Leadership Principles

Question 1

What are the 14 Leadership Principles

Answer 1

1. Customer Obsession
2. Ownership,
3. Invent & Simplify
4. Are Right, A lot
5. Learn and Be Curious
6. Hire and Develop the Best
7. Insist on the Highest Standards
8. Think Big
9. Bias for Action
10. Frugality
11. Earn Trust
12. Dive Deep
    13 Have Backbone, Disagree and Commit
    14 Deliver Results

Question 2

Customer Obsession

Answer 2

Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.

Question 3

Ownership

Answer 3

Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job”.

Question 4

Invent and Simplify

Answer 4

Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here”. As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.

Question 5

Are right, A Lot

Answer 5

Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.

Question 6

Learn and Be Curious

Answer 6

Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.

Question 7

Hire and Develop the Best

Answer 7

Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.

Question 8

Insist on the Highest Standards

Answer 8

Leaders have relentlessly high standards - many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and driving their teams to deliver high quality products, services and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.

Question 9

Think Big

Answer 9

Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.

Question 10

Bias for Action

Answer 10

Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.

Question 11

Frugality

Answer 11

Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size or fixed expense.

Question 12

Earn Trust

Answer 12

Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.

Question 13

Dive Deep

Answer 13

Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.

Question 14

Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit

Answer 14

Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.

Question 15

Deliver Results

Answer 15

Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.

Question 16

Give an Example of Customer Obsession

Answer 16

Zaxby’s Management: Worker tried to close early without permission then customer showed up with 5 minutes to spare.
MPE Example, where I took initiative to gain extra access to responsibilities outside of my normal role to ensure that the customers had no issues.
85th Eng - Radio installation at ATC. Starts with the customers, if you are wrong. the cost of solutions.
Israel - People we defend
NOSC - working with deployed members from afar

Question 17

Give an Example of Ownership

Answer 17

MPE initial planning for Air Force HQ. Could have used a short term solution but would have let set up the next person to fail. Instead, I took risk and more time to plan a long term solution which made it harder, but it worked and it gave the HQ a foothold to propel forward in future endeavors.

Question 18

Give an Example of Invent and Simplify

Answer 18

In the SSP, I led the team in a project relating to performance analysis among 12 suppliers involving Decision science methods to aggregate data both qualitative and quantitative. I quickly learned that half of my team was intimidated by the idea of using Python over excel because half of the team just could not code and wouldn’t try. So I invented an interactive version of the same code using Jupiter Notebook. The tool included dropdown options and the ability to select different combinations of the criteria that was important. The widget was built into the functions so each change altered the input and thus changed the stacked bar plot or reran the MOLP model to produce a new result for who the best supplier was, showing what criteria led to that result. By doing this, the teammates who didn’t understand coding, now could see the interact with the models in an intuitive way and I eventually built this into our final presentation which the group then stated was the best part of our project which led to a distinction mark in one of our more rigorous courses.

Question 19

Give an example of “Are right a lot”

Answer 19

FMA, weapon system. “ Cant fight what you cannot see”. Used DMAIC process to uncover issues. Resolved them and found the source of the threat. They knew how to do technical work but not how to justify their answers and gain support or critically think. That was what I uncovered and it led to their future success.
- I worked with a group of engineers who were specialized at building software’s database system, where I am a system engineer and think about the overall system and it’s parts working together. Even though I was not well versed in the programming language used and not trained formally on those systems, I constantly tried to always understand fundamentals within my field and I have a good foundation in debugging, coding, and deductive reasoning. So I work well with technical teams. In this project, we ran into issues twice when none of the specialist knew what was wrong and I was able to go through the steps and find see the error when no one else could or in another instance when I was deployed, I led the specialist to the answer by diving deep into the process to uncover the issue

Question 20

Give an Example of Learn and Be Curious

Answer 20

I have a curious mind and I constantly to try to invest in myself by continuously learning. I try to stay update to date on latest technologies and I constantly aim to be a hands on person. In the military, my field was IT and cyber so I voluntarily completed Cisco certifications to be an expert at my craft. Now that I am able to choose my job, my goal was to become an expert at my desired field of study. I didn’t want to only make good grades, but I wanted to be able to apply those techniques and I constantly went further in our projects to dive into concepts. An example involved a project where I explored network analysis to study a vehicle routing problem. The main objective was to use a simulated annealing algorithm to solve the problem which I did, but showing the network helped to visualize the massive problem set but also gave me hands on experience with network analysis. The result led to me being able to better explain the complexity of the problem to the group which then led to using a nearest neighbors approach which provided instant results. The previous solutions developed were ineffective and lacking because the our system needed a good start point to be effective which this gave us.

Question 21

Give an Example of “Think Big”

Answer 21

• MPE
• EnviroSAR:
  
  • Carbon Capture, Environmental Engineer and Big Business
• Deployed MDT: Presentation to theater leadership

Question 22

Give an example of earn trust

Answer 22

-Natural Leader, projects in my masters degree. Goals and results

Question 23

Ex of Bias for action

Answer 23

Widget in Python/Jupiter, Gurobi (learned extra tool),

Question 24

Ex of Dive Deep

Answer 24

Clustering, examples from A6. Prior experience lessons show that the best leaders know more than surface level information about their section.

Question 25

Ex of Deliver Results

Answer 25

Data Analytics: Issue with data quality messing up final predictions. Deadline, persevering through.

Python project: I was close to getting the experimental answer to work but I was the only team member that could do it, so I pulled 2 all nighters to get it working.

Question 26

Ex of Have Backbone

Answer 26

Ethics issue when deployed. MPE issue.