E-mail -- pitfall of leadership

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Lela Holden
  • AF Surgeon General Congressional and Public Affairs Office
BOLLING AIR FORCE BASE, D.C. --  It seemed like a simple issue: identify two or three members who would fulfill a wing-level tasking. Our deadline was two days away, and I was getting an update from the squadron superintendent.

“Well, ma’am,” he said with the look and tone of futility, “I sent out an e-mail to the (noncommissioned officers in charge) of the units but haven’t heard anything back yet. If they don’t get back to me quickly, I’ll just pick people for these taskings.”

Fast forward a month, and I was having a conversation with the flight commander of Family Practice, who was explaining some conflicts with the Flight Medicine Clinic over the handling of walk-in patients when both clinics have no appointments available.

“Well, ma’am,” she said, “I got this angry e-mail from the Flight Medicine nurse on this, and I’m not sure how to respond.”

When I asked if she had gone down the hall and around the corner to engage personally on the issue, she looked stunned.

“Well, no ma’am," she said. "We’re both so busy, we’ve been working the problem on e-mail.”

A third incident occurred when I was serving as acting squadron commander while my boss was away on temporary duty. A patient complaint was being worked, and again, some of the less sensitive information was flowing by e-mail. Though no one was violating patient privacy, the commander was only copied on some of the message traffic.

Midway into the problem, the commander e-mailed from hundreds of miles away about a solution, but he had missed out on some important updated details in the discussion. Since he wasn’t included in every facet of the electronic discussion, his inputs, through no fault of his own, lacked proper context.

In all three cases, I was left feeling frustrated about the excessive and problematic use of e-mail as a management tool. Yes, it can be fast and efficient. But, I am reminded of the entertaining Harry Potter book series, and the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry described in those tales of fantasy.

Specifically, the use of magic wands is particularly appealing. Oh, to be Harry or Hermione and simply pass a wand over an irritating, difficult, frustrating problem and just make it go away or magically transform. Would that leadership had such a magic wand. Unfortunately, e-mail is not it.

E-mail is great for describing how and when discussions of the problem can occur -- it can facilitate problem solving. But don’t think that you can ultimately solve most problems with the use of e-mail alone. Too much of the non-verbal, the nuances, the complexity of tough issues that emerge in discussions are missed when e-mail is used to the exclusion of personal contact.

One cannot legitimately make statements about the tools of leadership without forcing the question: What is leadership? Regardless of the level -- element, flight, squadron, wing, military or civilian, local, national or international -- leadership is about building teams and engaging others to move ahead in the solving of problems and advancing the interests (mission) of the organization.

If this difficult, challenging, and wonderfully satisfying task could be accomplished without leaders, every organization would have figured out how to do without them. But, leaders are crucial to help us advance in the workplace and in the world.

Notice the action words in this definition -- building, engaging and moving ahead. All of these functions are enhanced by personal contact. The extent that e-mail diminishes attempts to engage personally and talk together about problems is the extent to which solutions are delayed, and leaders -- or at least their decisions -- fall into holes.

Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Robert Foglesong vividly illustrated these leadership principles recently when he discussed how the Army and Air Force dealt with the realization that more effective coordination was needed between ground and air forces.

He and Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Jack Keane took the issue on personally.

“Jack Keane and I met quietly three or four times over at National Defense University,” Foglesong said. “We went out of our way not to make it public because we wanted this to be at the working level.”

Notice that he didn’t say, “because we’re both so busy, we had an extensive e-mail discussion on the solving of this difficult problem.” They met to work the problem, and at their level, the problems are big indeed and time is a very valuable commodity.

They modeled some of the critical aspects of leadership. They used personal engagement to build and strengthen the team, to solve problems and move the mission forward.

I am reminded, as I discuss leadership and its tools and the impact of technology on accomplishing the mission, of a story about a British general after World War I. In the face of airplanes and tanks, he was extolling the virtues of the well-bred horse. He was clearly looking in the rear view mirror and was less effective as a leader because of it. Indeed, we must embrace the freedoms and the flexibilities that technologies give us and not deny them with wistful, nostalgic musings about the past.

But we should also not lose sight of the unchanging reality that effective leaders know the limits of all their tools, use them fully, but are not used by them. Again, as the generals noted above demonstrate, when it comes to leadership, there is no magic wand.