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The Importance of
TRUE LEADERSHIP
KRIS “ TANTO ” PARONTO was recently a guest on the Afterburn Podcast , hosted by JOHN “ RAIN ” WATERS , a former F-16 pilot and co-founder of the soon-to-be-launched E3 Aviation Association . Part of the discussion turned to leadership , and Tanto laid out some of the good , the bad , and the ugly of leaders he has seen throughout his career .
I ’ ve had a lot of phenomenal bosses . I also had a couple of really bad ones . But the bad ones , I always say that they view command as almost a threat . It ’ s a threat to their progression . Only something bad can happen that ’ s gonna derail them . So guys who get in that position , who are risk averse tend to act that way . Everything is super cautious , and it ’ s frustrating .
“ And you can ' t be that way in combat . I mean , you ' re good at your job . You train ; you get trained up every day . At that level , we know our jobs . At that level , there is no rookie on the base at that time . So , I do talks on leadership , and I think that one thing that we miss in leadership now is decision-making . You know the worst thing you can do is make no decision . The best thing , make a decision . And that ' s one thing about special operations and , you know , fast movers and even the rotor guys , especially the task force guys , they make a decision . We can adjust fire from of a bad decision . Absolutely . It ' s when you stand and do nothing , you ' re gonna lose because you ' re doing absolutely nothing .”
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