Leaders and Leadership

Posted on by March 6, 2013

What is leadership? What does it mean? Who do you consider a leader?

lead·er·ship (lē‘dər-shĭp’) n.

1. The process of leading.

2. Those entities that perform one or more acts of leading.

3. The ability to affect human behavior so as to accomplish a mission designated by the leader.

These three definitions are the generic definition.

1. The position or office of a leader: ascended to the leadership of the party.

2. Capacity or ability to lead: showed strong leadership during her first term in office.

3. A group of leaders: met with the leadership of the nation’s top unions.

4. Guidance; direction: The business prospered under the leadership of the new president.

These four interestingly enough revolve around politics and business.

152,000,000 hits on Google for leadership- in other words LOTS of words on leadership…

I’m going with ‘my’ take on leadership here-

A leader is one who sets the positive example. I think there are three legs professionalism, integrity, and honesty that are the basis for a good leader. The good leader knows when they accept the authority; they also accept the responsibility and the accountability of being a leader.

They may be a janitor or a General, but if they set the example, show the people who work for them that they are not afraid to get their hands dirty, willingly give credit, and shoulder blame when things go wrong; people will cheerfully follow them. These people also will make a decision; they do not hesitate to do what is necessary given any particular situation. They also have no problems admitting they did something wrong.

On the other hand, I do believe the POWER of a position or office makes people think they are leaders, when in reality they are nothing but abusers of power. They are normally the ones who take credit for anything new or important, never make a decision that can be tied to them; shirking the responsibility by pawning failure off on subordinates. Ironically, some of these people go VERY far, because they simply do not care about anything but more power and more prestige. Since these people tend to climb the ladder by jumping organization to organization, the new bosses very seldom find out about the people the climber has abused on the way up or their inability to make decisions.

In the military, Fire/Rescue and Law Enforcement leaders and leadership take on a different perspective. This is because of the potential for life and death situations; including the requirement to make decisions on the fly. Having said this, I will admit I have seen bad leaders in the military and friends have given me many examples of bad leadership in both the Fire Service and Law Enforcement.

Bureaucracies on the other hand, fear real leaders. They want to stay in their little niche, don’t rock the boat, get promoted and never make a decision… I think bureaucracies are perfect examples of the Peter Principal in action. I also think they tend to be very petty, self serving, and will go out of their way to penalize those who push a bureaucrat out of his/her little comfort zone.

Where am I going with this?

Well, I’m getting worried about America- I do not see the younger generation coming up with any real leaders. I see a lot of power hungry people, who will do anything to get more money, play every card they can to advance, and don’t care about how they treat others. When I talk to the young Sailors and Marines I come in contact with, that is a recurring theme… The military is the FIRST time they have ever had responsibility AND accountability.

I also see political correctness stifling leaders. You cannot promote a leader today without checking to see if the right numbers of whatever flavor of HR mandates and/or quotas has been met. If you don’t, you sure as hell will get sued by somebody…

I don’t see John Q. Public standing up and demanding accountability from the current leadership and ANY level… Many of the blogs I read have repeated themes of abusers of this or that system, with no leader stepping forward to make people accountable for their actions.

I’m not even going to get into the lawsuits, ACLU, and the rest of that mess…

We are at war TODAY with terrorism. It is not a country, it is individuals and organizations who flow from country to country. The stated goal is death to America, they will not negotiate, other than to gain time; they will not be ‘redeemed’ by faith; they will not quit until either we are dead or they are…

What I would ask each of you to do is to look at who you believe to be leaders, people YOU would follow, and vote them into office in 2008. Don’t believe the sound bites, really look into the candidates backgrounds and abilities.

If we don’t, I’m really afraid we will see terrorism here on a scale unlike anything the US has ever seen. Believe me, you do NOT want that to happen…

If you made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read this 🙂

Pilots will like this one… (Correction)

Posted on by March 6, 2013

My bad- I didn’t backcheck the origin of the video.

This is an interesting little video clip shot from a T-44 with an F-16 HUD doing a night approach into Aspen, CO using FLIR (Forward Looking InfaRed). What you are seeing is a split image, on the left side of the screen is the FLIR shot, on the right is the actual night visibility. Sit back and enjoy!

It’s HOT…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Well, the Beltway is melting today… It was 95 degrees at 1000 when we teed off this morning and it only got worse. By the 9th hole, it was 97, and when we finished at 1400, it was 99. Of course this is not ‘really’ hot, but the humidity is sitting on 60%, which makes for a nice sauna.

Three of us old farts played with a young gorilla (all shoulders, no waist) today, and he did something I have never seen. He it a drive and literally buried it in the side of an Oak tree about 60 yards off the tee box! Now granted, the ball hit a spot that was obviously a little rotten, but in 35 years of golf, I have never seen anything like that. Of course, we made him play it where it lay…

So I go to the range to try to cool off… Boy did I ever… You win Scully, you’re a better shot than I am!

But I still like my BHP– so there…

Anybody out there ever read S. M. Stirling? I’m reading one of his books called Dies the Fire, and it has some interesting twists including an EMP that also makes gunpowder unusable.

It’s interesting to note how much Mother Teresa still affects us today. I have seen a number of blogs commenting on her just released letters and how she questioned her faith. It was also interesting to note how many blogs admitted they too have questions about their faith. I think all of us do, but it takes someone like her admitting it to prompt us to open up about our own fears…

I think one reason we do open up, is the relative anonymity of the blog sphere; out here, for the most part, no one ‘really’ knows who you are. You can blabber away and never really face any repercussions like you would among friends and family, or worry about someone going it to work and saying, “Did you hear what (your name here) said?”

Now having said that… There is also a significant downside out here- I know what I mean when I type something. To me it may be perfectly innocuous, but to someone else, filtered through their eyes and lives, it can be everything from irritable to viscious depending on how they interpret it.

Also there are trolls, probably as bad or worse than on most of the forums. A troll can be bounced pretty easily from a forum, but out here, it’s not that easy as AD points out in his post On Courtesy I often wondered is it envy, do we have something they don’t? Is it fear, that they might be seen as less than us? Or is it just that they want to stir shit up? I dunno…

Ah well… I’m gonna go soak my head and get ready to be stoopid again tomorrow and go to the rifle range…

ALERT! SUPPORT NEEDED

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Picked this up from Public Ponderings, a Soldier getting ready to go back to Iraq lost everything in a house fire-

In Camden, TN On July the 16th of 2007 the family home of a U.S. soldier serving in Iraq burnt. They lost everything. His wife and children were home at the time. His youngest son became a hero that morning. As the house filled with black smoke he went to his brothers room and literally picked him up and threw him down the hall to his mother. They went out the front door, by then the hall was full of black smoke, so he dove out the window of his brothers room. The family has lost everything. He is having to go back to his unit in Iraq soon. This soldier has been serving in Iraq for almost 13 months and now has no home to come to. We are asking for signatures so that we can submit them along with an application to ABC’s Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Maybe we can get this soldier and his family the help they need.

Please to to A Soldiers Extreme Home Makeover and sign the petition being sent to ABC.

Thanks…

TGIF!!!

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Some days it doesn’t pay to fall outta bed…

Left five minutes later than normal for work- Of course, traffic is an absolute bitch… Get there fifteen minutes late. Sigh…

Those who work for Uncle know about network and remote printing and remote servers, right?

Well, I’m beginning to think our IT system is on drugs…

I come in this morning and try to log in with my CAC, no joy. Now I know I haven’t forgotten those numbers in 12 hours… do it again, no joy (OBTW, if you lock yourself out by screwing up three times you kill not only your CAC but your system password; meaning you have to call for tech support, which can take up to three hours, plus three hours for the password reset to take effect).

Okay, lets try this from a cold boot- Power down, restart and third time’s a charm? YES, it actually worked! Let the office mates know that haven’t already locked themselves out…

Call IT and ask them what they did- The usual answer, nothing? No pushes last night? Uhh, maybe… Oh yeah, one little minor update.

Well, guy I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but your so called little update has about half the floor locked out and/or hung up in various modes. Oh yeah, De Nile is a river in Egypt, not in your office…

So I go into my email, and start answering the overnights from WESTPAC- One is pretty important, so that goes to the top of the pile- Draft the response, hit send and move on. About five minutes later, ding- email address not found!

WHAT? I just hit reply to an email I just got! How can it not be found???? Okay fine. There are other ways to do this… pull up the old address book- lookup, compose, send- ding- email address not found!

ARGHHH! Okay-type in [email protected] copy the text, send-
ding- email address not found!

So I call them- BWC is less than happy, but says, No- we’re working out here, email hasn’t changed, must be on your end… Sure I’ll send a test email.

Sure enough, there it is. Okay, this ol country boy is gonna outsmart em this morning…

Oh Mister Helpdesk…
Now what? – I’ve got an email address problem.
And? – It’s a known good email but it’s saying address not found.
Then it must be bad or down. – Nope and nope, I just confirmed it I can send you the test they just sent me.
Okay, do it.-
I’ll send them a test. – I’m listening for the ding- sure enough I hear it in the background.
Damn, mumble mumble mumble…
Hah, that email is blocked as a spammer! – What? I don’t $%^& think so.
Yep, according to the XXXXX it’s blocked as a spammer. – No, no, that is a major operational command, you can’t block them!
Not my problem, XXXXX has to clear the block. I can’t from here (he hangs up on me)

Oh well, I’ll spend $50 of taxpayer money to call them and break the good news, since I know they are expecting an answer…

Ah ha… finally a reference document I’ve been needing for a month… I’m gonna get something productive out of today yet…

I print the document to my so called local printer, which is about 30 feet away, except nothing shows up. So I print it again… still nothing. Hmmmm…

Okay, recheck the printer selection, go get the address off the printer, yep it matches.

Reboot the printer, send the document again. Nada…

I get back to my office, there is a phone message from someone two floors down on the opposite side of the building- Why are loading up our printer with your crap???

WTFO??? Soooo… I trudge down to that office, sure enough, all three copies of the document (which is not small). Plus I get an ass chewing from the secretary about how much that will cost “her” department, so I tell her to charge it to IT since it is their fault (hey, why not, I’m not the problem here).

So back to the office and call the ‘Help’ desk- yeah, right…

Do the usual back and forth:
Is your print queue set- yes
Did you address the correct printer- yes
Did you do a test print- yes
Did it go to the printer- no, it went to the printer on 8
It can’t- Well it DID!
We’ll send a tech- An hour later a tech shows up…

Same drill- He doesn’t believe it’s printing to 8; prints about 15 test sheets- Nada
The secretary on 8 calls, chewing on me, but I give the phone to the tech- Now she chews on him… hehehe

Off he goes, and I go to the next meeting. Three meetings later, I catch the guy in the hall. According to him, a printer problem at A DIFFERENT FACILITY across town has knocked our printer queues out…

Like I said, our IT system is on drugs…

TGIF!!!!!

The Bird Feeder

Posted on by March 6, 2013

I wish I could take credit, but I didn’t write it…

The Bird Feeder

A man bought a bird feeder. He hung it on his back porch and filled it with seed. Within a week he had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.

But then the birds started building nests in the boards of his patio,
above the table, and next to the barbecue.

Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table… everywhere.

Then some of the birds turned mean:

They would dive bomb the man and try to peck him even though he had fed them out of my own pocket.

And others birds were boisterous and loud:

They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that he fill it when it got low on food.

After a while, the man couldn’t even sit on his own back porch anymore.

Well, the man took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone.

He cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio.

Soon, the back yard was like it used to be … quiet, serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.

Now let’s see …

Our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, free education and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen.

Then the illegal’s came by the tens of thousands. Suddenly…
Our taxes went up to pay for free services;

Small apartments are housing 5 families:

You have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor:

Your child’s 2nd grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn’t speak English:

Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box;

I have to press “one” to hear my bank talk to me in English,
and people waving flags other than “Old Glory” are squawking and
screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.

Maybe it’s time for our government to take down the bird feeder …

Sea and Air Power at it’s best

Posted on by March 6, 2013

The Navy and Air Force just finished a big exercise in the Western Pacific- Here is the graduation picture 🙂
And yes, that really is a B-52 in the center of the flight formation and this year marks the B-52’s FIFTY-SECOND anniversery of service!
Folks, you really should be proud of the officers, men and women who crew these ships, aircraft and submarines. They work their butts off an average of 12 hours a day underway, in a hostile environment, for low pay AND have to put up with the crap from the likes of Reid/Kennedy/Pelosi…
These assets are getting old and tired (like the B-52) and maintaining them is a stone bitch! Also the Optempo/Perstempo is pretty high due to the cutbacks before 2000 in all the services. Many of these folks have also done tours in the Gulf and ashore in the Sandbox supporting a variety of organizations; yet they do so proudly! I know, I’ve worked with more than a few of these folks over the last few years.
A caveat here- You must remember…
A Happy Sailor is a bitching sailor; when they get quiet is when you have to worry! (Trust me- Been there, done that)
On another note- We have been having some sidebars about losing military folks. I would like to ask you, if you know a WWII, Korea, Vietnam or Gulf War veteran to try to get them to support the Veterans History Project being run by the Library of Congress.
Also, if you have military items from a family member you no longer want, or don’t plan to pass to others, rather than throw them out, please contact one of the service museums- They are always looking for donations for exhibits and historic artifacts. Here are links for the services museums

ERnursey – A very interesting Blog

Posted on by March 6, 2013

ERnursey – An emergency room nurse blog: Strange things found in various places.

I was rolling on the floor at this one! This is another keeper of a blog.

Fair Winds and Following Seas for a shipmate

Posted on by March 6, 2013

I just found out a few minutes ago that my “Sea Daddy” from my early P-3 Orion days died almost two years ago.

This reminds me of Matt’s post a couple of days ago over on Better and Better, how we lose touch with our Friends. I really feel badly about this, as Charlie was really one of the good guys…

Leonard Charles “Charlie” “Navy Charlie” Six, 63, died Nov. 20, 2005, at his home in Quakertown, Pa. He is survived by his loving wife of 20 years, Mrs. Six.
He retired in 1988 after 29 years of active duty in the U.S. Navy, which included three tours of duty in Vietnam.

I flew with and learned a TON from Charlie during ’73 to ’76 timframe, including some things that I passed on when I instructed that hopefully kept a few folks alive.

Keep it on centerline Charlie!

Ah… The joys of travel reimbursement…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Better known as why I hate beancounters…

As y’all know, I do a bit of travel for the government, which means I get to routinely submit paperwork, receipts, etc. to try to get the money back I spend doing my job…

This last one, however, has become so ridiculous it is approaching laughable!

To recap, I went to San Diego, CA; Sydney, AUS; Dallas, TX; two places in Japan; and Newport, RI with one night at home before Rhode Island. Today, I get THIS!!!!

From: them
To: me
Subject: Travel Claim of 9 Aug
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:47:51

Your travel claim of 9 Aug has been rejected for the following errors which require correction:

Error in exchange rate for Australia. You claimed .94 per $1 AUS, according to (website) the correct amount is .853 per $1 AUS.

Your hotel rate exceeded the allowable rate of $185A by more than 10% without justification. Correct travel claim to show a maximum of $202A.

Laundry is not an expensible item when on foreign travel, it is considered M&IE. $121.00 disallowed.

Your travel claim indicated you departed Australia on 23 July at 1400 and arrived in Dallas, TX at 1300 on 23 July. This needs to be corrected to reflect actual travel time.

Your train receipt for Japan did not include a detailed cost breakdown or copies of ticket stubs. Please provide same.

Your hotel rate in Yokosuka was within per diem, however you did not include non-availability statement from CBQ, you will be reimbursed at the CBQ rate of $28/day.

Your travel claim indicated you departed Japan on 4 Aug at 1700 and arrived in Dulles at 1600 on 4 Aug. This needs to be corrected to reflect actual travel time.

Expect a minimum 2 week payment delay after refilling due to your claim being rejected.

Sincerely,

beancounter

From: Me

To: Beancounter

CC: VP

CC: CEO

Subj: Travel Claim of 9 Aug

Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 13:12:03

Hey #%&*

Listen you SUMBITCH

Dear ASSHOLE

Sirs,

In response to your email above- Somebody needs to learn how to read and also take a course in Geography… I have been over all of these issues with you at least once each in the last three months.

First, I submitted the exchange rate I ACTUALLY RECEIVED (See page 4 of claim that was ignored). That was the published exchange rate at the Sydney XXXXXX Bank on 18 July.

Yes the hotel was over per diem- That was the lowest rate and was approved by both the VP XXXX and the Government COTAR. You have to reimburse me the actual rate. (approval emails page 5 of claim).

The laundry IS reimbursable- It was done in Texas, not Australia OR Japan. How hard is this???

Have you ever heard of the International dateline????? Go look it up, that is why I landed in the states before I took off from Australia and Japan. Lose a day plus 12 or 15 hours depending…

Japanese railways do not give any itinerary other than the physical tickets, WHICH THE MACHINE KEEPS- There is NO #$%*( way to give you a ticket stub if the machine eats it).

Again, you did not read the accompanying paperwork. Email of 5 Jul provided non-avail from CBQ Yoko page 7 of claim.

See above about IDL!!!!

Fine, you want to delay my travel claim, I will delay my upcoming travel until this claim for $6423 is processed… OBTW, I am supposed to be in San Diego 4 Sept, guess I won’t be making that…

R,

Me

Now I’m just waiting for the blowback on this one…


Sigh…

I’m probably getting a complaint filed against me for my language, but what the hell… Idjits are idjits… Guess I’m stoopid, because I keep putting up with this (maybe for not much longer).

This is just living proof the bureaucracy has won- I’m glad this is nothing ‘important’ like bullets or bombs, or food or fuel…

Kicking my soap box back in the corner for now…