Doolittle Leadership Center Graduates 1,000 Airmen, DAF Civilians in 2024

It’s been a busy year for AFA’s Doolittle Leadership Center, which successfully graduated more than 1,000 Airmen and DAF civilians from its leadership development courses in 2024—well over twice the leaders it trained in 2023.

Just in the five-month window between August and November, the DLC delivered its renowned “Lead, Develop, Care” course to more than 500 Airmen at five OCONUS installations, traveling to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii; Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany; Misawa Air Base, Japan; Osan Air Base, South Korea; and Ramstein Air Base, Germany. The DLC also traveled twice to Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, D.C., (in June and again in November) and has a visit to Vandenberg Space Force Base in California scheduled for March 2025.

The DLC’s “Lead, Develop, Care” workshops are 9-hour courses that give leaders at all levels a better framework for approaching leadership. Rather than focusing on leadership theories or tools, the program educates leaders at all levels on how to apply those theories and tools in their everyday responsibilities.

“Leaders usually have the tools to solve the problems, but they can’t always figure out which tool to start with. As a result, they employ their tools one-by-one in hopes that something will eventually work,” said DLC’s Director Dr. Patrick Donley, a retired Air Force colonel and former National War College instructor. “Our ‘Lead, Develop, Care’ approach is a diagnostic framework for thinking about leadership in such a way that helps them identify the primary problem, which then enables them to select the correct tool to address it.”

“Lead, Develop, Care is an outstanding leadership course that I wish everyone in the military could take,” said Col. Paul “Voodoo” Davidson, Wing Commander of the 35th Fighter Squadron at Misawa AB, where Donley trained 90 Airmen in October. “Many of our young leaders found it to be the best leadership training they have received. I’m grateful we now have a common leadership framework here at [our base] that we can use to operate, communicate, and learn together.”

Davidson is already planning to schedule a follow-on set of workshops in 2025. In fact, Donley said many of the organizations and units he visits are repeat customers who want to expand the DLC’s educational influence across their commands.

The DLC brings a tailored-to-fit course to leaders at every level and rank, equipping staff sergeants, NCOs, and officers all the way up to O-6 with a leadership course unlike anything they’ve experienced in Professional Military Education (PME). At every level, Donley said, the most common feedback after a course is, “Why didn’t I get this kind of training from my commissioning source or PME?”

But the “Lead, Develop, Care” model isn’t only applicable to those in uniform. The DLC visited the 11th Wing at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, D.C., in June (and again in November) to deliver a leadership workshop course exclusively to DAF civilians. The DLC also taught a class to 30 industry professionals at Pentagon Federal Credit Union in July.

“The framework is effective because good leadership is good leadership, regardless of context,” Donley said. “How we teach the model is adapted to the audience, but the framework itself doesn’t change. In fact, I’ve had students go through the entire 9-hour workshop thinking about how they can lead their teenaged children to be more capable, productive human beings.”  

In addition to continuing to meet the growing demand for its workshops on a unit-by-unit basis, the DLC is looking forward to sharing the “Lead, Develop, Care” framework at the enterprise level. 

“As wonderful as it is to reach individual leaders, the framework is most helpful when it is adopted from the top down. Currently, leaders return to their units with an exciting new way of thinking about practical leadership but don’t have anyone else in the unit who understands the approach. They must either teach it to their peers and supervisors or else remain a ‘lone voice in the wilderness,’” Donley said. “How encouraging it would be if an entire unit, military service, or company adopted this model as its standard for what good leadership looks like?”

Learn more about the Doolittle Leadership Center and schedule a “Lead, Develop, Care” workshop for your unit or organization by contacting us using the form below.