JSTARS Team Leadership

The reorganization of the 116th ACW from a Total Force Wing to a classic Associate Wing allowed the guard to fully pursue the recapitalization of the JSTARS fleet. The ANG at Robins, AFB unlike active duty has a vested interest in keeping the JSTARS fleet at Robins and to ensure that a new airframe is acquired. The leadership of the ANG has taken full advantage of the new political frame. Bolman and Deal (2013) state that political leaders build linkages to key stakeholders, and focus their attention on building relationships and networks (p364). The 116th ACW leadership had to ask itself a key political frame work question; do the current resource allocation processes support the new structure (Yolitz, 1997)? The answer was no. An outdated airframe was becoming a determent to mission capability. The leadership of the 116th ACW began to work on building a strong network and coalition of political members such as congressmen and senators to press the case for a new airframe. The ANG leadership worked particularly hard with its two U.S. Senators. U.S. Johnny Senator Isakson, along with U.S. Senator David Perdue, offered two amendments to the Fiscal Year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to ensure that the JSTARS is maintained as a national defense priority. Senator Isakson is currently working with the Air Force and the Senate Armed Services Committee to ensure that the final House-Senate agreement on this legislation includes contract authorization language that enables the recapitalization of the JSTARS to move forward (Mestes, 2016). As a result of the linkage forged with Congress and Senate members the authorizing and appropriating committees in both the House and the Senate told the Air Force they want the decrepit JSTARS planes replaced faster than the service plans, and appropriators took the additional step of restricting how program money can be spent to assure that outcome (Thompson, 2016). Bolman and Deal (2013) state that sophisticated political leaders know that influence begins with understanding other’s concerns and interests (p.364). As a fully Total Force Wing active duty leadership didn’t share the same concerns as the ANG leadership, and thus, did not work as hard on building the needed political network to ensure a replacement for the JSTAR. It was only through the change in the political frame that made it possible to pursue the needed political connections. My recommendation would be for ANG leadership to partner with active duty counter parts in order to combine resources to increase the pressure on Air Force headquarters to deliver a new Air frame. The symbolic frame of the 116th ACW illuminates the cultural side of the organization. It is fueled by rituals, ceremonies, stories, heroes, and role models that have helped build the 116th ACW into the organization it is today (Fransworth, 2013). Two key symbolic frame questions to ask are: (1) are the organization’s values and basics assumptions in alignment with the new structure and (2) if not, can they be built on or adjusted to support the new structure (Yolitz, 1997)? The 116th ACW was able to maintain …show more content…
Using each of the four frames allows, the 116th ACW to view the reorganization in at least four distinct ways. The leadership of the 116th ACW can look at reframing as their “basic prescription for sizing things up” (Defoe, 2013). The Reframing model captures the subtlety and complexity of organizational life, but in a simple, useful format, and useable process. Each of the four frame has its own distinctive qualities. However to be effective organizations and leaders should use aspects from all four frames to gather insight and evaluate change. Being able to use the different frames to ask specific questions can be used to determine what is going on within an organization and what options are available to leadership and which ones are worth considering. My recommendation would be for the leadership of the 116th ACW to use the four frame model to evaluate future situations through each of the four frames and integrate their perceptions into a personal theory of the organization. Bolman and Deal (1997) state that “The ability to reframe an experience enriches and broadens a leader’s repertoire… [leaders] are imprisoned only to the extent that their palette of ideas is impoverished” (p.