Commentary: The Air Force is not designed to produce good leaders

I was Air Guard years ago before I switched over to the Reserve side. I remember back in the early days of OEF/OIF being told that many times commanders in the sand box would often request Guard units over active duty units. There are many reasons for that, but I also believe that the AD side could learn something from both the Guard and Reserve side of the house.

I am a retired active duty SP/SF. I found this very true of most officers who didn't come up supervising anyone beginning as 2nd Lts. And even those that did, promoted themselves out of positions of supervision/leadership into jobs that became career builders. Most of our officers are in planes and don't supervise anyone, but they are the ones promoted to 05/06 to become squadron, group and wing commanders, where as officer's who don't fly are looked down upon by their own peers. It is institutionalized that flyers get promoted over non flyers (IMHO). Starting in the 1990s the Air Force started using a business model to operate, we became a corporation with a lot of politics thrown in and lost our way, again IMHO. NCOs and SNCOs became marginalized by our commanders and our status was lost our experience was overlooked to make the airmen happy.

Stereotypes - ANG = Cronyism. We've always done it that way so why change now? I will say that you cannot generalize when it comes to Reserve and Guard units. Some units are just as good if not better than active duty. The Guard and Reserve have some advantages in regard to continuity; however, my experience has been active duty units are more reliable; however, the gap has closed.

Ops tempo driven by Iraqi Freedom starting in 2003 forced many ANG and Reserve units to deploy culling dead weight and improving mission sustainment of our Reserve forces. Deployments also forced active duty to work alongside Reserve units dispelling negative stereotypes. I do agree with the author's contention regarding the leadership landscape in the Air Force.