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Tuesday » May 13, 2008 

Core Values of the United States Air Force

Whoever you are and wherever you fit on the Air Force team, this is the basic guide to the Air Force Core Values. They exist for all members of the Air Force family, from the highest ranking officer to the new recruit just entering Basic Training. They apply to all uniformed personnel, but also to civil servants and contractors working for the Air Force. They are for all of us to read, to understand, to live by and to cherish.

The Core Values are much more than minimum standards. They remind us of what it takes to get the mission done. They inspire us to do our very best at all times. They are the common bond among all comrades in arms, and they are the glue that unifies us and ties us to the great warriors and public servants of the past.

Integrity First, Service Before Self, and Excellence In All We Do. These are the Air Force Core Values.

Integrity is a character trait. It is the willingness to do what is right even when no one is looking. It is one's "moral compass," the inner voice, the voice of self-control, and the basis for the trust imperative in today's military.

Integrity is the ability to hold together and properly regulate all of the elements of a personality. A person of integrity is capable of acting on conviction. A person of integrity can control impulses and appetites.

Integrity also covers several other moral traits indispensable to national service.

• Courage -- A person of integrity possesses moral courage and does what is right even if the personal cost is high.
• Honesty -- Honesty is the hallmark of the military professional. As part of the military, our word must be our bond. We don't pencil-whip training reports, we don't cover up violations, we don't falsify documents, and we don't write misleading operational readiness messages. We don't lie and we can't justify any deviation.
• Responsibility -- No person of integrity is irresponsible; a person of true integrity acknowledges his/her duties and acts accordingly.
• Accountability -- No person of integrity tries to shift the blame to others or take credit for the work of others; "the buck stops here" says it best.
• Justice -- A person of integrity practices justice. Those who do similar things must get similar rewards or similar punishments.
• Openness -- Professionals of integrity encourage a free flow of information within the organization. They seek feedback from all directions to ensure they are fulfilling key responsibilities, and they are never afraid to allow anyone at any time to examine how they do business.
• Self-respect -- To have integrity is to respect oneself as a professional and as a human being. A person of integrity does not behave in ways that would bring discredit upon himself or the organization to which he belongs.
• Humility -- A person of integrity grasps and is sobered by the awesome task of defending the Constitution of the United States of America.

Service before self tells us that professional duties take precedence over personal desires. At the very least it includes the following behaviors:

• Rule Following -- To serve is to do one's duty, and our duties are most commonly expressed through rules. While it may be the case that professionals are expected to exercise judgment in the performance of their duties, good professionals understand that rules have a reason for being, and the default position must be to follow those rules unless there is a clear, operational reason for refusing to do so.
• Respect for Others -- Service before self tells us also that a good leader places the troops ahead of his/her personal comfort. We must always act in the certain knowledge that all persons possess a fundamental worth as human beings.
• Discipline and Self-Control -- Professionals can not indulge themselves in self-pity, discouragement, anger, frustration, or defeatism. They have a fundamental moral obligation to the people they lead to strike a tone of confidence and forward-looking optimism. Specifically, they are expected to exercise control in the following areas:
1. Anger: Military professionals, and especially commanders at all levels, are expected to refrain from displays of anger that would bring discredit upon themselves and/or the Air Force.
2. Appetites: Those who allow their appetites to drive them to make sexual overtures to subordinates are unfit for military service. The excessive consumption of alcohol casts doubt on an individual's fitness.
3. Religious Tolerance: Military professionals must remember that religious choice is a matter of individual conscience. Professionals, and especially commanders, must not take upon themselves to change or coerce the views of their subordinates.
• Faith in the System -- To lose faith in the system is to adopt the view that you know what should or should not be done better than those higher in the chain of command. In other words, to lose faith in the system is to place self before service. Leaders can be very influential in this regard: If a leaders resists the temptation to doubt "the system", then subordinates may follow suit.

Excellence in all we do directs us to develop a sustained passion for continuous improvement and innovation that will propel the Air Force into a long-term, upward spiral of accomplishment and performance.

• Product/Service Excellence -- We must focus on providing service and generating products that fully respond to customer wants and anticipate customer needs, and we must do so within the boundaries established by the taxpaying public.
• Personal Excellence -- Military professionals must seek out and complete professional military education, stay in good physical and mental shape, and continue to refresh their general educational backgrounds.
• Community Excellence -- Community excellence is achieved when the members of an organization can work together to successfully reach a common goal in an atmosphere free of fear; that preserves individual self-worth. Some of the factors influencing interpersonal excellence are:
1. Mutual Respect: Genuine respect involves viewing another person as a individual of fundamental worth. Obviously, this means that a person is never judged on the basis of his/her possession of an attribute that places him or her in some racial, ethnic, economic or gender-based category.
2. Benefit of the Doubt: Working hand in glove with mutual respect is that attitude which says that all coworkers are "innocent until proven guilty". Before rushing to judgment about a person or his/her behavior, it is important to have the whole story.
• Resources Excellence -- Excellence in all we do also demands that we aggressively implement policies to ensure that best possible cradle-to-grave management of resources.
1. Material Resources Excellence: Military professionals have an obligation to ensure that all of the equipment and property that they ask for is mission essential. This means that residual funds at the end of the year should not be used to purchase "nice to have" add-ons.
2. Human Resources Excellence: Human resources excellence means that we recruit, train, promote, and retain those who can do the best job for us.
• Operations excellence -- There are two kinds of operations excellence - internal and external.
1. Excellence of Internal Operations: This form of excellence pertains to the way we do business internally to the Air Force, from the unit level to Headquarters Air Force. It involves respect on the unit level and a total commitment to maximizing the Air Force team effort.
2. Excellence of External Operations: This form of excellence pertains to the way in which we treat the world around us as we conduct our operations. In peacetime, for example, we must be sensitive to the rules governing environmental pollution, and in wartime we are required to obey the laws of war.

The US Air Force Academy has a Core Values website at Core Values. It contains the full version of the Core Values booklet, from which the above excerpts were taken. There are also a series of readings about the Core Values and their place in the Air Force. In addition, you will find a series of easy-to-use implementation guides, and you may submit questions about the Core Values via the website mailbox. You are encouraged to visit the website for a more detailed discussion of the ideas you have been reading about on this page.