The key to success: Professional development

  • Published
  • By Maj. Justin Gilbreth
  • 49th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron
HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  Now give me two minutes of your time, and most of all, hear this! Forget about promotions and checking boxes. For all of us, enlisted or officer, professional development began when we initially entered into the Air Force and doesn't end until we choose to decline, separate or retire. Two subset areas of professional development are Professional Military Education and the daily interactions we have with our chain of command, most importantly, our immediate supervisors.

The core reasons for PME are far more personal and profound than any of us originally thought... and guess what? It is not only about you, but rather the team you will lead or become a crucial part of in accomplishing the mission.

PME traditionally begins with basic skills such as oral and written communication, but the program objectives quickly changes its focus to building leaders at all levels within our military services. In these leadership laboratories, as I like to call them, students can apply different leadership styles in a variety of situations. Students are forced to develop their own subset of values from the Air Force core values and answer the most important question of leadership: Why should I choose to take a certain action, over an opposing one as a leader in today's ever changing Air Force? Students also have front-row seats to one another's leadership paradigms and are free to embrace or discard other leadership styles. Students attending PME have a limited timeframe to observe their peers with diverse backgrounds from several Air Force professions as they effectively manage situations.

Most importantly, a PME program allows for leadership failure, without the catastrophic consequences of failure in combat. These failures experienced produce lessons learned, not only for the student, but for his and her peers. It is difficult to quantify or objectively measure these benefits, and it is most certainly not a "check the box" activity, but rather an ongoing process. These lessons are then taken back to respective communities and implemented.

In this sense, PME is as Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James Cody explained, "A Force Multiplier." Ultimately, PME enables us to gain greater insight into ourselves, whether it is our strengths and weaknesses, and then overcome those weaknesses or improve upon our recognized strengths. Bottom line, PME is the catalyst which drives us to become better well-rounded Airman at the end of the day. Before you put your PME on disregard or block PME and say "great another PME plug from another Airman", ask yourself this question: Why does corporate America spend multi-millions of dollars each year on leadership seminars? The answer is simple. It is because as bright as we might think we are, we don't have the experiences of our peers and of those that came before us. PME is a medium that leadership seminars are to corporate America to pass on valuable lessons learned or not learned in some instances. Simply put, PME is a value added Air Force benefit and as all benefits, a benefit is only one if it is used and employed.

Throughout our daily interactions as Airmen, in our Air Force, it is vitally important to receive feedback from our immediate supervisors which happens to be extremely critical to our overall professional development. Good, bad or indifferent feedback received is feedback nonetheless, and despite the circumstances we grow from each experience. If you have no idea what feedback is from a subordinate perspective, ask your supervisor to get engaged immediately in your professional development and provide you feedback.

Feedback does not always come in the form of nicely-stated words written down on an automated Air Force form, but it requires your supervisor looking you in the eye and telling you a correction needs to be made immediately. Or, it could be that an opportunity has just presented itself for you to showcase your work center or mission to a distinguished visitor next week.

Positive, negative or reinforcement feedback outside of the "Formal AFI Directed" calendar day interval requirements drives development. To await your initial or midterm formal feedback is doing yourself and most importantly your team a disservice.

As an Airman, your attitude is the most important factor in your professional development and you should seek out those opportunities away from all your comfort zones to grow exponentially. Now get moving forward today with your overall development and tell your supervisor the Air Force says "Hello!"