I received this from a follower, thank you! This will be a series of posts with an updated experience from OTS in 2021. I’ll sprinkle in some of my own personal updates, a lot has happened in the past few years.
-airforceotsguy
General
Overall, OTS is designed to stress you out and see how you manage your time, prioritize tasks, how you work in teams, and your ability to lead and follow others. One piece of advice is to try your hardest to realize it’s structured to TRY and get a rise out of you emotionally, so the sooner you can recognize this, the easier will be. In other words, it’s just a game so recognize it as that, drown out the noise, and don’t let yourself get overwhelmed–because if you’re putting in the effort it WILL work out just fine. The other crucial bit is to go in willing to work with (not against) your flight members. Yes, this is a leadership course with individual evaluation, but it’s arguably more important that you’re working well with others. The better you’re able to work with your flight as a team, the easier your time will be and the more likely you will all succeed. If you’re good at something and your flight members aren’t, then help them. If you need help then ask for it. If it’s your turn to be a “leader” during an evaluation, then take charge, but, if you’re not the designated “leader” then don’t steal the show and do your best to help out who is. Also, once you’re appointed your flight job(s), don’t task your flight members with unnecessary tasks, instead, try to maximize the amount of individual free time everyone has. If you’re the standardization officer, less is more. Don’t “over-standardize” to the point where the rules become overbearing or difficult to follow. You should ALWAYS be trying to help your flight/squadron, not make things more difficult. Don’t be afraid to take calculated risks and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. If you do make a mistake, take ownership. Also, always bear in mind, your goal is to graduate. Therefore, the most important thing is to meet your graduation requirements. Prioritize your high-critical items such as exams, papers, briefings, and leadership evaluations. Everything else (memo’s, morale reports, even your flight jobs) should be secondary. That doesn’t mean you should neglect to complete your secondary tasks, but, instead, make sure your allocating your effort and time spent effectively.
Prior Service
OTS is sort of an amalgam of Basic Training and Airman Leadership School. I think prior-enlisted personnel have an advantage (especially in the first few weeks) over non-priors. Being prior service, I personally never really got “shook” upon arrival. I wasn’t afraid to make mistakes early on, even if that meant getting chewed out. As a result of my composure, our first Flight Leader stepped down a few days into the job and designated me as his replacement. As the Flight Leader, I was prepared and willing to take the brunt of the reprimand for my flight and I think the staff recognized it. As a result, my flight did pretty well from the get-go and I received significant praise from my flight members for bringing everyone together so quickly. Ultimately, the sooner everyone comes together, the better. If you are prior-enlisted you will probably be needed to help people with marching and organizing their dorm rooms. I also recommend you provide the non-priors with reassurance in the first few weeks–the reassurance that the environment is intended to stress them out and gauge their reaction. Provide them with a peace of mind and take actions to deescalate situations if/when tensions get high. Honestly, the most difficult thing about OTS for me as a prior-enlisted was the simple fact that you feel like it’s a waste of time. Although stressed at times, I did not really feel “challenged” and did not feel like OTS improved my leadership abilities all that much. I often found myself asking the question “why do I need to be here?”. All that being said, it’s something that you have to do to get your commission, so it’s important to try to maintain a good attitude and put your best foot forward. Personally, I tried to make the most out of the situation by helping out my wingman and I recommend you do the same.
A Note About COVID
I attended OTS during August and September of 2021, amid another COVID spike. As a result, I had to wear a mask at all times while indoors and get weekly COVID tests. Officer Trainees who tested positive and/or had close contact with a positive case were quarantined for 10-14 days. With the exception of the Mess Dress, you should really make every attempt to bring EVERYTHING you’re going to need to OTS because your Shopette trips are very limited. We never got any off-base privileges for the entire time I was at OTS (not even for church) and we didn’t even get an option for a haircut until the fourth week (and, even then, only four of us could go). Prior/upperclassmen are no longer interacting with the underclassmen and you will have limited contact with other squadrons and other people outside your flight. We didn’t even meet/interact with our assigned Instructor until 14 days had passed. Again, the thing to take from this is just to come prepared with everything you need. Also, we were only allowed to have one person come to our graduation each.
Looking Back
I graduated OTS almost six years ago, so it is interesting to compare the above experience to my own, and think back to how my perspective has changed over time. Here are a few of my own thoughts.
Leadership
I am currently in a different leadership course that is designed to stress you to your max and teach you how to better prioritize your time. Being good at both leading and following is a crucial skill not only in these silly courses, but in the operational Air Force and Space Force as well. I can’t tell you how many times as a NCO I had to step up as a leader, and how many times as an officer I head to step back into being a follower. There are nuances to both. As a NCO the enlisted corps almost always appreciated it when I stepped up as a leader, and stepping up felt natural to me. As an officer stepping back is probably a misnomer, it feels more like stepping aside. My peers are all also leaders, we just all play different roles in the larger picture. Stepping aside and letting them take the reins more feels like me being thankful that I am not responsible for that one more thing. This allows me to instead focus on how my portion syncs with their portion, and how we can work together to meet the commander’s intent.
Another thing I have learned as an officer is how thankful I am when I have a team of followers who work well together and don’t buck my every decision. Followership is a crucial aspect of leadership. I used to think of leadership and followership as binary; either you’re a leader or a follower, there is no gray area. My opinion on this has changed because as a leader you have to be well versed and both leading and following, and team dynamics require both as well. The obvious contrast is that I’m leading my subordinates and following the direction of my DO and commander, but there is more to it than that. As a leader when I am making decisions, I find myself feeding on the aspects of good followership from my subordinates. I don’t want a group of yes-men, I NEED a group of people who will respectfully challenge my thoughts prior to my making a decision, and accepting my decision once it is made. I also appreciated the closed door conversations after my decision was made. Not so I could go back and do it all over again, but so I could learn from the experience. Perhaps I almost needed my subordinates just as much as they needed me. Did that hurt my credibility as a leader or degrade the effectiveness of my leadership? I’m honestly not sure, but it worked for my first Flight Commander gig. I’m getting hints that my perspective may be changing again, but only time will tell.
This leads me to the topic of teamwork. Working with your teammates is a crucial skill in both OTS and any other leadership course, but I’d argue it is even more important in the operational military. Once operational, there is a tendency for people to just want to come to work, do their job, and go home. While subordinates with that tendency are likely critical to balancing team dynamics for mission accomplishment, I want more out of my people. I want my people to be growing and developing, to not stagnate personally and become someone better than they were before. A part of me takes it personal when I don’t achieve inspiring this in my people, which is likely something that hurts my own leadership development. But this ties what was mentioned above about not being stale and actively working to make the team better. It is more than just checking your own accomplishment blocks, it’s about actively working to make your flight, squadron and community a better place for everyone.
Prior Service
I became an officer after 11 prior service years, and understanding what I bring to the officer corps has been an interesting personal journey. As a prior, it is important to realize that I bring tactile experience to the officer corps. I have been in the trenches and once understood what it feels like to be burdened by crappy leadership, and get just enough pay to pay my bills with a little extra leftover for fun. Part of my journey has been realizing that my memory is short. While I once understood what it felt like to be an Airman (not NCO), I am not an Airman anymore and there are things I forgot. It is sooo easy to blaze in with the arrogance of thinking I know it all, then realizing that I have lost touch with who I used to be and with what the current challenges are. This reinforced for me the importance of truly staying in touch with your Airmen and Guardians. One of the best ways I implemented this was very deliberately setting aside both formal and informal one-on-one time with my troops. I also had to accept the fact that as an officer there are certain ways that I just won’t be able to connect with my troops. Regardless of my action or intent, I am an officer now and there will always be a barrier between my enlisted subordinates and I. Maybe not all of them, but I have accepted it as a reality for the majority.
The above narrative nails the fact that our prior experience allows us to weather storms more effectively than our non-prior peers. The other difficult lesson I had to learn was that my prior enlisted experience doesn’t make me special. I am very proud of my prior experience and I enjoy talking about my time wearing stripes, but my experience is irrelevant to my peers. It shapes who I am and how I make my decisions, but it doesn’t matter to anyone else. Working my way through these thoughts have taught me to be a lot more humble about what I bring to the fight.
Leave a Reply