Page 73 - Never Fly Solo

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less than an inch long can lead to fatal consequences. Before
the advances of modern engineering, many combat jets went
down in battle not from enemy fire but because the tiniest of
cracks went undetected. At Mach speeds, the pressure on the
wings is tremendous, and a tiny crack, invisible to the human
eye, can quickly run the width of the wing under the right
conditions.
In November 2007, an Air Force F-15C Eagle jet fighter
crashed because of a defective beam on its airframe. The pilot
was barely able to eject from the plane as it literally broke
apart beneath him. Investigators later discovered a crack in
the beam near the fuselage that had grown over time and had
previously gone undetected during maintenance inspections.
Will you make mistakes in your career? Yes. Most will be
minor ones—small cracks in your wing. Perhaps they will go
unnoticed. You will also likely bear witness to others making
mistakes. The real question is, will you have the courage to
come clean with your cracks and confront others about theirs?
Or will you be more concerned with not ruffling feathers or
rocking the boat? Often, if you don’t take the right action, no
one will. What example are you setting for your wingmen?
The cracks will only grow with time.
The best way to create an environment where your wing-
men will live and work with integrity is by having the courage
to admit your own mistakes. Leadership expert John C. Max-
well calls this “the law of magnetism,” explaining, “Who you
are is who you attract.” 1
In the Air Force, we call the ability to admit mistakes
“exposing your chest to daggers.” For example, no mission
we fly is ever complete until we go through a debrief. The

1. John Maxwell, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership (Nashville: Thomas Nel-
son, 1999).