Cultural Themes in Messages from Top Air Force Leaders, 2005-2008

Abstract

An organization's senior leadership can create, embed, and transmit an organization's culture. What leaders consistently pay attention to, reward, control, and react to emotionally provides an overarching cultural framework and can signal leaders' priorities for the organization. Inconsistent or nonsalient goals from leaders can cause confusion among subordinates and foster the emergence of an abundant set of subcultures within an organization, some of which may undermine organizational priorities. To help the Air Force ensure that the emphasis and content of messages its top senior leaders aim at its personnel reinforce stated cultural goals, RAND researchers conducted this analysis of cultural themes within these communications. The cultural goals of the Air Force leadership included 1. define the organization's purpose and identity for its members 2. promote the Air Force's core values 3. create a shared identity across the Air Force 4. reinforce a sense of value, recognition, and belonging among all Air Force personnel 5. care for the well-being of Airmen. Air Force publications, such as former Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne's Air Force Goal Card, expressed these in various forms. RAND assessed the level of consistency of senior leadership messages with these goals, using the set of messages addressed to Air Force personnel by Gen T. Michael Moseley (CSAF, September 2005-August 2008), the Honorable Michael W. Wynne (SECAF, November 2005-June 2008), and CMSgt Rodney J. McKinley (CMSAF, June 2006-present). We used a standard content analysis methodology to analyze the following messages dating from September 2005 to March 2008: "Letter to Airmen" (either from the SECAF or jointly from the SECAF and CSAF), "CSAF's Scope," "CSAF's Vector," or "The Enlisted Perspective" (from CMSAF).

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA522546

Entities

People

  • Brandon Dues
  • Carolyn Chu
  • Laura L. Miller

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Afghanistan Conflict
  • Air Force
  • Air Force Personnel
  • Business Administration
  • Electronic Mail
  • Employment
  • Fungi
  • Iraqi-War
  • Management Personnel
  • Military Families
  • Military Personnel
  • Military Science
  • Military Training
  • Operational Readiness
  • Personnel Management
  • United States
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Aerospace logistics and air mobility.
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.
  • Organizational Process Management (OPM).