The Hap Arnold Outreach Program Review—The Dark Side of Leadership and Understanding the Value of Presence

This episode of Wild Blue Yonder On the Air features two speakers from the Air War College General Henry Hap Arnold Outreach program, which celebrates its eleventh anniversary this year. To open the episode, Dr. Elizabeth Woodward provides an overview of the program and the life of Hap Arnold, the five-star general and first general of the Air Force for whom it is named. She also explains the threefold goals of the program: to share the mission and vision of the Air War College, create a bridge between the college and the American people, and connect to those they are serving alongside.

Next, our first speaker takes us to a galaxy far, far away, where the Jedi battle against the Dark Side of the Force. Just like the Star Wars universe, there’s a dark side to leadership too, and it’s easy to find oneself sliding into it, especially when making decisions that impact other people’s lives. The speaker shares how realizing his ambition of becoming a Squadron Commander came with some major emotional challenges, from a suicide on his second day on the job to having to end a colleague’s career, albeit for her own good. He describes how events like these took a toll on his mental and physical well-being, as well as his relationships with his wife and kids, before coming to his own Darth Vader moment of realization that things had to change. He then shares how he shifted his mentality to appreciate the positive parts of his job and reached out to friends and family for help improving his health and building a foundation of resilience. In this, he hopes to provide an example of how to prepare oneself for the challenges of leadership and overcome its dark side.

Something our second speaker holds close to her heart is the saying that your presence is a present. Through her twenty years of military service, she has prided herself on ensuring that while she can’t always give her family the quantity of time she would want to, she can give them quality time. However, it took some major life events for her to realize that while she was there physically, mentally, she wasn’t present, too focused on all the other working parts of her busy life. Even after being advised by her doctor while pregnant with her fourth child to rest and relax for the sake of the baby’s health, she only took this to heart for the length of the pregnancy—once her son was born, she dove right back in. It took a serious health scare with her son, and some help from her friends and family, to realize that she had to learn to be truly present, not just physically but fully. Now, while she still loves being in the thick of things, she’s also learned to take time to find quiet spaces, to have business hours and respect them, and to accept that “no” is a sentence that requires no explanation. And she urges other leaders to do the same and remember that presence is a present, one that those you love deserve to receive.