Air Force Commander Relieved - Favoritism or Engaged Leadership?

It is hard to tell from the article. Most of the statements are from the wife and others that supported him and said was just good leadership. We don't hear from the others that actually said favortism was ahppening. Unforunately even doing the right thing can get you in trouble if it portrays in a negative way within the unit.

I wrote a very long response to this article, which I decided to not post, due to the fact that I find this case very inflaming and, on reflection, my long post veered into what is definitely unprofessional ranting. Maybe I'll put it on an account where I don't represent the military...

That said, here is your pull quote from the article for the next time it seems like that senior leader is cold/aloof/distant/uncaring: "This is a business. Commanders have to ensure they are taking care of business equally.”"

Arguably, this Officer's career has been ended by an attempt to be an engaged, caring commander. As a result, I am willing to bet a lot of other new (and future) commanders got the message loud and clear. Regardless of what the AF Reg on command responsibility says.

In all fairness, I wasn't the Investigating Officer, and there may be information that I don't know. That said, I have seen similar facts to what is reported in the AF times end careers. And I've seen others around the targeted Officer say "Roger, not me."

Reference back to the recent discussion of Es and Os dating...

This experiment sums it up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbb27GQ_X1I

One monkey gets an OK treat for a task and the other monkey gets a really good treat for performing the exact same task. The monkey who gets the boring treat gets angry.

I go to work, do my job, and I get a paycheck and my family lives within those means. But PFC Snuffy is kind of a screw up. He has an expensive hobby (whatever it is) and spends all of his money on that instead of taking care of his wife and kids. Then, his kid has an accident and needs special equipment and suddenly we are doing a unit fundraiser, buying his wife flowers, toys for the other kids...WHAT? Here I am, paying my bills like a sucker. Who will by crap for my family? Can we have a unit fundraiser so I can get a decent car instead of my clunker? No. Now I'm jealous because in my perception, Snuffy doesn't "deserve" the attention, money, gifts, etc. I know I would look bad if I went after Snuffy so who can I go after? Who can I make a secret IG complaint about? Hmmm...