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Thirty feet up in the air, clinging to a utility pole, was a
brand new Airman crying out for help. He was panicked and insistent
that he was going to fall.
An instructor stared up at him
from the ground and sighed. This was the sergeant’s first day as a
technical training school instructor, and before that moment, it had
been years since he had climbed a utility pole.
Even to a
man with a resolute stature and years of experience, the sergeant
had to gather his own nerves before making the climb. He calmed the
Airman down and brought him to solid ground safely. From that moment
on, the instructor practiced climbing the utility pole before each
time he took any class out to the service yard.
That
instructor, now Chief Master Sgt. Leon Calloway, is the 22nd Air
Refueling Wing’s command chief.
Family
At the time Calloway entered the service he had a wife and three
young children. They were living in a dangerous neighborhood, and he
was working dead-end jobs to support his family.
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August 22, 2017 - Chief Master Sgt. Leon Calloway, 22nd Air
Refueling Wing command chief, poses for a family photo with his
wife, Krystal, his son, Courtney and his three daughters, Olivia,
Cree, and Briana. (Courtesy photo by Chief Master Sgt. Leon Calloway
and Family)
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“I did four years of college and ran into a tremendous
amount of debt,” explained the chief. “I ran out of money to
finish college and moved back home. I sat down with my wife
and we talked about it. This was our chance to start over
and to point our family in a better direction.”
After
meeting with his recruiter and learning about rank, Calloway
set a goal for himself. He was going to make the rank of
chief one day. It took him 18 years to do it. He insists
that setting time tables to accomplish goals is important
for creating personal accountability; more important than
the goal itself.
Mentorship
“When I get up in the morning, I look in the mirror and I ask
myself, ‘What can I do better today than I did yesterday?’” Calloway
said. “Things that we are good at are the things that we gravitate
toward doing, so we need to work on the areas that we lack even more
and find a way to build and grow.”
Calloway says mentorship
is about teaching Airmen to be a better person overall. He learned
this concept from his previous supervisors and he tries to pass it
along to fellow Airmen.
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August 22, 2017 - Chief Master Sgt. Leon Calloway, 22nd Air
Refueling Wing command chief, talks to Airmen at McConnell Air Force
Base, Kan. Calloway has been the command chief since July. (U.S. Air
Force photo/Airman 1st Class Erin McClellan)
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“We have an obligation to be honest and give everyone the
same fair shake,” said the Uniontown, Pennsylvania native.
“Hard conversations are still mentoring. One person might
take your advice and run with it and another person may not.
You have to tell them, ‘You don’t get a trophy. Not
everybody gets a reward. Not everyone gets a pat on the
back.’”
Calloway’s honesty is not just a circumstantial quality.
“I asked all my chiefs I was interviewing, ‘What’s the one thing
that the Air Force has let you down on?’” said Col Joshua Olson,
22nd ARW commander. “Most chiefs said, ‘Nothing, the Air Force has
been great.’ The one chief who came off the top role was Calloway.
He said, ‘The Air Force has let me down with every birthday I’ve
missed, every anniversary I’ve missed and every Christmas I’ve
missed and I’ve missed a lot of them.’ I thought that was pretty
real. After that, I knew that was my chief. That was our chief.”
Faith
Sincerity is a value that has evolved from Calloway’s faith. He
is an ordained minister and has his master’s degree in Christian
leadership. This is a family tradition that runs deep as both his
father and brother are pastors.
“I want folks to know I
represent prayer, faith and hard work, and that equals results,”
said Calloway. “I believe my journey from airman basic to chief
master sergeant has been a journey of faith. I’ve seen doors open,
and I’ve seen people come into my life and direct and create
pathways that I couldn’t have done on my own.”
Calloway uses
a verse from the bible as his definition of leadership and a way to
hold himself accountable as a chief:
"And whosoever will be
chief among you, let him be your servant," Matthew 20:27.
This is a message Calloway clings to because he believes a leader’s
number one priority should be their ability to serve others. He
emphasized mentorship is not only the purposeful actions you take
but the unintentional effects of people watching your actions and
emulating them.
“I expect him to lead, and I expect him to
coach,” said Olson. “We know what right looks like —we feel it every
single day. [Calloway] will trust his gut, and he will make this
base better.”
One of the ways Calloway plans on making an
impact starts with the basics of the enlisted rank structure.
“Without the Airmen at the bottom of the pyramid, the pinnacle
cannot stand on its own,” explained Calloway. “I’m going to give
them everything that has helped me be successful. We owe it to the
generations before us, we owe it to the folks we serve with now, and
we owe it to the generation coming up after us. We owe it to reach
back to those Airmen and to show them what it takes to get to where
we are now.”
Service members hold a lot of titles as
individuals; Airman, spouse, sibling, friend. One way to bring all
of these pieces together is by creating pillars of a foundation.
Calloway’s foundation is family, faith and mentorship.
By U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Jenna Caldwell
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2017
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