Increasing the Effectiveness of FRLM Behaviors

The situation at the XYZ Air Base Wing Safety Office is gravely desperate; the safety team has atrophied to an ineffective group of four personnel who are unable to employ “Safety First” as a culture for the Wing. Moreover, the group is unable to collectively attack and resolve any safety crisis such as the one we face now. Four lives within the Wing have been lost due to the absence of a “Safety First” culture. I am the newly appointed Wing Safety Officer whom Colonel (Col) Ellen Parker has tasked with correcting the current trend of poor driving safety that resulted in 15 recent traffic accidents (to include the four lives lost). In this paper, I will analyze the former Wing Safety Officer’s – Captain (Capt) Carl Matthews – leadership and related effects using the Full Range Leadership Model (FRLM) as the framework. Then I will utilize the FRLM and teambuilding concepts to stage a leadership coup to build a team poised to address the traffic accident trend and improve Wing Safety.

The Wing Safety Office failed to engage the traffic safety crisis and function as a team oriented towards a shared goal due to the absence of effective leadership. Capt Matthews’ predominant “laissez-faire” leadership behavior prevented him from getting to know his team and capitalizing on their backgrounds and skills. For example, he chose to disregard or dilute team contributions towards building an effective safety campaign. Through this action, he successfully alienated his followers. For example, Mr. Clark DeBurgh – regarded as the Wing’s “corporate knowledge” for safety – offered many suggestions on how to tackle the traffic safety problem. Capt Matthews dismissed these suggestions as “old-think” despite the successful traffic safety campaign Mr...

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...tthews chose an inappropriate leadership behavior that crippled – if not prevented – any chance of creating a solution to the traffic safety problem. His LF approach (and half-hearted CR attempt) inoculated the team from effectiveness and yielded a group of four individuals alienated from their office function. It is clear Capt Matthews needed to utilize a mix of transformational leadership and team building behaviors to build the Wing Safety Office into a team committed to safety and ready to take on any safety challenge.

Works Cited

Arenas, F. J., “Team Building or Team Busting: Leader’s Choice,” pp. 1-7, 2009.

Barbuto, John E. and Brown, Lance L., “Full Range Leadership.” Nebguide G1406, 2005. http://advisor.unl.edu/wanttoknowmore/Full-Range-Leadership.pdf (accessed 6 May 2011).

Stafford, Matthew.,“The Full Range Leadership Model: A Brief Primer,” 2010.