Everyone Gets a Vote: 360 Assessments and the Human Factors System

Keep your boss happy. This is the recipe for a peaceful and successful career progression. Airmen keep their noncommissioned officers happy, lieutenant colonels keep their colonels happy, generals keep the secretary of the Air Force happy, and the secretary of defense keeps the president happy. It's a perfectly understandable arrangement; in a hierarchical organization, orders are meant to be delivered from higher and executed down the line. The facility and precision with which those orders are executed determine who the next generation of leaders will be. The quick rebuttal to the above argument is if you take care of your troops, they will take care of you. That particular quote was from a security forces squadron commander 10 years ago, but it could have easily come from any commander you or I have ever worked for. Therefore, there is a strong incentive to please even a toxic leader, to make them look good almost in spite of themselves-to say nothing of their internal professional dedication.