

  • Control Emotions

  • Focus on Performance

Motivation

  • Reason for an action; gives purpose and direction to a behavior; it’s your ‘why’

  • A “why” is a strong reason for desiring something

  • Motivations for people - money, power, fear, honor

  • Sources of Motivation

  • Intrinsic

  • work within you

  • naturally belonging to something

  • Extrinsic

  • work outside of you

  • drive you to act because you receive something tangible in return

  • Shared Purpose - key to motivation

  • Most effective - gaining agreement

NCO/Officer Relationship

  • NCOs

  • Focus on short term needs

  • Ensure people comply with rules

  • Train people to do their jobs

  • Fulfill goals of the team

  • Get the job done

  • Officers

  • Focus on long term needs

  • Establish rules

  • Assign people to jobs

  • Set goals for the team

  • Create conditions to get the job done

  • Leadership Arenas

  • Strategic - highest level

  • Operational - middle level

  • Tactical - lowest level

  • Leadership Skills

  • Personal

  • Team

  • Institutional

  • Supporting the boss

  • Command intent - leader’s concise expression of purpose

  • Desired End State - what a leader hopes to achieve

  • Initiative - make sound judgements and act independently

  • Respectful Dissent - opinion that differs from the official view

  • Core Value of Excellence requires it

  • Complete Staff Work

  • Updates and Advice

Team Dynamics

  • Seven Needs of a Team

  • Common Goals

  • Leadership

  • Involvement of All Members

  • Good Morale

  • Open Communication

  • Mutual Respect

  • Fair Way to Resolve Conflicts

  • Pitfalls of a Team

  • Can be Unwieldy

  • Pressure Individuals to Conform

  • Free Riders - not doing the fair share

  • Groupthink - have agreement in spite of facts saying something else

  • Lack of Accountability

  • Team Life Cycle

  • Forming - usually chaos at first

  • Storming - personalities begin to show

  • Norming

  • Performing

  • L.E.A.D. Model

  • L - Lead with a clear purpose

  • E - Empower to participate

  • A - Aim for Consensus

  • D - Direct the Team

Critical Thinking

  • Has a direct influence on effectiveness

  • Principles of Critical Thinking

  • Critical thinking - self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way

  • Guided by universal values of logic

  • 7 Universal Intellectual Standards

  • Clarity - express ideas so people know your thoughts

  • Accuracy - back up claims/double check

  • Precision - statements that mean what they say and say what they mean

  • Relevance - claims advance the overall argument

  • Depth - examine every complexity

  • Breadth - how far across you’re willing to look in an issue

  • Logic - one point supports the next and conclusions flow naturally

  • 8 Elements of Thought

  • Reasoning has a purpose

  • Reasoning is an attempt to figure something out

  • Reasoning is based on assumptions or beliefs you take for granted

  • Reasoning has a point of view

  • Reasoning is based on data, information, and evidence

  • Reasoning is expressed through and shaped by concepts and ideas

  • Reasoning contains inferences by which we draw conclusions

  • Reasoning leads somewhere and has consequences

  • 4 Different Models of Thinking

  • Big Picture - stepping back from an issue so as to take more of it in

  • Focused - intensely studying an issue

  • Realistic - see the world for how it actually is

  • Shared - valuing thoughts and ideas of others

  • Synergy - a team is greater than the sum of its parts

  • Biggest obstacle is emotional insecurity

  • Logical Fallacies

  • An error of reasoning

  • Ad Hominem - instead of focusing on logic of opposing argument, it attacks the other person

  • Appeal to Authority - prove a claim by asserting that a smart person believes the claim to be true and therefore it must be true

  • Post Hoc - differences between correlation and causation

  • Appeal to Tradition - older ideas are better; leader’s job is to prevent change

  • Red Herring - not relevant to the issue at hand

  • Weak Analogy - no matter how similar they are, they are never exactly alike

  • Straw Man - misrepresents the opposing position, making it weaker than it is

  • Begging the Question/Circular Reasoning - conclusion is the same as a premise

  • False Dilemma - faced with only two choices; both aren’t really good

  • Slippery Slope - one thing leads to another is fixed in your mind

  • Intellectual Honesty - honesty in acquisition, analysis, and transmission of ideas

Creative Thinking

  • Concentration plus imagination

  • Core Value of Excellence requires this

  • Why creative leaders don’t always win

  • No guarantee your ideas will be welcomed

  • People are afraid of changing the status quo

  • Majority Rule

  • Respect for it can discourage people from expressing unpopular ideas

  • Advertising

  • Branding - associating certain images with a product; when companies try to impress us

  • Sedition Acts

  • Mocked the first amendment

  • Uniformity

  • Conformity in disguise

  • Military Tradition

  • Can be hostile toward creative thinking

  • Methods of Creative Thinking

  • Tools to Generate Ideas

  • Brainstorming - free-flow of thoughts

  • Mindmapping - visual arrangement of ideas and their interconnections; connects between other ideas

  • The Five Whys

  • Discover solution by drilling down into a problem

  • Helps identify root cause of a problem

  • Tools to Analyze a Problem

  • Reversal

  • Improve a product

  • Backwards brainstorming

  • Headlines of the Future

  • Analyze a problem and find the steps needed to achieve a goal

  • Flowcharts

  • visual representations of the major steps in a process

  • Tools to Make a Decision

  • Multi-Voting

  • What has the greater consensus

  • Avoids a win/lose situation

  • Weighted Pros and Cons

  • Analyzing relative strength on each pro and con

  • Uses a point system to help make decisions

  • Gradual Voting

  • Democratic decision; limit ranking members’ influence

  • Encouraging every member on the team to share their voice

Teaching and Training People

  • Learning objective - what a student should know at the end of the lesson

  • Good ones are specific and measurable

  • 4 Modalities of Learning

  • Visual - videos, diagrams, pictures

  • Auditory - listening

  • Tactile - physically touch what is being studied

  • Kinesthetic - moving around and staying active

  • Methods of Teaching

  • Lecture - most common; oral presentation

  • Guided Discussion - group process; students share information

  • Demonstration/Performance - physically practice new skills

  • Experiential - role-playing, hands-on, service projects, problem-solving

  • Simulation - replicate conditions of a job

  • Evaluation - attempt to check whether each student fulfilled the objectives

Personality

  • Sum of the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that make someone unique

  • Nature vs Nurture - is it unborn qualities or personal experiences that shape us

  • We are affected by our genes. We are affected by our environment.

  • Leaders can’t change human nature, but can have an effect on that environment

  • Birth Order Theory - person’s rank within their family can have an effect on personality and intelligence

  • For leaders, it’s a way to think about how the environment a person grows up in can shape their personality

  • Only child - spoiled, all the attention, self-centered

  • First Child - control and authority on younger children

  • Middle Child - left out, rebel, compromise

  • Youngest Child - the baby, expects to be cared for

  • Charisma - sparkle in people; invisible energy with visible effects

  • Strong charisma can be counterproductive

  • Johari Window - tool for exploring our self-perception

  • 4 Arenas

  • Public

  • Blind

  • Private

  • Unknown

  • Feedback is the breakfast of champions

  • Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

  • 4 Dimensions of Type

  • Extroversion vs Introversion

  • Extroverts enjoy time with people

  • Introverts direct energy to ideas and inner thoughts

  • Intuition vs Sensing

  • Sensors are interested in the specifics

  • Intuitives look at the big picture

  • Thinking vs Feeling

  • Thinkers are cool, collected, and seldom

  • Feelers have a strong sense of empathy

  • Judging vs Perceiving

  • Judgers value structure and order

  • Perceivers prefer to keep their options open

Motivation

  • Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

  • 5 Basic Needs

  • Physiological - all other needs are forgotten

  • Safety - freedom from fear, violence, uncertainty

  • Love or Belonging

  • Esteem - desire for attention. honor, good reputation

  • Self-Actualizing - What a man can be, he must be

  • Gives leaders a framework for understanding what motivates people

  • Hawthorne Studies

  • When leaders pay attention to their people and treat them better, people will perform better

  • Classical Conditioning

  • A living thing learns to connect a stimulus to a reflex

  • Too simplistic a method to motivate people

  • Positive Reinforcement - pleasant reward used to increase the frequency of a behavior

  • Negative Reinforcement - unpleasant stimulus is removed to encourage behavior

  • Punishment - stops a behavior

  • Extinction - reduction of a response that the person had already displayed

  • The Milgram Experiment

  • Teacher giving shock to student whenever the student answered incorrectly

  • Result - 63% were willing to turn the dial all the way up

  • Obedience to authority is a powerful motivator

Inter-Personal Conflict

  • Defense Mechanisms - protect us from psychological injury; helps deal with anxiety, stress, or pressure

  • Changes the way we see reality

  • Can be habit forming

  • Types of Defense Mechanisms

  • Displacement - redirecting feelings about something onto something less threatening

  • Projection - taking unacknowledged thoughts and falsely attributing them to someone else

  • Rationalization - someone devises reassuring explanations for their behavior

  • Intellectualization - removing emotional side and examine problem in abstract way

  • Denial - not acknowledging facts that would be apparent to others

  • Suppression - set problems aside, choosing not to think about them

  • Withdrawal - removing oneself from events, people, etc., that bring to mind painful thoughts and feelings

  • Conflict - disagreement though which individuals perceive a threat to their needs

  • Knee Jerk

  • Reacts emotionally

  • Fights defensively

  • Snap judgements

  • Focuses on status and rank

  • Deliberate

  • Remains calm

  • Monitors actions and behaviors

  • Gives people the benefit of the doubt

  • Concentrates on doing a good job

  • Managing Conflict

  • Outcomes

  • Win/Win

  • Win/Lose

  • Lose/Win

  • Lose/Lose

  • Leaders have a duty to respond to conflict

  • Methods for Managing Conflict

  • Avoidance - not to engage the problem

  • Denial - leader says it doesn’t exist

  • Suppression and smoothing - form of avoidance

  • Compromise - attempt to create a win/win

  • Zero-Sum Game - win/lose terms

  • Mediation - uses a third party to facilitate a decision

Leading in a Diverse Society

  • Diversity is the greatest strength of the Air Force

  • CAP was founded upon a commitment to diversity

  • Prejudice - pre-judge someone; assumptions

  • Harassment - making life difficult for someone; unwelcome conduct

  • Retaliation - seeking revenge against someone who objects to harassment or discrimination

  • Five Ways to Fight Hate

  • Rise Up

  • Pull Together

  • Speak Out

  • Support the Victims

  • Teach Tolerance

Transformational and Transactional Leadership

  • Transformational - a person strives to heighten the motivation and morality of himself and his followers
  • Transactional - an exchange takes place between leader and follower
  • Idealized Influence - leader’s principles and standards having the power to attract followers
  • Inspirational Motivation - leaders who “communicate high expectations to followers, inspiring them to become committed to and a part of the shared vision in an organization.”
  • Intellectual Stimulation - not a “yes” man
  • Individualized Consideration - leaders who are supportive of followers, listen closely to them, and acknowledge their unique needs
  • Contingent Reward - an interaction between leader and follower in which the follower’s effort is exchanged for rewards
  • Management by Exception - leaders watch followers closely to observe mistakes and violations of rules, then corrects the wrongs
  • Laissez-Faire Leadership - hands off; no feedback and doesn’t meet the needs of followers

Power

  • Power - ability of one person to influence another

  • 5 Types of Power

  • Position

  • legitimate power - legitimacy of position

  • reward power - leader gives out rewards

  • coercive power - followers fear punishment

  • Personal

  • expert power - individual technique knowledge

  • referent power - followers like and respect leaders

  • 6 Stages of Leadership and Personal Power

  • Domination and Force

  • Seduction and Deal Making

  • Personal Persuasion and Charisma

  • Integrity and Trust

  • Empowerment

  • Wisdom

  • Learning Organization - where people are continually learning together

  • Core Learning Capabilities - aspiration, reflective conversation, understanding complexity

  • System - a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole

  • Personal Mastery - approaching life as a creative work, living life from a creative as opposed to a reactive viewpoint

  • Purpose - sense of why

  • Personal Vision - specific destination, picture of a desired future

  • Shared Vision - Organization establishes a personal vision

  • Team learning begins with alignment

  • 3 Dimensions of Team Learning

  • insight - take advantage of the power of many minds to be more intelligent than one mind

  • innovation - team welcomes new ideas and works together to contribute to success

  • role of team members - encouraging each other to work in cooperation

  • Dialogue vs Discussion

  • dialogue presents an opportunity for team members to freely and creatively explore complex issues

  • discussion; members present different views and defend them in a search for the best possible solution

  • Mental Models - internal images of how the world works, images that limit us to familiar ways of thinking and acting

  • Espoused Theory - line of thought we claim to believe

  • Theory in Use - line of thought representing what someone actually believes

  • Leap of Abstraction - leap to generalizations without testing them

  • Inquiry - ask questions and try to gain more information so that you make the best decision possible

  • Advocacy - make an argument in favor of a course of action

  • Authoritarian - ideal when you have time limits or critical situations

  • Democratic - effective listening, rational dialogue, consideration of others

  • Laissez-Faire - the team works on its own

  • Path-Goal Leadership Model - role of the leader to clear paths subordinates have to take in order to accomplish goals

  • Directive Leadership - gives followers specific instructions

  • Supportive Leadership - human needs are met

  • Participative Leadership - leaders allow subordinates to share in decision making

  • Achievement-Oriented Leadership - followers are able to set and meet challenging goals

  • Grid Theory - people discuss behaviors in a disconnected way that reduces defensiveness and judgement

  • 1,9 Accommodating (Yield and Comply) - low concern for results; high concern for people

  • 1,1 Indifferent (Evade & Elude) - low concern for people and results

  • 9,1 Controlling (Direct and Dominate) - high concern for results; low concern for people

  • 9,9 Sound (Contribute and Commit) - ideal style; high concern for people and results

  • 5,5 Status Quo (Balance and Compromise) - medium levels of concern for people and results

Communication Fundamentals

  • Audience - those to whom you will speak and write

  • Outline - diagram that shows how your communication will be organized

  • Helps you organize what you will write and say

  • 6 Vital Communication Principles

  • Be Clear

  • Use Familiar Words

  • Eliminate Clutter

  • Stay Active

  • Put Statements in Positive Form

  • Use Parallel Structure

  • Main Goal of Written Communication - share meaning and in doing so, inform, persuade, or entertain

  • Brainstorming - good way to gather ideas

  • Writer’s Block - frustration when you can’t figure out what to write about

  • Argument - statement offered in explanation

  • Topic Sentences - introduces main idea of paragraph

  • First few sentences should grab the reader

  • Thesis Statement - central message of an essay

  • Blueprint - list of ideas in your topic sentence

  • Transitional Words - tells audience when you have finished relating one idea and switching to a new thought

  • Objections - reasons or arguments presented in opposition

  • Conclusion - reiterate the thesis

  • Staff Study - professional format for presenting concerns and solutions

  • Consider Audience

  • State the Problem

  • Analyze the Entire Problem

  • Gather Data

  • Identify the Facts

  • Identify Assumptions

  • Identify the Criteria for the Solution

  • Define Key Terms

  • List Possible Solutions

  • Test Possible Solutions

  • Recommend Action

  • 4 Common Formats of Speech

  • Manuscript

  • Memory

  • Impromptu

  • Extemporaneous

  • Parts of a Speech

  • Specific Purpose - what you hope to accomplish

  • The Central Idea - thesis statement used in writing

  • Introduction

  • Body/Conclusion

  • Resume - documents work history

  • Personal Info

  • Objective

  • Education

  • Experience

  • Awards, Honors & Extra-Curricular Activities

  • References

Emotional Intelligence

  • Personalities are conveyed through emotions

  • Emotional intelligence - “intelligent use of emotions: you intentionally make your emotions work for you by using them to help guide your behavior and thinking in ways that will enhance your results.”

  • Five Components of Emotional Intelligence

  • Self-awareness - being aware and in touch with your own feelings and emotions

  • Managing emotions - manage various emotions and moods by denying or suppressing them

  • Self-Motivation - remain positive and optimistic

  • Empathy for others - read others’ emotions accurately and putting yourself in their place

  • Interpersonal Skills - to build and maintain positive relationships with others

  • Self-Fulfilling Prophecies - when your prediction or expectation leads to your fears or hopes becoming real

  • Inner Dialogue - talking to yourself

  • Automatic Thoughts - thoughts that spontaneously pop out

  • Motivation - willingness to complete tasks

  • Leaders are proactive

  • Self-Statement - expressions of belief in oneself

  • Mental Imagery - picturing a situation in your mind

  • Right-Sized Goals

  • If you set goals that can be met, you will have more inspiration to work hard and steady

  • Go with the flow

  • Flow - feeling people enjoy when they’re absorbed in a task that they forget about all other worries

  • 4 Concepts of Interpersonal Intelligence

  • Organizing Groups

  • Negotiating Solutions

  • Personal Connection

  • Social Analysis

  • Empathy - understanding, being aware of, and being sensitive to the feelings, thoughts, and expressions of another.