I had several excellent leaders during my time in the US Air Force. I previously described one of my favorite leaders, Henry Kitts. Two other great leaders I was fortunate to serve with were Brenda Mangente and Raymond Caldwell. I’ll talk about Brenda in a future blog post.
I served a year with Ray in Korea. Ray was a Master Sergeant with close to 20 years of service already when I met him, so he knew his stuff extremely well. There were so many things I appreciated about Ray as a leader – here are a few:
- Ray was one of the most trustworthy leaders I’ve ever had.
- Ray truly cared about all those he had been given the privilege to lead. His caring was for both our professional development and our personal well-being – which was extremely important at our remote assignment in Korea. He was accessible, which made him genuinely authentic.
- He knew his stuff extremely well. He was a subject matter expert not only on the specifics of our job but also in the operation of our squadron in general.
- And Ray had impeccable integrity. A lot of people, not just leaders, are moral chameleons – they have one set of principles they espouse to in one situation but change whenever a new opportunity (e.g. different culture) presents itself. Ray was not “what goes to Korea stays in Korea.” Ray could talk openly and honestly to anyone about anything he did in Korea because he behaved utterly consistent with his espoused principles.
- Ray was extremely professional. He was over 40 when I knew him, yet few people in the entire squadron were in better shape than Ray. He carried and presented himself as much professionalism as could because he understood that his country, his troops, his leaders, and he himself deserved no less.
Ray is one of the few leaders I’ve had that I also became personal friends with. But what I really admired about Ray and appreciated about his leadership was that even though we were friends, if I screwed up at work Ray would close the door and chew my ass out in private. He and I both understood the “constructive criticism” came with our work roles, and we were both professional enough to be able to keep our work and personal relationships separate.
That is, in my experience, very rare.
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