The great novelist, Leo Tolstoy, wrote the words; "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." This phrase can be used to describe the leadership mistakes that I will be discussing. These mistakes are lack of humility, promoting conformity, and accepting stagnancy. I will explain to you what I learned by making these mistakes, and how I could have prevented them. I say this because I believe that it is through learning from our mistakes, that we become better leaders. The first mistake that I will cover is the time when I ruined the chance to recruit a civilian. One of our squadron's new cadets was talking with a civilian at a recruiting drive. I interrupted the conversation so I could answer the Civilians question myself. I did not think that the cadet would know what to say to the person. When I talked to the cadet about what had happened, I learned that they had an answer that was more researched and thought-out than mine. If I had humbled myself, and allowed this cadet to speak, we would have had one more cadet in our program now.
The second mistake that I want to discuss is how I allowed conformity when I was teaching a cadet to lead a flight. A cadet that I was training had a question about marching, so I answered it by teaching him what I had been taught. I did not know at the time that what I had been taught was wrong. I continued on in my ignorance until I got caught by a higher ranking cadet, who pulled me aside and showed me in regulation how I was wrong. By not the reading regulation and just accepting what I had heard around me, I not only failed myself, but all the cadets that I had trained.
The third mistake I will talk about is how I accepted stagnancy when I became a Sergeant. When I was promoted to Sergeant I thought that I was the greatest sergeant that had ever lived. At this time I thought it pointless to promote because I was already perfect.