Compromise to graduate
The slippery slope to senior leadership
Our military promotes cowardly liars
There, I said it.
OK, having tossed that hand grenade, I should probably add some caveats. I speak from personal experience, but my personal experience is limited to the Air Force Medical Service. I am sure that the leadership culture is better in some places.
Somewhere.
This is about more than just the military’s built-in need to lie just to get by, as detailed in The Cynicism of the Apostate. This is a much more banal form of dishonesty: self-preservation.
And this isn’t about physical courage: jumping out of planes, charging an enemy position, that sort of thing. This is a much more insidious form of cowardice: choosing not to do the right thing because it is harder and/or might involve personal costs, a.k.a. “moral cowardice”.
True story, bro
As with so many things, this is a realization that happened gradually and then all at once.
It began to percolate after a conversation I had with my then-boss in the fall of 2023. My boss (hospital commander)—let’s call her Colonel D—was frustrated that her subordinate commanders were not implementing her direction. She expressed her frustration to me, a member of her senior command staff.
In response, I said: “These are all squadron commanders; they are all trying to check the box for a successful command tour so that they can go on to other leadership assignments. The one thing that is sure to motivate them is to put at risk their command tour—in other words, threaten to relieve them of command. Their only real motivation is not to get fired.”
Perhaps overly harsh, but effective—because it’s true: the #1 thing that your typical commander wants to achieve today, is a “successfully completed command” stamp in their career book.
And wouldn’t you know it: a very short while later, the squadron commanders all lined up and did exactly as they were told.
Regulate to comfort
This made me think of an article by Army Colonel Richard Malish, titled “Market Observations, Lessons, and Recommendations for the Defense Health Agency”. In it, COL Malish writes that the Military Health System “regulates primarily to its comfort”. While the context is slightly different—COL Malish was referring to the incentive structures of socialized systems—the sentiment still holds.
It doesn’t matter if you’re the #1 graduated squadron commander or #99 out of 99. As long as you graduate, that’s all that matters. There’s no extra pay or promotion for being #1. (Just like medical school…)1
Since the outcome is the same regardless of the level of effort, no commander tends to want to work any harder than is necessary to keep from getting fired. In other words, they are indolent; they regulate to their comfort—as long as the amount of pain they receive is kept at or below some acceptable level, they tend to avoid unnecessary action.
Lead us into temptation
It’s not that they’re bad people, necessarily… at least not from the start. The modern military commander has so much happening all at once, that anything that saves time and effort is usually an easy “yes”. When presented with two options, both of them leading to acceptable outcomes but one requiring less work, they will generally tend to choose the easier path. And if one option requires more work and has an uncertain outcome, the choice becomes even easier.
The problem is that over time, this trains the commander to avoid thinking more than necessary and just to pick the easy option every time. Organizational leaders may even deliberately cultivate this behavior in order to grow a cadre of commanders who can very easily be led—not to say “manipulated”—into acting a certain way. And when a true test comes—for example, a mandated experimental medical treatment—and the hypothetical commander is faced with the choice between an easy and safe outcome (make everyone do as they’re told) and a difficult and potentially hazardous outcome (push back on the mandate and/or support troops who do so), unfortunately that commander will tend to choose the easy way out.
Or, when faced with some major shortcoming within the unit—something that will require lots of cleanup and make the commander look bad for having allowed it to happen on their watch—the indolent commander will tend to choose to quietly bury it until they can graduate command and punch their ticket for a promotion. The next guy will deal with it.
The darker side
But what is really interesting, from an organizational behavior / leadership science viewpoint, is how a commander reacts when faced with the exposure of some deficiency within their unit. It doesn’t even need to be gross malfeasance.
As much as we might want to believe that our officers are men and women of integrity and excellence, the reality is that many—if not most—will fight like cornered rats to avoid external scrutiny.
Another true story, bro
I was tasked to run a self-inspection of our hospital in preparation for a critical inspection / accreditation visit in 2025. In the course of this self-inspection, I identified a major program that is required for hospital accreditation but essentially did not exist in our facility. Since this represented a major risk for the hospital, I identified it to Col D and to the subordinate commander whose unit was tasked with running the program—let’s call her Lieutenant Colonel A.
I made a true enemy that day. Lt Col A denied the truth of what I had said—which was bad enough, because we both knew that she was lying. She also made completely unrelated accusations, including that she felt physically threatened by me. She started whisper campaigns to discredit me with the rest of the hospital staff. I’m not sure, but I think she worked harder to undermine me than she would have had to work to bring her unit into compliance.
I gathered all of my info, to include direct proof that Lt Col A was lying about the state of her program, and brought it to Col D. I said: “One of your subordinate commanders is flat-out lying to you, and I can prove it.”
Col D issued me a Letter of Counseling—a low-level “corrective” (disciplinary) tool. Low-level, because it’s intended to serve as a warning: back off and shut your mouth, or else the next one will be a lot more painful.
Where are they now?
Two months later, Col D graduated her hospital command. Her tour was unblemished. She got her “successfully completed hospital command” stamp, and now she is the Command Surgeon of an Air Force Major Command. She’s on track to be a 1-star.
Another month after that, Lt Col A graduated her squadron command. Her tour was unblemished. She got her “successfully completed squadron command” stamp; she’s parked at HQ for a year, and she will be attending Air War College in residence next summer. She is on track to be a Colonel, and is on the fast track for future leadership assignments.
The hospital is currently scrambling to find the money to fix the ailing program before our inspection in a few months. Their replacements’ command tours are off to a great start.
Our military promotes cowardly liars
Some are just cowards; they go along to get along, take no risks, do what they’re told, and check all the boxes. All they have to do is not get fired, and they’ll eventually get promoted.
Colonel D is a coward. She knew that there might be a problem in her unit; but she also knew that if she dug into it, she might find out that the problem actually exists. And then her command tour would get complicated. Much easier just to shut up the person who’s stirring things up with his wild, substantiated accusations.
Some are liars; they actively tell falsehoods to make themselves look better. Because their superiors are cowards, the lies are never exposed—that would rock the boat too much.
Lt Col A is a liar. She knew perfectly well that her unit was rotten on the inside. However, all she cared about was finishing command and getting the official report that says “good job, everything went well”. She knew Col D would sign the report, because she knew Col D is a coward.
These are the leaders whom the Air Force Medical Service promotes.
If you enjoyed this article, if it made you think, and/or if you know someone who might like to read it—please treat yourself by hitting the like and share buttons!
An old joke asks: “What do you call someone who graduates medical school with a ‘C’ average?” The answer, of course, is “Doctor”. Because anyone who graduates, first or last, is a doctor.
The slightly more cynical military version of this joke answers: “Captain”. The starting rank for an MD or DO in the military is Captain (O-3).
Liked, though not because it was a fun article. I’m furious that it went down like that, and this sort of thing is basically fraud, waste, and abuse. The top brass need to encourage the idea that fixing mistakes and improving systems is a far better reason to get that checked box, than to have no problems whatsoever. In fact, having no problems doesn’t make you look like a perfect little airman. It makes you look like you never had any adversity or challenge that would show how you make the place you lead better. But eh, preaching to the choir, aren’t I?