 Our final speaker for lead-ex is Major General Mark Dillon, Air Force Retired. He earned his commission through OTS and completed a distinguished 33-year military career commanding at the squadron, group, and wing levels. He's a command mobility pilot with more than 3,500 flight hours and six different airframes. His final assignment was a hardship tour at Pearl Joint Base Harbor, Hickam, Hawaii where he served as the Vice Commander of Pacific Air Forces and the Deputy Theater Joint Force Air Component Commander. General Dillon is President of Mark C. Dillon, LLC where he's a leadership, defense, and strategic planning consultant and currently serves on three boards of directors. Ladies and gentlemen, Major General Mark Dillon. Thanks, Mo. Well good afternoon. Team Montgomery, Air University, Air Command and Staff College in the Class of 2020, Squadron Officer School, Air Force ROTC cadets, distinguished visitors, ladies and gentlemen, did I miss anyone? Okay. For the past two days, we've had the distinct opportunity to participate in lead-ex 2020, trying to find purpose at the intersection of leadership, strategy, and innovation. So one of my first responsibilities, I thought this, by the way, I thought it was an absolutely tremendous event, the first time I've participated, so kudos to the team. One of my first responsibilities is to say thank you. So if you'll hold your applause for a second, I'm going to say a few thanks just so make sure I do this right. All right. First and foremost, how about a shout out to that tremendous team, the lead-ex team, who put this all together, their team of volunteers, and their famous fearless leader, Colonel retired Bill DeMarco. Would all those folks from lead-ex and their team please stand and be recognized? Bill, come on. They're in the back. Yep. Now if Bill and his team, stick with my analogy here, if Bill and his team drafted the outline for the lead-ex 2020 term paper, then clearly the body of that term paper was filled out by our wonderful guest speakers for the last couple of days. So would all our guest speakers who participated please stand and be recognized? This afternoon, a kid who graduated from Bemidji High School in Bemidji, Minnesota will share some pragmatic leadership observations that I've collected over a 33-year career in serving in our world's greatest Air Force. Now I didn't leave high school anticipating that I was going to join the Air Force. I left high school anticipating that I was going to go to college and play baseball and maybe try to play professional baseball. But as life would have it, and unlike the Houston Astros, sometimes when life throws you a curveball, you don't know what's coming. And so four and a half years after graduating from Bemidji High, I was able to turn my humble 2.67 grade point average college degree in engineering into an opportunity to attend officer training school in the United States Air Force. And the rest, they say, is history. Throughout my career, I had the opportunity to serve as a space shuttle systems engineer, who was selected to attend pilot training and flew seven different aircraft, many of them around the globe. I've landed safely on six of the seven continents on the planet. I've served during the tenure of six United States presidents, and I've shaken the hands of four of them. And most importantly, I've had the opportunity to attend not one, not two, but four PME courses here at Maxwell Air Force Base. I believe good leaders possess the following characteristics. Good leaders have balance in their life. Good leaders are professional. Good leaders know their mission. Good leaders know their people. And good leaders demonstrate courage, and I'll talk about those in a second. Innovation is defined as to change or renew. Someone much smarter than me once said, if you want a new idea, read an old book. So kudos to the ACSE staff this year for including an old book on ethics written by Aristotle. Now you might say, why would we want to read something by a guy who lived 2,400 years ago? Well, quite frankly, I think Aristotle has something important to say, not only to us as human beings, but also to us as leaders. He talked about, he discussed, and he thought deeply about what's the right way for human beings to live. And that, my friends, that, my friends, is not bound by time nor by place. Very strategic indeed. Wikipedia tells us that Aristotle was a teacher for Alexander the Great. And he wrote over 200 works that have made significant and lasting contributions to human knowledge from logic to biology, ethics to mathematics, and a whole range of others. For that reason, Aristotle and his teacher, Plato, are known as the fathers of Western philosophy. 1,500 years after Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, the foremost medieval scholar, called Aristotle the philosopher. Can you imagine if you'd had those two duty titles or those two responsibilities, the father of Western philosophy and the philosopher on your resume? Truly amazing indeed. A couple more thoughts on Aristotle before I get started. He's the master of the obvious. Let me quote, the good man and the bad are least distinguishable while asleep. His ethics can be summarized as one of the first self-examination or first self-help books. Because in it, as I mentioned earlier, he sets out to answer the question, what is the right way for a human being to live? Aristotle, again, telling us the obvious, tells us what separates humans from other animals is our fact that we can talk. And because we can talk, we can reason. And it's our unique ability to reason that we can determine the good. So logically it follows that in order to be a good and virtuous leader, you need to be a good and virtuous human being. So well done to the Air Command and Staff College this year for including Aristotle in their curriculum. Observation number one, good leaders need balance in their life. Congratulations, and my comments are targeted specifically to those ACSE grads from Class of 2020 this year. You're going to go on to incredibly more responsible positions, positions of more authority, some of you are going to command. More, more, more, more work, more busyness. Your professional lives are going to increasingly get busy as well as your personal lives. Let me use an analogy. The faster the wheel spins, the more it needs to be in balance. I can guarantee this because at least for ACSE, I sat in your very seats over in Barnes and the other auditoriums a mere 22 years ago in seminars 4 and 11. I've had the privilege to serve for many great leaders and I've learned something from each and every one of them. Let me give you a couple of examples. We've all served for good leaders and bad, the good, the bad and the ugly we heard about this week. I've had the privilege to serve for leaders who are workaholics and so have you and learned something from them. I served for a four star a couple years ago who had several years before I served with him had actually almost worked himself to death. He was such a workaholic. Fortunately for him, he survived and fortunately for our nation and Department of Defense, he went on to become a four star general and bigger and better things beyond that. Serving for this leader was one of the greatest privileges that I had in my career and taught me so much about leadership and especially about keeping your life in balance. He completely changed the staff schedule. He wouldn't take home a foot high stack of paperwork every night like his predecessor was. I was his chief of staff and in fact he told me, he said, hey chief, why am I doing all, why do I have all these general officers and SES on my staff if I'm doing all this work? He changed the duty day. The first official duty, the first official meeting could not start until 9 AM and he religiously left by 5 PM. Now I know that all of you aren't four star generals. I understand that and I know that all of you at this point in your life think that, hey, I've always heard do more with less. Trust me, this officer did way more by doing, actually doing less non-important things. He taught me about balance. He went on to become a combatant commander. Achieving balance though in your life takes thought as you've heard throughout the last couple of days and trust me, the more senior you've become, the more responsibility you take on, it's the more time, the more important it is for you to create time to think in order to get your life and keep your life in balance. Next slide. Yeah, it's a note to myself. In July of 2018 there was an article in Wall Street Journal written by a gentleman named Dr. Bradley Statz. The article is entitled, Don't Just Dive Into Action, Stop to Think First. The good doctor uses a soccer penalty kick example to make his point. According to Dr. Statz, World Cup soccer penalty kicks go left 32% of the time, right 28% of the time, and they stay in the center of the goal about 39% of the time. Yet either because folks don't look at the statistics or they don't believe them, World Cup soccer goalies go left 49% of the time. They go right 44% of the time and they stay in the middle only about six. But World Cup soccer goalies aren't the only ones that have this, what I'll call, action bias. We all do. Business says that we're important. Dr. Statz in the same article also makes a point where he talks about, uses a quote from the original CEO of international business machines, IBM, who said, and I quote, the trouble with every one of us is we don't think enough. So we all take busyness and many of us think that busyness in the workplace is an indication that you are indeed dedicated. You're more knowledgeable or you're more important. The fact of the matter is effective leaders don't just act. They think before they act. They think about how to keep their life and not only keep it, get it, but to keep it in balance. And long before Isaac Watson or long before Dr. Statz or even for the four star that I serve for, Aristotle wrote about bringing your life into alignment, your thinking, your desiring, and your actions. He called this alignment of thinking, desiring, and actions virtue. He said, we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is a habit, not an act. Good leaders are professionals. We all know that the word professional comes from the Latin root profess, which means to publicly declare one is skilled in as in a leader. You are publicly declared that you know all things about leadership. In order to not degrade your profession, however, leaders need to treat each other like professionals up and down and across your organizations. Many actions exemplify professionals, and I'll just mention a couple of them. They are standards, loyalty, and mentoring. Whoops. There we go. First action is to have and maintain standards, I believe, of a good professional. As you heard Admiral Lee talk about yesterday, the US military is the number one most trusted institution in American society today and has been for several years. I believe one of the reasons for that is because we not only have, but we uphold and maintain our standards. Whether you're an element leader as a lieutenant or you're a four-star combatant commander, whatever you do or whatever you say will either reinforce or undermine our standards in the institution called the United States Military. Each and every one of you as leaders in our military is a standard bearer for the organization. Prime Minister, so don't compromise on your standards. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, and I quote, if you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing. Second characteristic of a professional is loyalty. Have you heard any banter about a fellow airman around the office? What about the latest banter or opinions given your opinions on each other on social media? We've all done it or seen it. My recommendation is don't do it, and as a leader, don't tolerate it. When leaders tolerate loyalty, all kinds of bad things happen. You have personnel issues in your unit, you have morale issues, and you have serious command climate issues. Trust me, I've seen it many, many times. But don't take my advice for it. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt once, great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and small minds discuss people. You may not like someone in your unit, but our military, much like Admiral Lee said yesterday, it's not fantasy football. You don't get to pick your team no matter how senior you are. You've got to figure out, especially as a leader, how to get along with everyone. Cadet Mark Dillon learned this hard lesson back in 1984 at Officer Training School. You've all done them. We've done them before. They're called peer spears, peer evaluations. I seem to get along with everyone in my flight, but there was one of the cadets that I just, we really had a personality conflict, just didn't like the gentleman. So when it came time to do peer spears, I felt inclined. I thought I was obligated to give my opinion of this young man. So a couple days after turning in our peer spears to our flight commander, he brought us all together in a room, closed the door, made us all set. He had about a 10 foot rope in his hand that had a noose on the end of it. He asked Cadet Dillon to come to the front of the class. He asked me to put the noose around my neck. I still didn't know what was going on. I thought, hey, it's training. I thought we're going to learn something about escape and evasion, or maybe he's going to tell us a POW story. I didn't know. Imagine my surprise when he said, and I'm paraphrasing, but pretty close, he said, Cadet Dillon, you came about this close to hanging yourself. We're only a week away from graduation, and you almost didn't graduate because you elected to give your opinion on an evaluation of someone, instead of actually assessing them. My flight commander, of course, had much better judgment than I, and he elected not to tell the rest of the flight and embarrass me in public, besides the embarrassment I already had, to say what I'd actually written. As Aristotle's teacher Plato once said about opinions, opinion is the medium between ignorance and knowledge. You may not like someone in your organization, but as professionals, you have to figure out how to get along with them, how to actually show loyalty towards those individuals. My OTS flight commander taught me that painful lesson many years ago, be loyal to all those who you serve with, because that's what professionals do. The third characteristic of professionalism is mentoring. Has anyone read the book, Creech Blue, by General Bill Creech, or about General Bill Creech and the Reformation of the Tactical Air Forces? It's about General Creech, who was the commander of the Tactical Air Forces right after the Vietnam era, and how he rebuilt the force. It's written by Lieutenant Colonel Jim Slife at the time, now Lieutenant General Jim Slife, who's the commander of our Air Force Special Operations Command. One of General Creech's leadership lessons was, the first responsibility of leaders is to train the next generation of leaders. Retired US Air Force Chief of Staff, General Ron Fogelman, ran through a list of all those officers who were mentored by General Creech. You might recognize some of these names. General John Jumper, General Merrill McPeak, General Richard Myers, they all acknowledged that Creech was much more than just a mentor. Now, I know the chances are that you're not going to be mentoring one of the future Chief of Staff of the Air Force. But the point isn't about Chief of Staff of the Air Force, the point is about training, about mentoring, and quite frankly, about training your replacements. And not only train your replacements in your unit, but also be a mentor and mentor those outside your unit in your neighborhood, in your family, in your community. If not you to train your replacement in your unit, then who? I still mentor scores of folks inside the Air Force, outside, officer and enlisted, folks that have no affiliation with our United States Air Force. Trust me, it's a very rewarding opportunity. And whether you're, again, a Lieutenant or a Lieutenant General, I encourage you to mentor. I happen to be a member of a flying fraternity, and I live in near the Washington, D.C. area. And a couple years ago, I met a young man who was interested in joining the Air Force. He did not. He's currently a freshman at Howard University. But we have this flying fraternity that I participate in, has monthly meetings. So the meeting last month, I decided to invite this young man that I've been mentoring. And guess who the guest speaker was? The guest speaker happened to be none other than, let me get my notes here, make sure I get it right. The guest speaker was, of course, and you'd seen him recently on the State of the Union. The guest speaker was newly minted US Air Force Brigadier General Retired. Tuskegee Airmen and Centurion, yes. You know what I'm talking about. Sorry about that. Mr. Charles McGee, all right. So Charles McGee was there. And I think now, this young man doesn't belong to Air Force Unit. He may or may not join Air Force ROTC at Howard University. But by golly, he had an experience of a lifetime, as well as me. So mentor, whether it's inside your units or outside, but take the opportunity to mentor. All right, my third leadership observation is know your mission. 18 years ago in the summer of 2002, this flying squadron commander had the opportunity of a lifetime to lead a unit into combat. On the 1st of July 2002, the Air Mobility Command Director of Operations made a personal visit to our base at Travis Air Force Base to give us the tasking to deploy the C-5 into and out of Afghanistan. A little background on the C-5 Galaxy for those that you don't know about it. In 2002, there weren't any new engines or new avionics modernization done to the airplane. The C-5 is an airplane, of course, that was designed and built in the 1970s and has a well-deserved reputation of having low reliability. The last time the C-5 had deployed into combat was in 1975 in Vietnam. After more than 25 years of not flying into combat, do you think the C-5 cruise and the support system was ready for that? The answer was a resounding no. There are actually two challenges. The first one is obviously we're going to be flying in harm's way. People might actually be shooting at us. The second challenge, though, was actually bigger. It was a negative attitude, not only just an attitude, but I'll call it a negative attitude. Because this old airplane hadn't flown into combat for decades, its support system and all those things around it had really atrophy. The conventional wisdom was this combat deployment was risky. A fact the two star who came out to our base that day repeated often. Now, yours truly was focused on the mission, focused on the object in front of me. But quickly, that focus was brought back down to Earth and back down to reality by our people. Before we even deployed, one of the first questions that my airmen were going to deploy with us wanted to know is, hey boss, what's going to be the alcohol drinking policy where we are based in Diego Garcia out in the Indian Ocean? Think about that. Historic opportunity, once in a lifetime chance, and folks are worried about what the alcohol policy is going to be. Now, they knew because they're a smart air crew, they knew that Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean is outside the CENTCOM US Central Command Area of Responsibility, where at the time, in 2002, the general order number one was in effect, which is no alcohol. And they knew that their fellow crew dogs that were there with them routinely had the opportunity when not on duty to consume alcohol. Our deployment was only scheduled the last three weeks. So I knew the importance of this mission. I knew the importance of taking care of people. But this was one time where the mission came first. So I implemented a no alcohol policy for our deploying crews. I also thought at the same time, if we can't go for a few weeks without alcohol, we've got bigger problems. So despite the bellyache and the whining, I eliminated the alcohol distraction. Aristotle would call the virtue of temperance or moderation. Again, it was only for a couple of weeks. Leaders balance mission and people. And in this case, the mission took priority. What were the results of that deployment? I'll share those with you in a minute. Leadership observation before is know your people. For it is they who accomplish the mission. President Ronald Reagan once said the greatest leader is not necessarily one who gets the greatest things. He or she is the one who gets the people to do the greatest things. Continuing with the C5 story, I'd like to bring about a couple of my senior enlisted who I happened to serve with on the deployment. Chief Master Sergeant Tim Rooning, a flight engineer, and Master Sergeant Mike Rowe. No, not the Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs, but Master Sergeant Mike Rowe from North Carolina, C5 Loadmaster. Like myself, they had come from other aircraft before the C5. Master Sergeant's Rooning and Rowe were like me. They believed the airplane was much more capable than its reputation. So I trusted them and selected them over others who were more senior and had more experience in the aircraft. And fortunately for us all, my gut feel and my gut decision paid off. These two senior NCOs were truly amazing. In two weeks, we went from notification to ready to fly the first combat missions in the C5 in 25 years. Suffice to say, everyone did great work on the deployment, but these two stood head and shoulders above the rest. The results of our deployment speak for themselves. What was supposed to take 30 sorties in three weeks, took team Rooning and Rowe 24 sorties in two weeks. Every takeoff was on time. This is truly unheard of for the C5 with a track record of less than 50% departure reliability and even lower mission capable rate. How big of a deal was it? Our team afterwards was asked to come brief the secretary of the Air Force and the chief of staff. More importantly though, that deployment model that we used was the template that Air Mobility Command still uses today for C5s. What would Aristotle say? Those leaders, Rooning and Rowe, show true wisdom characterized by their judgment and experience. Good leaders know their people and they, so I would encourage you to find the Roonings and Rowe's in your organization. Now the last leadership lesson, good leaders demonstrate courage. In his book on ethics, Aristotle says a virtue is the mean, the middle between two vices. The vice of excess and the other vice is deficiency. Courage is the first virtue that Aristotle actually writes about in his book on ethics and it's the easiest to understand for those of us in the military, courage on the battlefield is the archetype. In the heat of battle you want to curl up or you want to run away and that's cowardice. Conversely, if you run towards the enemy that's rashness, the other vice and courage is the mean between the two. Courage in our military is demonstrated in many ways. How about all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and soon space force who head off into combat? And what about our wounded warriors who not only return from the battlefield but have the courage to overcome their wounds? I witnessed courage firsthand when I had the privilege to serve as a wing commander at Travis Air Force Base in 2008. On a Sunday afternoon a huge fire had started off base and it was spread by a 40 mile an hour wind, extremely dry conditions and it was headed right out a huge unoccupied housing area of over 600 houses on the installation. The fire eventually burned over 250 of these houses. But that day I saw the first responders' courage and bravery. It was so amazing. There were no injuries and obviously no fatalities. And how could we forget? Master Sergeant John Chapman, US Air Force combat controller who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in August of 2018 for his actions in Afghanistan in 2002. He was the first airman to receive the Medal of Honor in our Air Force since the Vietnam War. Yes, good leaders demonstrate courage and they do the right thing for the right reasons, right when it's needed. This afternoon I've shared my observations with you. The good leaders have their life in balance, their professionals, good leaders know their mission, good leaders know their people and good leaders demonstrate courage. Throughout my presentations I shared some insight from our friend Aristotle. That great western leader and statesman and leaders have studied for millennia. But sadly in our schools today, Aristotle isn't taught anymore. So kudos once again to the ACSE team for bringing him back this year. American author Robert Kaplan, many of you have written some of the great bestselling books he's written. In Europe's Shadows, Agents Cauldron, Revenge of Geography, Balkans Ghost and Dozens More. In his thought provoking bestseller Warrior Politics, Kaplan cautions all of us. Like previous generations, baby boomers believe in their singularity. That their times are unique and they are wiser and more enlightened than those who preceded them. Facilities, the 5th century BC Athenian general and historian wrote, the events which have happened in the past will at some time or other in much the same way be repeated in the future. Machiavelli, the Renaissance Italian politician, philosopher, diplomat and historian said, anyone wishing to see what is to be must consider what has been. Confucius, I really like this one, ancient Chinese philosopher puts it most simply, being fond of the truth, I am an admirer of antiquity. Kaplan summarizes all of these by saying, the greater the disregard of history, the greater the delusions regarding the future. The classics help us counter that historical amnesia. To paraphrase Mr. Kaplan, the more we disregard eminent thinkers like Aristotle, the more ethical problems we're gonna be faced with in the future. And closing a special thanks to the ACSD staff for bringing us all together to try to find purpose at the intersection of leadership strategy and innovation. That purpose I believe is good ethical leadership. Good ethical leadership is vital to our military, vital to our country, vital to our world, and within your lifetime, vital to our universe. Thank you all very much, God bless you. And thanks again to Colonel DeMarco and team for putting together a wonderful lead X 2020. Thank you.