Improving Development Teams to Support Deliberate Development of Air Force Officers

Abstract

Abstract : Each year, the Air Force commissions approximately 4,000 new officers, primarily through the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA or AFA), Reserve Officer Training Corps programs at colleges and universities across the United States, and Officer Training School. These entering officers mature into midlevel and senior leaders by gaining experience throughout their careers by being assigned to positions of increasing responsibility and by participating in a number of educational opportunities, including Squadron Officer School and intermediate (IDE) and senior(SDE) developmental education (DE). The military services are unique in that all service members enter at the bottom and advance upward into positions with increasing levels of responsibility and more-strategic leadership burdens. The result is that the organization itself must develop whatever knowledge, skill, or ability an officer will need at higher levels.2The management of officer careers has been and continues to be an exercise in achieving a balance among the desires of each individual officer (e.g., assignment to a specific Air Force base or kind of position), the needs of the career field (e.g., assignments that provide officers with specific key occupation-specific experience), and the needs of the Air Force (e.g., to fill positions in less-desirable locations). Attendance at and choice of professional military education(PME) is also balanced against the needs and desires of individual officers, the career field, and the Air Force.