Journal of Character and Leadership Development

Space Force Culture

Chang Suh — 2024-03-12

The word culture is a verb meaning to grow something. Only in the past few centuries has it been used as a noun. This tendency has caused confusion about what it is we are actually growing. As the United States Space Force enters its 4th year as a military service, it behooves space professionals and stakeholders to consider the etymology of important words like culture and Guardian. Given the mission priorities of the USSF, the key is for Guardians to focus on growing, influencing, and culturing one another.

Leaders’ Psychological Bravery

Dana Born — 2024-03-12

Perspectives on Leadership and Character

Alison Yang — 2024-03-12

Bring Me Courage: Empowering Student Voices to Reduce Sexual Assault and Harassment Reporting Barriers and Influence Culture

Taren E. Wellman — 2024-03-05

Sexual assault and harassment on college campus, particularly military service academies, is a complex problem requiring student-led culture change. Efforts of the top-down campus administrator to change culture will be ineffective without student buy-in and input. Listening to student voices is necessary to identify barriers and paths to enable behaviors on the peripherals that reinforce desired culture traits. This article highlights a student-led effort at the U.S. Air Force Academy to reduce reporting barriers by disincentivizing peer pressure to remain silent in the face of harassment, bullying, hazing, or assault.

Operationalizing the Human Condition, Cultures, and Societies Outcome through the National Character and Leadership Symposium

Peter Swanson — 2024-03-11

This paper focuses on the Human Condition, Cultures, and Societies institutional outcome at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) and highlights the connection between the outcome and the 2024 National Character and Leadership Symposium (NCLS) theme. Each year, the symposium provides the USAFA community and visitors the opportunity to learn from and engage with nationally recognized speakers. Interactions allow participants to contemplate not only the importance of valuing the human condition but also engage concertedly and compassionately with others. Every four years, the NCLS theme is rooted in the institutional outcome of the Human Condition, Cultures, and Societies. This year’s theme places particular emphasis on precisely the need to know oneself, know others, and to elevate performance through constructive engagement to make a difference, namely learning what each can and must do to value the human condition and human beings. The authors explore how USAFA operationalizes the importance of understanding the human condition as participants transition from the academic classroom to the field to the Air Force and Space Force.

Undergraduate Management Research as Deliberate Development of Leaders of Character?

Emily Bulger — 2024-03-08

The United States Air Force Academy’s mission is to “educate, train, and inspire men and women to become officers of character motivated to lead the U.S. Air Force and Space Force in service to our nation.” Leaders of character are expected to (1) Live Honorably, (2) Lift Others, and (3) Elevate Performance through three critical steps of owning, engaging, and practicing their own development journey. The Cadet Summer Research Program (CSRP) is an institution-wide program that provides selected cadets the opportunity to function as independent adults while conducting research outside the classroom, in both military and civilian institutions. Cadets work on research projects in partnership with organizations across the country and are expected to produce results with real-world applications. Given the considerations explored above, we undertook a nascent exploration of the connection between management majors’ CSRP journey and our deliberate approach in developing leaders of character. We strongly suggest that CSRP, as experienced by management majors, unfolds as a transformative experience that contributes to cadets owning the pursuit of their own identity, engaging in purposeful experiences, and practicing habits of thought and action. During this multifaceted process, cadets put into practice what it takes to live honorably, lift others, and elevate performance in socio-technical systems. In many ways, these systems replicate those they will serve as officers, better preparing them to lead in future conflicts.

Lens X: A Practical Approach to Taking Care of Your People

Daphne DePorres — 2024-03-12

Graduates of the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA), as commissioned officers, are charged to “take care of their people.” While this leadership aphorism makes sense, this article describes what it means in practice. An interdisciplinary USAFA team explored the dynamics of leader development from multiple angles, resulting in a focus on two dimensions (or “lenses”) that help a leader understand what actions can be taken to help an employee achieve subjective well-being at work. The intent is to draw attention to the nature of the interaction with organizational members that foster engagement and need fulfillment. We do that by focusing a leader’s attention on needs, narratives, and micro-exchanges. Those interactions, behaviors, and micro-exchanges are the foundations of and the most tangible, changeable element of climate and culture. This practical lens equips any leader to seize every opportunity to foster fulfillment of the psychological needs for belonging, agency, and efficacy. This framework can be used by anyone but is particularly relevant to supervisors and USAFA cadets who will be entrusted to lead an all-volunteer military force.

Cultivation of Character for Ethical Leadership: The Department of Leadership Education at Culver Academies

Evan Dutmer — 2024-03-12

Since 1894, Culver Academies has aimed to develop leaders of character. Rooted in the military academy and boarding school traditions, Culver has centered leadership development around central virtues and values. In 1986, recognizing the need to provide integrated, successive leadership learning experiences for students across 4 years, Culver instituted a standalone academic Department of Leadership Education. The Department of Leadership Education, housed in the Schrage Leadership Center, is unique among secondary boarding schools in offering four successive academic leadership education classroom experiences alongside Student Life curricula. Each year’s curriculum is centered in a transformational leadership framework, utilizing evidence-based tools to guide students’ leadership and character growth at each level. Ultimately, students’ growth is assessed by faculty (and students themselves) according to core leadership and character competencies developed by the Academies. Continual improvement of the department is ensured through a comprehensive triennial review process. The aim of this article is to illustrate a successful, iterative character and leadership education experience in a 4-year secondary school context.

A Review of “Together: The healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World”

Kimberly Dickman — 2024-03-05

Designing a Course for Lifelong, Self-Directed Character Growth

Ryan Erbe — 2024-03-08

In this paper, we discuss how to create a course that helps students set a foundation for lifelong, self-directed character growth. To this end, we offer a new framework for character change which we call the 3M’s for “mindset” (having a growth mindset for character growth), “motivation” (using psychological needs described in the Self Determination Theory, autonomy, competence, relatedness, and purpose), and “means” (tools for character development). We then give concrete examples of how each component of this framework can be used in a classroom setting to help students develop their character.

Measuring the Relationship Between Leadership Styles and Destructive Leadership Behaviors Among Air Force Students Attending Army Command and General Staff College

Timothy Ramig — 2024-03-08

Background: The Air Force uses the full range of leadership model (transformational, transactional, and passive-avoidant leadership) to develop leaders. However, there has been less research at how the leadership styles in the full range of leadership model are related to destructive leadership behavior, evidenced by adverse administrative actions.

Objective: Conduct a pilot study using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire and Destrudo-L in tandem, within a smaller population of Air Force Professional Military Education students, to determine if, and to what degree, a relationship existed between leadership styles and destructive leadership behaviors.

Methods: The MLQ-5X and Destrudo-L research instruments were used to collect data from a population sample of the Air Force field grade officers attending professional military education (n = 22). The MLQ-5X measured leadership styles, and the Destrudo-L measured destructive leadership behaviors.

Results: Linear regressions measured the relationships between leadership styles and destructive leadership behavior and all regressions found p ≤ 0.005. Transformational leadership behaviors were negatively related to both passive (B = −1.36) and active (B = −0.86) destructive leadership behaviors. Transactional leadership behaviors were also negatively related to both passive (B = −1.3) and active (B = −0.83) destructive leadership behaviors. However, passive-avoidant leadership behaviors had a positive relationship with passive (B = 1.21) and active (B = 0.68) destructive leadership behaviors.

Conclusion: This pilot study found a relationship between leadership styles and destructive leadership behavior. However, the cross-sectional design, small population within a single officer rank, setting of a competitive in-residence Professional Military Education course, limit the generalizability of the findings.