I recently interviewed General CQ Brown, Jr. on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:
Adam: Our guest today was the highest-ranking officer in the United States Air Force before becoming the highest-ranking person in the United States military. General CQ Brown was the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, the first African American to lead a branch of the United States Armed Forces, before becoming the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Brown, thank you for joining us.
General Brown: Adam, it’s my pleasure.
Adam: The pleasure is mine. You grew up in a military family. Your dad was an Army colonel. Your grandfather fought in World War II. You grew up in San Antonio, but you spent time in Germany and in Hampton Roads, Virginia, where your dad was stationed. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What early experiences and lessons shaped your worldview and shaped the trajectory of your success?
General Brown: Yeah, as you described, I was born in San Antonio. My dad’s first assignment was Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, and then he went to Vietnam, so we went back to San Antonio and spent time with family. The only time I lived outside of Texas between birth and sixth grade was for a year in Monterey, California. I did first grade there and part of second grade in Lawton, Oklahoma, and my father went back to Vietnam. When he came back from Vietnam, the Army sent him back to his alma mater in San Antonio, St. Mary’s University, to get his master’s. Then he stayed and taught ROTC. From a foundational standpoint, family-wise, it was awesome because I had aunts, uncles, cousins, and my grandparents all there in San Antonio that we grew up with. Then, in the summer of 1974, my father got an assignment to Germany, and we went to Germany, so I did seventh through ninth grade there. That was pretty cool as well because I learned to ski in Austria right after the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck. As a matter of fact, I’d done a lot of skiing in Europe well before I got to ski in the United States. I finished up ninth grade there, then went to Hampton Roads and finished high school in Newport News, Virginia. I just knew I wanted to get back to Texas. I knew my parents would move again, so I went to Texas Tech University, and about halfway through college, my parents moved again. They went to Germany again. In the big scheme of things, it kind of worked out that I went to Texas. My grandparents were still alive at the time, so I would get to San Antonio during various breaks to spend time with them. After I graduated and while I was waiting to go to pilot training, I spent about five months living with my grandparents rent-free, which was kind of nice while I was waiting to start pilot training in the United States Air Force.
I think there are a couple of things. One is the strong family connection I was able to experience in San Antonio. That was very foundational. The church that I grew up in, that my father grew up in, and that my grandfather grew up in, because his mother was one of the founding members of that church, gave us a really strong foundation from both a family perspective and a faith perspective. The other part that was important was the opportunities I had once we went to Germany and then to Virginia to travel and experience different parts of the world. One of the things my father said when we moved to Germany was, “You will get to see things most kids only read about.” That was true, and I think that carried forward into my career, where I felt like I was able to do things most people only read about. When I read my own résumé, CV, or biography and look at all the places I’ve been and all the things I’ve been able to do, I can honestly say that I feel like I’ve been able to do some things most people only read about, but I don’t take it for granted. I just feel that I’ve been very fortunate to have all these outstanding opportunities. One of the things my wife and I talk about is that we’re just ordinary people who have had extraordinary opportunities. To me, one of the things that set the stage for my entire career was opportunity. Even when you have opportunity, you still have to deliver. Having an opportunity doesn’t guarantee anything. You have to have opportunity, but you also have to have drive, which opens the door for the next opportunity, and the next opportunity, and the one after that.
Adam: You studied engineering at Texas Tech. You joined the Air Force. You assumed you’d be in the Air Force for a relatively short period of time. You wound up spending more than four decades in the United States military, becoming the highest-ranking individual within the United States military. What were the keys to rising within your career? What can anyone do to rise within their career?
General Brown: Part of it for me was keeping a bit of an open mind because, as you described, I was already in the dual-degree program in architecture and civil engineering. After two years, I dropped architecture and focused on civil engineering, and my intent was to spend four years as an Air Force engineer, get out, and move back to Texas. Halfway through college, when I went to ROTC summer camp, I had a ride in a T-37, which at the time was our primary jet for pilot training. I had all the gear on, including the helmet, the mask, and the parachute, and we did aerobatics. That really changed my perspective because I came back from that thinking, “God, that was fun.” Then I looked around, saw we had pilot slots available, and thought, “I think I’m going to be a pilot now.” I sat on that for a little while because there was a possibility I could lose my scholarship. At that time, the Air Force wasn’t giving scholarships to pilots. Eventually, I got a pilot slot during the first semester of my senior year and was able to keep my scholarship. Back then, tuition was four dollars a credit hour for an in-state Texas resident, so it wasn’t crushing the Air Force. As a matter of fact, it probably cost them about a thousand dollars to let me go to pilot training instead of getting four years out of me. Instead, they got four decades, and I haven’t lived in Texas since I graduated from college.
That was the first step, and I had several other opportunities after that, whether it was finishing fighter training, getting a chance to attend the Fighter Weapons School, coming back as an instructor, or being aide to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. For each one of these, in some cases I applied, and in others I was told I was being considered and didn’t apply at all. They were just opportunities that were presented to me, and I think in some cases I approached them with an open mind. One of the things that really stands out to me is that, in the prime of my career as a fighter pilot, I didn’t fly for five years. I spent two years at the Pentagon, one year at school, and then two years at United States Central Command in staff jobs. That’s probably not the way most fighter pilots would map out their careers, but because that was what I was mentored to do, I listened and I did it. It actually paid dividends in the long run.
Adam: You’ve talked about the importance of opportunity and, when you’re presented with an opportunity, being prepared, being ready, and being able to take advantage of it. But it isn’t just about being prepared for opportunities. It’s also about creating opportunities. Many of the opportunities you’ve enjoyed along the way may have been presented to you, but in other ways they were opportunities you created. What are the keys to creating opportunities that you can then capitalize on?
General Brown: Yeah, one of the things I think about when you talk about networking, whether you’re doing it in the private sector or in the public sector in uniform, is that you do have to network. But what I would also tell people is that it’s not who you know. It’s who knows you. What I mean by that is you may be connected to somebody, but there are people watching you all the time. They’re watching how you carry yourself, what level of confidence you have, how you handle difficult situations, and how you perform when you’re in a job that may not be especially popular. Do you work really hard to do well at it, or do you just mope and complain all the time? The example I give is the job I had as aide to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. To this day, I don’t know who put my name in, and I’ve asked several times. As a matter of fact, I saw my old boss just a few weeks ago, and all she would ever tell me was, “You came highly recommended.” I don’t know by whom. The key part is that you’re always being watched, and your supervisors and your peers are watching and thinking about where to put you in the best position. Ideally, sometimes when people put your name in for various opportunities, they see something in you that you may not even see in yourself. You’ve laid out a couple of the key jobs I had at the end of my career, but when I came in, I never imagined, one, that I would stay for 40 years, and two, that I would have either one of those jobs. Even as a three-star, I wasn’t sure I was going to make four-star. It’s those kinds of things where you’re just working hard and doing your job, and people notice. I think that’s the most important thing for anybody, no matter what job you have. As I say, the best way to get out of a job you don’t like is to do a good job in it, because it’s going to be hard for anybody to recommend you for a better position if you’re not doing a good job, even if you’re in a position that isn’t very popular or isn’t the one you thought you should have had.
Adam: You’re based in Tampa, and I did an interview with a legend in Tampa Bay Rays history, one of the greatest managers in modern baseball history, Joe Maddon. Something Joe Maddon shared was the exact same thing that you shared: you never know who’s watching you. The example he gave was that he was out of baseball, working at a liquor store. He was a lousy minor league player and was trying to figure out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He had never even thought about coaching, but he got a phone call from a member of the Angels organization who remembered him as a player and remembered how hard he worked as a catcher. He wasn’t the most talented baseball player, but he had an unparalleled work ethic and a skill set that could translate into coaching. That phone call was transformative. That was the opportunity he stepped into that ultimately changed the trajectory of his career. In your case, you didn’t even know who made that phone call for you or who wrote that letter for you, but the same exact fact pattern applied. You showed up every day, you controlled what you could control, and the rest took care of itself.
General Brown: That’s true. I’m a believer that things will work out in the long run. You can stress over the things you can’t control, or you can focus on working on the things you can control. As I like to say, you can’t predict the future, but you can shape it. You shape it through your work ethic, your attitude, and your humility. All of those are factors that create additional opportunities. I don’t think any one of us is going to give an opportunity to someone who is a complete pain in our backside, because our credibility is at stake as well. You want to make it easy for people to provide opportunities to you based on your attitude, your work ethic, and your humility.
Adam: Was there a moment along the way that you look back on and say, “This moment, this experience, was transformative for me and allowed me to ultimately get on the pathway to becoming the Chief of Staff of the Air Force and then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff”?
General Brown: Yes. Part of that was the opportunity to be aide to the Chief of Staff, because you are what I would call a fly on the wall, and you get a chance to see how senior leaders make decisions. I got to sit in meetings with members of Congress. Those are things you would never do as a junior officer, but I had the opportunity to absorb them. That was the first opportunity. I think the second opportunity aligned with that. I was leaving that position and getting ready to go to a one-year school that we usually attend at the intermediate level after you’ve been in the military for 10 to 12 years. I put on the paperwork, what we call a dream sheet, what I wanted to do after I finished school. I wrote, “Go back to flying.” About two days later, it came back with a big red line through it that said, “Staff tour.” I remember exactly where I was in the Pentagon when I talked to my four-star boss, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and said, “Sir, I’m just curious. Why the staff tour?” He said, “Well, I talked to the head of Air Force personnel, a three-star, and that’s what he recommended.” That was the end of the conversation. About two weeks later, we had a reception, and I’d already had a couple of cocktails, so I had a little bit of liquid courage. I went up to the three-star and said, “Sir, I’m just curious.” He said, “How about you come by my office on Monday morning? I’ll explain it to you.” He pulled out a legal pad of paper and mapped out my life. He mapped out my wife and me. We had our oldest son, and my wife was pregnant with our next child. The first thing he did was map out when I could retire and when our kids would be in college. Then he talked to me about my career and mapped things out. He said it was all about timing and being in the right place at the right time. When he finished, he said, “What’s your complaint?” I said, “Well, I can’t fly for five years.” He said, “Don’t worry about it. It’ll all work out.” I did not fly for four years and 11 months. At that time, I’d only flown and qualified in three different aircraft. By the time I retired, I was still flying as Chairman, and I’d flown 20 different aircraft. I took a path that I really didn’t envision. If I’d followed my own path, or how I would have defined success, I probably would have retired at the 20- to 25-year point, not the 40-year point. That one meeting, I think, set the stage that allowed me to become not only Chief of Staff of the Air Force, but also Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, because I listened, I executed, and it worked out. Now, if I were a betting man, I don’t know if I would have put all my money on everything working out, but it did in the big scheme of things.
Adam: You might think you know what success looks like, and it might look like the right path for you today, but that path could change tomorrow. If you’re open-minded, flexible, and adaptive, there’s a pretty good chance you’re going to get to an even more successful place, because the opportunity around the corner could be one you’ve never thought of and might not even fully understand today. Opening your mind starts with listening. It starts with being receptive to what other people might have in mind for you. Being open is such an essential part of becoming successful.
General Brown: Exactly. I’m a believer that you don’t know what you don’t know. You have to be prepared for a lot of the unknowns. I used to say, when opportunity knocks, you want to be fully dressed, which means you want to have as many things as possible done in your favor to make you competitive, even for the opportunities you don’t know about. That, to me, was important. As you mentioned, having an open mind matters because you’ll have opportunities come to you that you haven’t considered because you didn’t even know about them, and those may be the launching point for another step in your career. No matter what career you have, that’s an important aspect of having an open mind. One of the things I also say is, don’t take short-term satisfaction at the expense of your long-term goals. But sometimes you don’t know what your long-term goals are, and someone else may have long-term goals for you that you aren’t aware of. They may be developing you for opportunities you have no idea about. I think that’s important. By and large, people have your best interests at heart, and you have to help them help you by being prepared.
Adam: You mentioned something interesting, which is what your mentor shared with you about the importance of timing, being in the right place at the right time. That’s something we have no control over. We’ve talked a little bit about the things you can control and the things you can’t control, and there have been a series of moments in your career where you found yourself in situations where you had absolutely no control over what was going on around you, but you had to make a decision as a leader. One that comes to mind is when you were nominated to be the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and the next thing you knew, George Floyd was killed. Can you take us back to that moment? What happened? What did you learn from that experience?
General Brown: I was nominated and went through my confirmation hearing on May 11, 2020, and on May 25, George Floyd was killed. One of the things you’re mentored on as you go into a confirmation process is that, between the time you have your hearing and your actual confirmation, you don’t want to do anything that’s going to jeopardize your confirmation. You probably stay out of the press, and you don’t want to say or do anything that’s going to upset the whole process. After George Floyd was killed, my confirmation was being held up a little bit. Our youngest son was at Washington University in St. Louis, and during his freshman year, the Michael Brown incident happened in Ferguson, Missouri, so he experienced that. We were in Hawaii when he called us on a Sunday, around the first week of June, and he was really struggling with the death of George Floyd. I was the commander of Pacific Air Forces, better known as PACAF, within the Air Force, and during that conversation he said, “Dad, what is PACAF going to say?” What he was really asking was, “Dad, what are you going to say?” It was pretty emotional for my wife and me because we were in Hawaii, he was in Washington, D.C., and if we could have hugged him through the phone, we would have.
I came to work on Monday, and my staff told me, “You’re probably going to get confirmed on Tuesday.” I sat and waited for that to happen, but Tuesday came and went, and I wasn’t confirmed. On Wednesday, I decided I was going to record a video. It was really focused on the Airmen in Pacific Air Forces. Part of the reason was that there was some chatter on social media about what General Brown was thinking and what he was going to say. Someone from my staff had responded, because I never really responded on social media, though I read it for feedback, and said, “Well, he’s waiting for confirmation, so he’s not going to say anything.” Our son was the one who triggered me. I felt like I needed to say something, so I recorded a video talking about what I was thinking as a result of the death of George Floyd, and I posted it. I did not notify any of my supervisors. I didn’t call back to the Pentagon to talk to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, who was my boss, or the Secretary of the Air Force. I just posted it. I felt it was a risk to my confirmation, but I also felt it was the right thing to do. If I didn’t get confirmed because of the video, I would have gone on with life. I probably would have been disappointed for a couple of days, but I would have gone on. A few days later, I was confirmed by the U.S. Senate, 98 to zero.
I still think it was the right thing to do, even though I ended my career a little sooner than I planned because of decisions outside my control. It was helpful not just to me and not only to our son, but to so many others, because I still have people come up to me today. As a matter of fact, I was at an event in Aspen this past week, and the pastor of a church in Charlotte talked to me about that video and how they used it as a teaching point within their church.
Adam: There are going to be moments as a leader when you have a choice. Do I do the safe thing, or do I do the right thing? It’s always going to be easier to do the safe thing, but a real leader does the right thing.
General Brown: True. There are risks associated with what the consequences could be, but what’s more important to me is that I want to be able to look myself in the mirror after it’s all said and done and say, “All right, I feel like I did the right thing.” One of the things we know, and we kind of joke about it, but it’s somewhat true, is that when you’re a senior officer in the military, you’re on a 24-hour renewable contract. There are things you could do, or things you’re responsible for, and someone way down in the chain of command could do something that costs you your job. It’s more important, instead of trying to be safe, to do the right thing. The right thing is what you do to support the greater good. That’s something I’ve talked about often. For all the things I’ve done throughout my career, I never cared whether my name was associated with them. I just wanted to make a difference. I know there are things I’ve done throughout my military career that I can look at and say, “I had a role in that,” but it isn’t important to me that I go tell somebody about it. I just know in my heart the things I’ve done and the impact I’ve had.
One of the things that really helps me is when a junior member comes up and says, “You were my commander when X happened,” and it’s something I did that I don’t even remember, but it may have had a huge impact on them. That’s part of a leader doing the right thing. You’re doing things that have a bigger impact than you might even be aware of, and years later, people can come to you and say that something you did helped them become successful.
Adam: What do you believe are the key characteristics of the very best leaders, and what can anyone do to become a better leader?
General Brown: I would use the mantra we had at the United States Air Force Weapons School. I was able to go through as a student, came back as an instructor, and was the commandant when I was a colonel. That mantra was humble, approachable, and credible. Those are the three things I really believe leaders need to have. You have to be credible, so you have to have some credibility. You also have to have some humility because it isn’t all about you, and you’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to have some “aw, shucks” moments. You have to be willing to protect your credibility by talking about the mistakes you made, how you might do things differently with 20/20 hindsight, or how you might adjust and change a decision or recommendation. That leads to approachability because, if you have credibility and humility, people are more likely to approach you. The key part of that is that it’s how you get feedback. As you get into more senior positions, no matter what your career is, it’s so hard to get true, critical feedback. People will tell you how well you’re doing, but they’ll talk behind your back about the things that frustrate them. I’d rather have people sit down and talk to me and share some of their frustrations because I can’t fix it if I don’t know about it, whether it’s me personally or something we’re doing in whatever organization I was privileged to lead.
One of the things I often believed was that I needed to listen more than I talked, because if I’m talking, I can set the tone for the atmosphere or the direction of the conversation. If I say I like this but don’t like that, guess what? We’re all going to talk about the things I like, and we aren’t going to talk about the things I dislike. But if I listen, I’ll hear both of those, and I may get feedback that helps open my eyes a little wider so we can mitigate risk or adjust. There may be something I wasn’t aware of that’s having an impact on the force or the organization, and I can adjust because I gave someone a chance to speak up and share something with me.
Maybe one of the things I would highlight to you, Adam, and I put this on paper both when I was the Air Force Chief and when I was the Chairman, is that I wanted to have the meeting after the meeting in the meeting. We all go into meetings where we don’t get a good conversation, but then when you turn off the video teleconference or the meeting breaks up and people get into the hallway, that’s when the chatter starts about what they really think. I’d rather have that in the meeting than in the hallway because I’m not always in the hallway to hear people’s concerns. I’d rather have that in the meeting so we can actually make progress, instead of having people become frustrated and not put their whole heart into it because they’re concerned about what the outcome might be. I believe I’m part of that process, and it helps me when I get to hear the voices of dissent and concern so I can adjust, or maybe explain why we’re going to go down the path we’re taking. I can say, “I understand where you’re coming from, but let me give you the bigger picture, or some things you may not be aware of, about why we’re going to have to go down this path,” so they have a better appreciation of the bigger picture.
Adam: I love that word you shared, that pillar you learned and live by: approachability, which is humility on one hand and credibility on the other. If people don’t see you as an expert in your domain, if people don’t see you as a person who has real value to add, they’re not going to approach you. If people see you as a person with a big ego, someone who’s overconfident, someone who can’t connect, can’t relate, and lacks humility, they’re not going to approach you, and they’re not going to want to be led by you. When you boil it down, so much of it comes down to how much you’re listening and how much you’re talking. When you’re talking, you’re not learning. When you’re listening, you’re learning.
General Brown: One of the things I would add to that, Adam, is to also think about respect. You can either earn respect or demand respect. When you demand respect, people only do things because they don’t want to get in trouble, which means they aren’t going to take much initiative. When you earn respect, people will do things because they don’t want to disappoint you. When you have earned the respect of those you’re privileged to lead, they can reach their full potential, you can reach your full potential, and the organization can reach its full potential as well. You have greater teamwork, camaraderie, and trust. Trust is another element I didn’t mention earlier, but trust is really important. You have to trust those in your charge, and they have to trust you. You trust them to do their jobs, and they trust you because you have their backs and want to make them successful. One of the things I would talk about as a senior officer was that my job was to make their jobs easier. That’s the way I thought about things. I had the influence, and sometimes the power, to do things that made it easier for them and their families day in and day out as service members.
Adam: How can you cultivate trust?
General Brown: Well, I think it’s about being humble, approachable, and credible. It’s also about people getting to know you as a person. One of the things my wife and I would do was host social events, particularly with our close staff, because they spent a lot of time around us. You’re in the moment so often that they get to see you as the boss and the boss’s spouse, but they don’t get to see you as a person. Spending time with them allowed them to see that, although I was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, I was still a father, a husband, a son, and a brother. All those roles were just as much a part of me as my title as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. I would joke about it. My parents are both still alive, and even when I was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, my mom would call me and say, “You’re not calling home enough.” If you want to talk about something that makes you humble, it’s your mom chastising you for not calling home. She knows me as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, but I’m also her son.
It’s those kinds of things. When I tell stories like that, people can relate. Another question we typically get as senior officers is, “What keeps you up at night?” My answer typically was, “Nothing,” because we had highly skilled service members around the world taking care of business. What would keep me up at night was a phone call from our sons because they were counting on us to help them through whatever crisis they were facing. That weighed on me more than what was happening in world events. As a service chief and as the Chairman, I knew that every day when I woke up, something was going to happen somewhere in the world that I couldn’t control. I just had to be prepared. Every day was going to be a little different because something around the world would influence how the day unfolded. That was just the cost of doing business. You had to have that mindset so you didn’t spike on everything. You had to figure out how to breathe through your nose and not hyperventilate.
Adam: As we’re talking about trust and approachability, so much of it really comes down to relatability, being yourself, being human, and finding the common bonds you share with the other human beings around you. It could be the fact that, as a parent, what keeps you up at night is worrying about your kids. I’m thinking about a quote from my mom, who always says, “As a parent, you’re only as happy as your least happy child.” That’s a universally shared experience. Before we started recording, we were chatting about basketball and talking about sports, and we all share common bonds. It’s a matter of uncovering them. It’s a matter of taking the time to figure out where we have something in common, what we can talk about, where we can relate, and where we can connect beyond the business that brings us together.
General Brown: That is so true. As an engineer, I think about Venn diagrams and all the math I took. With a Venn diagram, even when you disagree, there are things you can agree on, whether it’s the food you like, the sports team you like, or a show you just watched. That brings people closer together. I recently watched something that talked about how sports really brings people together. Think about the World Cup and how, no matter what people’s backgrounds are, each country is united behind its team. To me, that’s pretty cool. We were talking about basketball earlier, and I’m a Spurs fan, so I was hoping the Spurs would beat the Knicks. But just watching how excited everybody was, and seeing all the different people in New York City coming together because of a sporting event, was powerful. It’s a way to drop all the friction points and focus together on something we all believe in or have an affinity for. To me, that’s pretty cool, and the more we can do that, the better the world will be.
Adam: One of the beauties of sports is that not only is there a team you root for, but there are always many teams you root against. If you’re rooting against the Knicks, as I was for that period of time, you become a Spurs fan, so that gives you even more common ground.
General Brown: True. I think even the banter back and forth between my team and your team builds a relationship. Rooting for the same team can also build a relationship and help you get to know somebody you probably wouldn’t have talked to otherwise.
Adam: When you became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you took over during a perilous moment, to say the least. There were a couple of major crises, October 7 and Ukraine. These weren’t crises you had a playbook for, but they were your crises. As the leader, what did you learn from that moment? What did you learn from that experience? What were the keys to leading through uncertainty and leading through crisis?
General Brown: Well, a couple of things, Adam. Part of it came from some of the jobs I held before, including working at United States Central Command. I was the Air Component Commander during the campaign to defeat ISIS, so I got to see the dynamics of a lot of things happening at once. When I took over as Chairman, the war in Ukraine was already happening. I took over on October 1, 2023, so Hamas attacking Israel on October 7 came at the end of my first week. It was one of those situations where I had to step back, build the team, and rely on the good team we already had. They could sit down with me and walk through everything that was going on and all the different options. The role of the Chairman is to be the senior military adviser to the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Council. The job is to advise and provide options. What we were really trying to do was figure out what happened, what we knew, what we didn’t know, what we thought, and how to provide those options. The facts and assumptions would continue to change, so no sooner would you think you had the answer, or an answer, than it could shift based on the dynamics of the environment. You couldn’t get too wedded to something, but at some point, you still had to make a decision or provide military advice based on what you knew at the time. The key was having a good team that could come together and work together, and being able to hear the different voices within that team so we could develop what might be the best set of options based on the situation as we understood it at that time.
Adam: You’ve enjoyed enormous success over the course of your career. What is the biggest challenge you encountered? What is the biggest failure you experienced, and what did you learn?
General Brown: Well, I’m pretty self-critical. One experience that really stands out happened when I was a lieutenant at Kunsan Air Base in the Republic of Korea. I was a brand-new F-16 pilot, and when you get to your first base, part of your training is going through what we call mission qualification training. Then you have your first check ride to become a combat-ready F-16 pilot. I failed that check ride. You never get a second chance to make a first impression, so as the brand-new guy in the squadron, and, by the way, the only African American in my squadron, I had this failure. You can either make it a barrier or make it a stepping stone, and I made it a stepping stone. I knew I was going to have to work a bit harder because of my own failure.
I’ve always been very self-critical and used that as a way to motivate myself to do better. I’m always looking for ways to improve, and I spend a lot of time thinking and replaying decisions, speeches I’ve given, or other things I’ve done, always looking for ways to get better. Part of that comes from that experience. Although I had that failure, I still had a lot of success throughout my career. That’s one of the things I take away from it. All success is built on some level of setback or failure, and there are no overnight sensations. People who look like overnight sensations have usually been working pretty hard to get where they are, and they’ve learned a lot along the way. That’s part of what makes people better leaders. It’s because of the knocks and bruises they’ve had. I’ve had other experiences where things didn’t go well, but that was probably the one that stands out the most because it really changed my perspective early in my career and may have set the foundation for the successes I had later.
Adam: You shared a number of things that are really interesting. One is that when you experience failure, you’re able to bounce back from it, learn from it, and understand that failure isn’t terminal. In fact, failure is a prerequisite for success. That sets you up for the future failures you’re bound to encounter over the course of your career and your life. When you’ve hit one speed bump and you’re able to bounce back, you know you can bounce back again.
General Brown: You’re so right because I’m a big proponent of innovation, and innovation is based on failure. Innovators don’t get everything right on the first try and say, “Okay, we’ve got the best thing since sliced bread, and everybody’s going to buy it.” That’s not the way it works. You’re going to learn, and every time you fail, you’re going to learn something. You’re going to learn something about yourself, something about the process, and something about others that you can put into your toolkit for future use. Whether you’re sharing that story with somebody else to help them through a down moment, or you’re mentoring them to prevent a difficult moment based on a path you took, you can say, “Okay, I learned some things, so let me share them with others so they can be successful.” You aren’t going to shield them from everything, but you can help them think through some of these challenges based on your experiences. When you’ve dealt with people who have gone through really difficult situations, you understand to an extent. You aren’t walking in their shoes, but you’ve had similar situations, and you can tell them it will be better on the other side. But they have to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and keep going.
Adam: Something else you mentioned while sharing that experience was that you were the only African American in your squadron. You and your sister were also the only African American students in your elementary school growing up. You’ve had many experiences over the course of your career where you were the only one in the room. Why are diversity and inclusion so important for leaders to cultivate, and what can leaders do most effectively to cultivate winning and successful cultures?
General Brown: Everyone who comes into your organization comes from a different perspective, whether it’s cultural, where they grew up, or their socioeconomic background. Because of that, they all bring different perspectives, and as a leader, it’s important to bring those perspectives into your decision-making process. It helps you open your eyes a little wider as you look at various issues and understand what the impact could be on different demographics within your organization. If you don’t have that, you get groupthink. You can all agree on something and still fail to realize there’s a major blind spot or some level of risk that isn’t being communicated. Then you’re going to trundle right down a path that won’t lead to success. It’s important to have those various voices sharing their perspectives and to make sure they feel comfortable doing so. That’s why trust is important. They have to trust that they can say something, bring something up, and have it heard and considered instead of being shut down or ignored.
You’re not going to be able to do everything for everyone, but as I like to say, it isn’t one size fits all. There’s a size that fits most, and you want to do what you can to address the needs of most of your organization because that’s a way to build trust. When people look at leaders, they really want to know how much those leaders care about them and their well-being. That goes a long way as a motivator for people to do more to make the organization stronger. When they see a leader who shows that they care, listens to different voices, and respects all backgrounds, that goes a long way toward building a stronger organization.
The last thing I’d say, particularly for the military, is something I talked about in a recruiting commercial that was based on an interview I did as a captain. When I put my helmet on, put my oxygen mask on, and fly an F-16, I look the same as everybody else. You have no idea who I am or what my background is. You just want to make sure I’m doing my job. You’re fighting for the comrade to your left or your right. To me, that’s an important aspect of thinking about who’s part of your team and making sure they’re able to reach their full potential.
Adam: General Brown, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?
General Brown: A couple of things. One is that I’ve talked about listening, but from a mentoring standpoint, I’ve also talked to others about always asking for what you want. The worst you can be told is no, but you can’t be told yes if you don’t ask. Part of that, though, is making sure you’re qualified for what you’re asking for, which means you have to be curious and ask questions. Don’t sell yourself short. Asking these questions can help you build your experience so you can be competitive for whatever you’re asking for, understand what steps you need to take to become more competitive, or realize during the conversation that there’s an entirely different path out there you weren’t aware of and may be better suited for.
I think that’s an important aspect of developing yourself as a leader. You have to be curious, ask questions, ask for what you want, and prepare yourself for the opportunities you’re looking for, but also for the opportunities, as I mentioned earlier, that you may not even be aware of. In some cases, you may be better suited for something well outside what you were thinking for yourself, and someone may see something in you and put you in a position that allows you to grow and become an even stronger leader.
Adam: General Brown, thank you for all the great advice, and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.
General Brown: My pleasure, Adam. My pleasure.
