Commander gives perspective to the Wing

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Charles Dickens
  • 14th Flying Training Wing Public Affairs
COLUMBUS AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. --  The 14th Flying Training Wing Commander gave his guidance and perspective to Team BLAZE service members during officer and enlisted calls held Aug. 24 and 31 at the Columbus Club and Kaye Auditorium respectively.

Col. Jim Sears opened the calls with his thoughts of his assignment so far at Columbus Air Force Base.

"Being at the most efficient and highly productive pilot training base in the world's greatest Air Force and creating the world's greatest pilots, the rewards are endless and I can't tell you how humble and honored I am to be standing here in front of you," said Sears.

Sears said that being the most efficient pilot training base comes from excellent leadership and continued by sharing his opinions on leadership in today's Air Force and the importance of tactics used by great leaders.

"Leadership at all levels is very important to me and I don't think we pay enough attention to leadership in the Air Force," Sears said. "If you are the supervisor and always have to remind people who's in charge, you're not leading from the front."

While leadership is an important part of succeeding at the base mission, ensuring that Airmen feel that they are contributing to the mission is critical, said Sears.

"If every day you and your Airmen don't feel like what you're doing at your job is helping to produce pilots, advance Airmen or feed the fight, it might be something that we don't need to be doing," he said.

The commander explained how re-evaluating the processes used to complete jobs may assist in achieving a better standard for Airmen's time and better quality of life for the Airmen and families of the 14th FTW.

"How do we get to a quality of life when the mission always comes first? That is by doing less with less," said Sears. "If we're doing a process that cannot be tied to producing pilots, advancing Airmen or feeding the fight, then we need to get rid of it. I'm not saying drop what you're doing right then, I'm saying there are functional managers who you can discuss this issue with. We don't just remove things from the Air Force, but we look at ways to make them better."

He also noted the importance of work ethic and how it plays a major part in improving the quality of life because the more effectively and efficiently the mission is completed at work, the less the job encroaches on life at home.

"As you do your job every day, if you try to do that job better and make it more applicable to the mission, you will find that you will have more time at the end of the day and more time with your families," said Sears.

Sears noted how hard members of Team BLAZE work toward a better quality of life and thanked them for their daily work.

"I applaud all of you for everything that you do every day," said Sears.