Charlie - the Un-leader Prologue

Penguins Peninsula Valdez, Argentina - photo by JoAnn Sturman

by Steven R. Oberst

It was my first day at my first flying assignment. So what if it’s a northern tier Air Force base? From the parking lot I can see 6 H-1 helicopters gleaming in the sunlight on this hot July day. Imagine my surprise when the first word I hear as I enter the flight ops building of the rescue detachment is “Dummy!” Delivering this one word rebuke is barrel-chested older guy in a flight suit. The recipient is 2nd Lt Bruce Cameron, who also happened to be an Air Force Academy classmate of mine. Bruce was sitting behind the ops counter. As I walked up towards them, the amazingly rotund flight suit turns in my direction and says “Who the hell are you?” Before I could speak, he answers his own question, “Oh no it’s another damned 2nd lieutenant.” Then Bruce says “Hi, Steve, good to see...but the flight suit cuts him off, “You two know each other? Don’t tell me we got another zoomie. Just what I need, another dummy around here.”

And so went my inglorious introduction to Captain Charles “Charlie” Crown, Detachment Operations Officer. This was the beginning of an association that would last for 2 1⁄2 years, a period of time forever etched in my memory. During this relatively short part of my life I would experience more “no shit there I was” moments, handle more stress, and have more fun than the rest of my flying career combined, or for that matter the rest of my career.

Un-Leadership: Most successful people will tell you that one or more leaders they encountered during their careers had a positive impact on their lives. I call these people “Life-altering Leaders” – People in your life who contributed in a very positive way to the person you are today. But what about the people we encounter who we would never want to emulate? You know, the lousy boss or superior officer who made your life hell. Well, I think of these people as “Un-leaders” - People in your life who provided you with negative lessons that helped make you the person you are today.

Charlie Crown was not the first “Un-leader” I had encountered in my life, and he certainly would not be the last. But, he was by far the ultimate Un-leader I have ever known. He undoubtedly honed his un-leadership skills as a kid. I suspect he was the school bully and loved to intimidate smaller kids out of their lunch money and/or their sense of well-being. During the time I knew him, Charlie tried to intimidate everyone he encountered, from the one stripe airman to the two star general. He used everything at his disposal to give himself the edge he needed to make the intimidation work to his advantage. His edge with the twelve pilots in the detachment was that he wrote our annual officer efficiency reports (OERs). But instead of getting us to blindly follow his un-leadership, we devised ingenious strategies for getting Charlie the notoriety he deserved.

A military handbook on leadership would likely describe Charlie’s leadership style as authoritarian or autocratic. Charlie never embraced General John M. Schofield’s concept of discipline, because he regularly practiced harsh and tyrannical treatment. (General Schofield is remembered for a lengthy quotation on discipline that all cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point and the United States Air Force Academy are required to memorize. It is an excerpt from his graduation address to the class of 1879 at West Point.) However, rather than destroy “an army”, our unit actually flourished. All of the pilots under Charlie’s command shared a common goal: We hated Charlie’s guts and felt it our divine calling to save the Air Force from ever experiencing a “Major” Crown. We also found that humor and laughter were sure cures for whatever Charlie threw at us. The twelve of us would gather on a regular basis at the club and share our recent “Charlie” experiences. Some of the stories were so outrageous that we would laugh until it hurt. I kept track of the incidents we witnessed. Hopefully you’ll find some humor in our experiences and perhaps some ideas on how not to lead people.