United States Air Force and Cephalon, Inc - Research Proposal Example

?Topic:  Compare and contrast leadership and management styles of the United s Air Force and Cephalon, Inc. and how it impacts the culture of the organization. Introduction: Leadership is setting a new direction or vision for a group that they follow, i.e. a leader is the spearhead for that new direction. I’m retired Air Force and now an Air Force civilian at Pope AFB NC. Airman Raymond Losano and Tech .Sgt. John A. Chapman were stationed here at Pope AFB, NC, Raymond Losano and John A. Chapman has given their lives for the country. This study would discuss the leadership skills they have taken for their country. Management controls or directs people/resources in a group according to principles or values that have already been established. A set of understandings or meanings shared by a group of people that are largely tacit among members and are clearly relevant and distinctive to the particular group which are also passed on to new members. “A set of common understandings around which action is organized…finding expression in language whose nuances are peculiar to the group” (Becker and Geer 1960). (Strategic Leadership and Decision Making: Organizational Culture, n.d). Purpose of study: This research is done to compare and contrast leadership and management styles of the United States Air Force and Cephalon, Inc. This research is done for finding the leadership styles and management styles of the USAF and Cephalon, Inc. This study includes the history, mission, vision, core values, raining process, and opportunity of the organizations. Body: The most important responsibility of the USAF is national security, and their primary focus remained or strategic bombing, and plans for aerial release of nuclear bombs against the Soviet Union close air support to the Army to the delivery of tactical nuclear weapons on the combat zones. I’m retired Air Force and now an Air Force civilian at Pope AFB NC. Airman Raymond Losano and Tech .Sgt. John A. Chapman were stationed here at Pope AFB, NC. “Raymond Losano was killed during a firefight with enemy troops in eastern Afghanistan. Losano was awarded a Bronze star for valor and a Purple Heart Posthumously” (Airman's Service Honored at Arlington:  Tactical Air Specialist Killed in Afghanistan  2003). Losano tried to defend his team under heavy enemy fire. He kept on working for getting aerial properties overhead to support until he was killed. Losano was seriously wounded while defending his team, this leads to his death. He showed and used his leadership skills to fight against the enemy and tried to protect his team by sacrificing his life. John Chapman also lost his life during the war. He was a combat controller; he also got killed in Afghanistan while rescuing the lives of his team. He died as a Hero; he showed his dedication to his country by sacrificing his own life. He had the skills of a good leader, dedication. By seeing these instances, we could measure the leadership attributes and skills given by the US Air Force to the employees and staffs. The leadership skill is very important in USAF. Everybody in the force should have the leadership skill inside them. At any point they would have to take it out and would have to apply it. Raymond Losano and John A. Chapman did like that, and they became the American Heroes. The leadership qualities are essential in this process, because a good leader can identify the special skills and abilities of the applicants who are willing to join the USAF. The USAF has a rich legacy of pioneering airmen who provided a foundation of leadership that has made America’s air arm second to none. “When we look back at men like Hap Arnold, Tooey Spaatz, JIMMY Doolittle, and Billy Mitchell, we can see shared qualities of leadership that are essential to a strong Air force” (To the men and women of the air force, 2011). Leadership is the art of influencing and directing people to accomplish the mission. The basic concept the effective leader must keep in mind encompasses two fundamental elements: The mission The people This is the Air force concept of leadership, and all facets of Air force leadership should support these two basic elements. They are embedded in the definition of leadership. The primary task of a military organization is to perform its mission. This is paramount, and everything else must be subordinate to this objective. Thus, the leader’s primary responsibility is to lead people to carry out the unit’s mission successfully. “The mission of the USAF is to fly, fight and win...In air, space and cyberspace. To achieve that mission, the Air Force has a vision of Global Vigilance, Reach and power. That vision orbits around three core competencies: developing Airmen, technology to war fighting and integrating operations” (United States Air Force Mission, 2009). The leadership values have a direct impact on the organizational culture. Because the culture in an organization includes the values, meanings and beliefs.. The culture of the USAF is mainly driven by pilots and so the pilots of various aircraft types have driven its priorities over the years. At first there was a focus on bombers, followed by a focus on fighters. in response to the 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates accepted in June 2009 the resignations of Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force General T. Michael Moseley. Moseley's successor. The organizational cultures of the U.S. military services and of the other organizations within the U.S. national security bureaucracy is particularly strong because these organizations employ a career system based on the closed career principle.” The leadership & management styles of the United States Air Force have direct impact on the culture of the organization. The leadership & management values of the USAF are connected with the culture. Because the USAF and other military organizations is having the closed career principle. These organizations recruit personnel upon completion of basic education, and those personnel spend their career almost exclusively in their particular organization. They are educated, trained, and advanced by the organization, based on its internal rules and priorities; almost no lateral entry into the organization exists, except at the entry level career personnel enjoy protection from outside competition. The services recruit and indoctrinate new members into their core mission and its requirements. They provide their own professional education programs to prepare career officers to move up the chain of responsibility for that mission. Further, they promote these career personnel into the decision- and policy-making levels within their career elite with only limited external veto and no real external competition. “The service culture is institutionalized by the organization and internalized by its members” (Smith 1998). Recruitment process: The recruitment process in USAF has some norms and requirements. At the time of recruiting and selecting, the applicants should require certain basic requirements. The requirements are measured on the basis of educational qualifications, entrance tests, height and weight, age, vision test (eye test) etc. The recruiters are responsible for selecting qualified, eligible candidates. The leadership skills of the recruiters are highly essential in this area. The applicants should have basic eligibilities to join US Air Force. Educational qualification would be evaluated during the selection time. A candidate should have more than just an overall ASVAB qualifying score. ASVAB stands for Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery; “It is a multi-aptitude test which is given at over 14000 schools and military entrance processing stations” (About the ASVAB 2007). The ASVAB is divided into four different groups, Mechanical, Administrative, General and Electronic. “All enlisted career fields have a minimum score requirement that fall under one or more of these categories” (Eligibility 2009). Minimum of overall score 36 AFQT should be scored for qualifying for a high school senior or high school graduate. For a GED to enlist in the Air Force, a minimum score of 65 is required. Height and weight also would be calculated at the time of recruitment. There are some requirements in the case of height and weight. “One of the primary differences is that the weight chart is now exactly the same for males and females, the Air Force now uses a system called "Body Mass Index," or BMI” (Powers 2004). The age requirement to join Air Force is, for Non-prior service candidates the minimum age to apply is 17 and in basic military training the minimum age is 28. The candidate should have good vision or eye sight also. The candidate should have normal color vision. The recruiters would assess the health conditions and problems of the applicant. The recruitment process in USAF contains many norms, conditions and requirements. The recruiting process is strictly evaluated by the officers and authorities. Core Values: The core values of the USAF are much more than minimum standards. “They remind us what it takes to get the mission done. They inspire us to do our very best at all times. They are the common bond among all comrades in arms and they are the glue that unifies the force and tie us to the great warrior’s ad public servants of the past” (Integrity first Service before self Excellence in all we do, 1997). The Air Force Core Values are: "Integrity first", "Service before self", "Excellence in all we do" (Mission & Vision n.d.). Training process: The training process includes Academic classes and Pre- flight training, primary Aircraft training, track selection process, advanced aircraft training, academic or military training etc. The air force has a strict training process and it has changed its attitude on how the civilians turn into air force members. The new training process is significant because it emphasizes on war operations. For this both the physical strength standards as well as the training principles have been improved. A lot of importance is now positioned on weapons training. The basic training in the USAF has increased and it has been increased from 7 weeks to 9 weeks. The USAF offers basic military training, technical training, officer training as well as commissioned officer training. USAF opportunities: The USAF offers a several opportunities. The air force offers a lot of opportunities from high students, graduates to officer grades. Individuals who are interested in joining air force could contact the recruiter near to their place. The recruiter could explain more about the opportunities and benefits in USAF. One can avail air force opportunities when one is just out of high school or when he a qualified graduate. The air force also offers immense opportunities to health care professionals. A college degree allows officer opportunities in the USAF. The candidates should have basic requirements. Works Cited About the ASVAB. Military.Com. 2007. Web. 06 June. 2011. Airman's Service Honored at Arlington: Tactical Air Specialist Killed in Afghanistan. Raymond Losano. 2003.  Web. 08 June. 2011. Eligibility. U.S. Air Force. 2009. Web. 06 June. 2011. Integrity first Service before self Excellence in all we do. United States Air Force Core Values. 1997. Web. 19 May. 2011. . Mission & Vision. Air Force e-Publishing. n.d. Web. 19 May. 2011. < http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/> Powers, Rod. Air Force Weight Charts. About.Com. 2004. Web. 06 June. 2011. Smith, James M. Air Force Culture and Cohesion: Building an Air and Space Force for the Twenty-First Century. Google. 1998. Web. 21 May. 2011. . Strategic Leadership and Decision Making: Organizational Culture. National Defense University. n.d. Web. 19 May. 2011. . To the men and women of the air force. Scribd. 2011. Web. 19 May. 2011. . United States Air Force Mission. U.S.AirForce. 2009. Web. 19 May. 2011. . Read More