Effective leadership, especially at the most senior levels, is a constant balancing act. If you only focus on your people, yet you don’t have a solid strategy, you will not be successful as a leader. If you only focus on achieving results and don’t worry about your people, your staff won’t stick around long enough for the organization to be successful. For more than 20 years, I have been achieving this delicate balance of focusing on results without sacrificing my people and keeping my emphasis on building a positive, engaged culture while still strategically achieving objectives.I know one of the most dangerous phrases to a company is “that’s the way we have always done things.” I will never be satisfied with the status quo and will always look to improve the organization to keep up with changing industry standards and changing cultural expectations. As an example, the Air Force had a very strict tattoo policy which automatically eliminated candidates from being eligible for service. Given the cultural evolution of tattoos, I recognized that this needed to be changed. Not only did this open up our candidate pool, but it also demonstrated our agility as an organization. For the last few years, I have been serving as an innovation, strategy and people operations consultant and have been very successful. I love finding new innovations and technology and matching them with the right organization. I also enjoy being able to impact an organization in the long-term and see my initiatives and strategy through to completion. Former Air Education and Training Command (AETC) Command Chief Master Sergeant. My motto and secret sauce to success--"Play Hard, Work Harder"My mission is to progress national defense measures, increase available commercial technology to the DoD, prop small businesses, and increase American capabilities. If you need help, I am here for you! You can reach me at dave@dstaton.com.