Another way to win their support is to fire the right NCO. It goes without saying that not all NCOs are good and productive. The NCOs know who is getting the job done and who is coasting, but they will never tell on a fellow NCO to an officer. Fortunately, good NCO leadership is easy to detect. The best NCO leader is usually so busy getting the job done that the commander can’t even find him unless he scours the flight line or back shops. There he will find clues: a clean wheel and tire shop; a hangar floor so scrubbed you can eat dinner off it; an office filled with pride, military courtesy, and helpful airmen; a motor pool where the vehicles are in good operating condition and neatly parked in straight rows.

The NCO who tells you how to run the wing, or finds a thousand faults with the way his boss is doing the job, is likely to be one with weak leadership skills and a bad attitude, and he or she needs to go before it infects the rest of the organization. That is why it is important that a new wing commander fire the right NCO. If he targets the NCO who is not carrying his weight, and is an embarrassment to the other NCOs, that wing commander has it made; the NCO force will make sure he is a success. If the hapless new wing commander fires the NCO he should recognize as one of the unsung heroes, then the other NCOs will at best perform cautiously. Why should they try extra hard if their boss is too stupid to know the difference?

So when a commander sees a unit that’s gone bad, he has to fire or reassign the leadership of the unit, firmly and without hysterics. It is the hardest thing to do in command, for he can never be certain that he has accurately identified the person truly responsible.

By way of illustration, Chuck Horner tells this story:

When I took command of the 47th wing at Nellis, I made some immediate changes that upset a few people. For starters, I sent NCOs who had been sitting in air-conditioned offices out on the flight line, with instructions given in private, “You’re going to do it right, or you’re going to retire.” Young airmen who’d been playing loose with how they wore their uniform, got their hair cut, or shined their shoes also came in for close scrutiny from the new wing commander; and if they needed to be sharpened, I stuck them verbally in the sharpener—to include also their NCO supervisors (in the event they had forgotten what we were all about).

For a while, the wing went silent, while everyone decided if I was a good or bad commander. If I was to get their trust or loyalty, I had to earn it.