February 24, 2021 • 42 mins
When you have the opportunity to lead and follow and different levels, you gain a ton of perspective on how to treat people and to advocate for your team. Lt Palczer went from firefighter to nurse to achieve his goals, and he's now putting his skills to work to take care of Airmen with dedication and humanity.
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Episode Transcript
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LTP (00:07):
In the race to success, we're not all starting from the
same place. Level the Pursuitseeks to fill in the gaps and
provide accessible bite sizedleadership lessons for anyone
looking to improve their skillsand prepare for the next step,
whatever that might be.
Welcome back peeps, I hopeyou're having a great week. And
if you're in one of the areas ofthe country that's been
absolutely pummeled by thestorm, I hope you're doing okay
(00:29):
and that your families are safe.
I know that my family has dealtwith and still doesn't have
potable water and finally gottheir power back on. And so
hopefully, you and yours aredoing okay, if you're if you're
dealing now dealing with that aswell. Today, we have a treat,
we're going to talk toLieutenant Nick Palczer. So this
guy is a man after my own heartstarted as a firefighter and
went back to school to become anurse. And he's now serving our
(00:52):
country as a nurse, absolutelykicking butt and doing it. And
he has some really greatperspectives having been rising
up through the NCO Corps, andsupervising at different levels.
And then now being an officerand supervising in a completely
different way. So he has somegreat perspectives on the best
ways to lead and the best waysto follow as you go through that
progression. This week, givesome time to what makes a really
(01:15):
good supervisor. Think about thethings that you do in your life.
And then find some ways that youcan incorporate them better into
how you behave as a professionaleach day.
So Nick, welcome. It is such apleasure to have you here today.
I'm really excited to get totalk to you a little bit about
(01:37):
your experiences and hear thegreat things that you're up to.
Unknown (01:40):
Oh, well, thank you for having me, ma'am. It's a
pleasure to be here. Again, Ialways try to bring something to
the table, but we'll, we'll seehow we do.
LTP (01:49):
It's gonna be awesome. So let's start out with an easy
one. Why don't you just tell usa little bit about your
experiences? How you got to be anurse today? Where did you start
and where and what was your pathto get there?
Unknown (02:05):
So that's actually a really crazy question. The short
version is so I graduated highschool in 2011. From Jensen
Beach, Florida, went to JensenBeach High School home of the
Falcons. From there, I decided Iwas going to go to Virginia
Military Institute didn'tgraduate VMI as much as I loved
being a rat and getting my headshaved once a week, which is a
(02:27):
great time. I left VMI after asemester, decided I was going to
enlist because that's always agood thing. Obviously, I decided
to enlist in the Air Force,because that's the right choice
and I had the choice. And thenfrom there, I got a contract as
a firefighter in 2012. And itwas already an EMT. So it was a
(02:48):
nice fit. And I had alwayswanted to go medical. So the
plan was eventually to go intothe NURSE Corps. So from there I
left in 2012 for lackland AirForce Base for BMT basic
military training where you havea lot of fun, as people will
tell you fun in quotes. And thenfrom there, I went to Goodfellow
Air Force Base in went to theFire Academy there for the
(03:12):
Department of Defense. It's ajoint school, a lot of fun,
great time. We own a lot ofcertifications out of it, which
I still hold to this day, whichare amazing. And then from
there, I got an assignment toKadena Air Base to Okinawa,
Japan. first assignment as abrand new agency at 19 years old
and Japan was amazing. I spent alittle over two years there,
(03:32):
which I could not go withoutsaying I met my lovely wife
there. And we've been married.
As of this April, we'll havebeen married seven years. So
thank you. So we were enlistedtogether. So we spent some time
there. And then in 2015 fastforwarding through my time in
the fire department, we cameback to the states to go to fi
one which is in Cheyenne,Wyoming, which is really cold.
(03:54):
Just so everyone Fun fact. Andthen from there, that was when
the nursing part kind of startedto be I had been doing prereqs
you know, along the way, tryingto eventually you know, go to
college, be that good airman andget my degrees. My got my
community college of the AirForce Associate Degree in fire
science pretty early on. So Ihad a lot of prereqs done.
(04:15):
Excuse me. So I went from toeveryone started doing more
prereqs for nursing schoolstarted getting to the the
anatomy, the physiology andstuff like that. And then I
applied to go to nursing schoolat the local community college.
Because to commission there'sonly a couple ways to get into
the NURSE Corps. One of which isto have a degree beforehand and
(04:38):
the other which is called thenursing list, commissioning
program. So I was working in thefire department long story
short, I got accepted intonursing school while I was an
Effie one to an associate degreeprogram. Did poda my associate
degree program while still onactive duty in the fire
department. We did 48 hours on72 hours off which as you know,
(04:59):
ma'am, is a great schedule, buta very busy one. Went to nursing
school, started doing that. Andthen in May of C was May of 18,
I got picked up for the nursingholistic commissioning program.
And then I transferred over tothe University of Wyoming to the
ROTC detachment there were myjob was simply go to school,
(05:22):
which if you don't, anyone whodoesn't know going to school,
and getting paid to go to schoolis a great job. And then in
2019, of the fall 19, Igraduated University of Wyoming
with my bachelor's degree innursing. And then from there, it
was off to a bunch of training.
(05:42):
And then here I am now sittingat Wright Patterson Air Force
Base as a nursing officer. Sothat's kind of the long and
skinny on how we got to thispoint in life.
LTP (05:52):
So I'm interested, you went to VMI. And you were, obviously
you are very intelligent, you'restill are very intelligent,
obviously, you were disciplined.
And you you took those intoenlisting the Air Force. So what
changed that you weren't able toget it while you're at VMI, but
you were able to continue movingforward.
Unknown (06:15):
So that is always another one I get to from a lot
of people, especially my myformer troops used to ask me
that question a lot, too. So Ileft VMI, after the semester, a
lot, some of it I willabsolutely say had to do with
money. I did not havescholarships and full rides that
I would have had had I stayed ina different state, or gone to a
(06:35):
different school, my grades inhigh school were decent, but
they weren't getting me a fullride to any college that I
wanted. out of state tuition toa different place other than
Florida was pretty pricey. So Idid take out a little bit of
student loan to get through thesemester, my parents weren't
able to, you know, finance mycollege tuition by any means,
(06:56):
which was fine by me. And thenI'll say a lot of it without
going too crazy. Otherwise, we'dbe here for hours I was I was
definitely still a little I wasall say emotionally mature. I
thought VMI was a lot worse thanit was looking back. You know,
(07:17):
things back home, there weresome things that I was still
hanging on to that I probablyshouldn't have been. And it
really just turned into like,Well, I'm not going to become a
nurse being at VMI, because Iwas going to get a bachelor
degree in biology, and thenwould have had to go be you
know, God knows what officer atthat point, honestly, because it
would have just been Hey, hereyou go. And then eventually
(07:40):
tried to transition into theNURSE Corps. And I'm like, well,
that's gonna be a really longtime and probably not get me
what I want. So this might be abetter road. And I could get
some experience in the theenlisted corps get a lot of
training and education out ofit, you know, at the Air Force a
dime, of course, and thenprobably have a better chance of
(08:02):
going commissioning and becominga nurse rather than trying to go
that road. I'll say, I have noregret. I loved VMI It was a
lifelong dream that mygrandfather actually instilled
in me to go to VMI he did thesame thing. He also did the same
thing he did not graduate VMI heleft your life. He left after
his rap semester, just like Idid the first the first semester
(08:24):
the fall, because he was a classof 44 Well, what about the
class? 44 so neat, I say what heactually did, you know, he and
all his friends left andenlisted off to war.
LTP (08:38):
Wow, that's, that's crazy.
So I I can't really emphasizewith that with that decision
making process. So I you know, Iwent to Yale, and it was really
expensive. My Grades actuallywere quite good. And I had quite
a bit of scholarship support andalso need based from Yale
because Yale doesn't give meritbased scholarships, you don't
(09:01):
getting better grades doesn'thelp you there, but they do give
me base based on how much moneyyou have. Good. But if I had
gone to Alabama, Oklahoma, therewere several schools that were
recruiting me for my grades formy academic performance, I could
get a full ride. And so I hadpeople in my family saying, Why
are you so selfish? Why are youso conceited that you think you
(09:22):
have to go to the school andplace this burden on everyone?
Instead of going to one of theseschools, it's free. And I was
determined to go I mean, and Iwas you know, I was a
knucklehead, also it you know,you have this this things in
your head and you have this,this way of looking at yourself.
So, I push through. Exactly. AndI was in a similar situation. My
sophomore year, we got to thepoint when I went home for
(09:44):
Christmas, my sophomore year,there was no more money. And my
mom had had had some job issuesand, and I was working full time
at school. I had been workingfull time the whole time. I was
there and I went home forChristmas. So I was like, oh, my
goodness, I, I'm not going back.
We, I can't afford it, I don'thave the money, and through
(10:07):
massive blessings. And I hadbeen banging the door and the
financial aid office for thelast year and a half about
slowly how they evaluated myfinances. And because it without
getting too far into it, theywere taking some things into
account that were not reasonableto take into account. And so I
was paying more than I shouldhave based on their algorithm.
(10:29):
So I'd go in every semester andfight, fight, fight. And when I
was home for Christmas, and Ihad made the decision, I'd
realized, I'm not going back, Ican't afford, we don't have the
money, I can't go back. Theycalled me over Christmas and
said, Hey, we reevaluate yourfinances. And we've taken these
other things into account asyou've asked, and this is your
new scholarship. And I was ableto go back to school. So I was
(10:51):
in exactly the same positionyou're describing, I just
happened to be very, very luckythat it went the other way. But
I very easily could have donethis.
Unknown (11:02):
I mean, it's not a bad career. And I have many prior
enlisted friends who did becomedoctors like yourself, and I, by
no means Will I ever say I havethe brain capacity that you do
to go to MD school. I couldn'tdo that to save my life. But no,
I would call that persistence. Iwould say you showed nothing but
(11:22):
persistence. And you didn't. Youdidn't let them let the people
who couldn't say yes, you didn'tlet them say no,
LTP (11:29):
absolutely. No matter we're gonna get to that. But I love
it. My husband loves it too.
Because he so um, so tell me sohis perspective was never
present your proposal to someonewho doesn't have the power to
say yes. And but yours is alittle different. Tell me a
little bit about your thought.
Unknown (11:51):
So I would say it's very similar. And I will not say
that that's copyrighted by me byany means. I've actually heard
that from many supervisorscoming up through the enlisted
side, I would say I actuallyagree with that, you know, you'd
ever don't bring I'm not gonnabring a proposal to my flight
commander, my squadroncommander, my Chief Nurse. Um,
(12:11):
you know, unless I know, hey,this is the proposal for this
person, they have the power tosay yes.
LTP (12:18):
So you your enlisted perspective, really gives you a
leg up on that, you know, a lotof our young enlisted are
supervising tons of peoplebefore they even get to, you
know, they might be 22 and besupervising several people. And
I think that experience isreally, really cool. How do you
feel that that helps you tobuild as you look at your your
(12:38):
professional career now isgoing, you know, going into
nursing.
Unknown (12:42):
So I would absolutely say being a supervisor was one
of the best experiences of mycareer. To this day, and right
now, I don't technicallyofficially supervise anybody.
You know, as as a nurse, as youknow, ma'am, being a doctor, I
supervise my Tech's on thefloor, you know, my my medical
technicians, as the nurse, andI, you know, I'm over them as an
(13:03):
officer, obviously, just in thechain of command. But I actually
don't officially rate orsupervise anybody at this time,
which, frankly, is actually kindof a nice breather, because I
was doing it for a while. Butabsolutely the best experience
and one of the best experiencesof my career. I learned a lot
and gained a lot, made plenty ofmistakes along the way, being a
(13:23):
supervisor, fortunately didn'tharm anyone or harm anyone's
careers. Except maybe my own atthat point. I think the
experience of it has probablyled me to be able to be where I
am today. Being able tosupervise is probably one of the
most fulfilling things I've everdone, you know, contrary to
being a nurse's, probably aboutthe same equivalency is, you
(13:44):
know, you're still making animpact on people. But I liked
being able to give my troops myairman kind of a different light
in a different perspective. Weall hear this, you know, beat
down, beat down, beat down andknow nothing but work. Nolan,
Kaos? Well, I actually triedvery hard to make a point to let
my troops know that, well, ifthe bosses didn't care I did.
(14:04):
And I had the power to go, youknow, stand in front of the
bosses on their behalf. And if Icould, I would, obviously there
was some specific trials andtribulations to that concept,
where some of them got thenoncommissioned officer side of
me that was guiding them in avery direct manner will go with
right. But for the most part, Iwould say it was it was a
(14:27):
learning experience and greatexperience. And it definitely, I
think it helps me today being anurse and an officer.
LTP (14:34):
What mistakes have you seen young young supervisors make?
Unknown (14:39):
I'll own my first one, me, actually on that all day.
One mistake of very specificsituation was I had a troupe
who's no longer in the AirForce. He's doing well from what
I hear, but I haven't spoken tohim in a while due to a number
of factors is you want to alwaysengage with them. troops and
(15:00):
their family. It was a troopthat came to me and was telling
me he had thoughts of self harm.
At one point, there had been awhole build up to this story of
me, checking on him on the dayon dailies, you know, with work
and talking to the bosses andour management and the fire
department, culture as a wholeis, you know, man, sometimes,
you know, that's, unfortunately,one of those things is, you
know, self harm is something wedeal with very frequently. And
(15:22):
as young airmen, you know, beingaway from home at our first
assignment, that's also a veryreal thing that we have to
engage on with our people. So mymistake in that, though, was not
that I wasn't engaged with him,because I was probably, I would
say, overly engaged to a point,just because I wanted to make
sure we didn't miss anything,you know, I wanted to make sure
(15:42):
he knew, hey, somebody wasthere, which I thought was the
right way. And my supervisorsthat I sought counsel from, you
know, from my purpose was, youknow, yeah, you're doing the
right things. My mistake was is,and it's more of the leadership
side, and the supervisor side,is that you want to always be
open and engaged with yourpeople and their family. And
(16:03):
unfortunately, I got a littleover engaged with his spouse in
the regard of just passinginformation. And unfortunately,
as you know, in the, in themilitary world, there comes a
point where I have to say, Ican't speak to you, as a as the
family member, I'm only here butfor the troop. For this
(16:24):
situation, you need to contactthe first sergeant. And it
turned into this particularspouse just coming at me saying
abuse of authority, I made upthe story, you know, he never
said these things to me, when Iwould, you know, to this day
swear on a stack of Bibles thathe did. And then, you know, I
brought him to the resourcesthat he needed, you know, the
(16:48):
mental health counselors, and,you know, the physicians and my
job was to bring him to theresources. Well, the resources
were the ones that made all thedecisions at that point, not me,
but I was getting the brunt fromthe family side of it, which was
understandable. You know, it wasa very, very tense, very
delicate situation. But I wouldsay, the mistake was just, you
know, knowing that line of whenyou have to just say no, you
(17:09):
have to say no to the family sayyou have to talk to these
people, not me, my mistake, mybiggest learning lesson I
learned very early as asupervisor, young supervisors
today, I think a lot of it isjust sometimes they forget,
sometimes just sitting back,shutting up and listening does
wonders. I say that with themost love to all supervisors in
(17:30):
civilian sector, militarysector, but especially in the
military, sometimes we justdon't shut up and listen. Great
individual, I learned from onetime a former command chief of
mine. And if I said his name,you'd absolutely know who I'm
talking about, I guarantee it.
Never take it never pass up agreat opportunity to shut the
hell up.
LTP (17:52):
That's powerful advice.
Unknown (17:53):
And with that, I will now shut the hell up.
LTP (17:57):
So you know, everything had there's two sides to every coin.
So I think that you justhighlighted one about being a
frontline supervisor is that youhave the opportunity to be
engaged. And to interface withthe family interface with the
people in the military, weinterface with the family, as
(18:17):
civilians don't necessarily dothat as much, but to really be
there for someone andpotentially be a powerful force
for good. But that proximityalso puts you in a position to
be the face of the organizationin a negative way, and to be the
easy one that they can reach outto if something doesn't go the
way they want. So that can be areally difficult thing to
balance is. And I wonder ifthat's one of the reasons that
(18:42):
some supervisors are hesitant toengage, it's not so much that
they're afraid to get involved.
Some of them are probably afraidto get involved. But I think
some of them are probably alsoafraid of being the recipient of
all of the backlash.
Unknown (18:56):
I couldn't agree more.
Ma'am, that's that that isputting it probably a lot
simpler than I just explainedthat entire story. It really is
because it actually is somesupervisors and you know, I
would argue, even officers, Iwould say sometimes we're
absolutely afraid of backlash,and I wouldn't say so much
negative or repercussion, but asmuch as it as backlash, just
(19:18):
getting, you know, doing thewrong thing when you're trying
to do the right thing or doingthe right thing, and then you
become the object of the wrongthing. And that's absolutely
true. Supervisors sometimesdon't because of that fear. You
know, in the military, we hear,you know, the Inspector General,
or Equal Opportunity office. Youknow, we hear all these big
(19:39):
things. The first sergeant, youknow, you hear all these big
scary things, when in reality,they're not that real big and
scary. I mean, yes, thatsituation did lead to me having
to go sit in front of somepeople that I would have
preferred not to sit in front ofand answer some questions.
However, my I had always kept mychain of command and my
leadership engaged with me andknew that deep down, I was doing
(20:00):
the right thing, and had no realsay in the outcome, just I just
became the opposite object ofthe fixation in this situation,
which is understandable.
LTP (20:12):
That's a great point.
That's one thing that I reallytry to emphasize and I have
personally lived through it onseveral occasions, is when you
are trying to do the rightthing, you are taking a stand in
one direction or another. Andwhen you do that, some people
are not gonna like it. So thatcan be a real challenge, because
we do have so many mechanismsfor people to voice their
(20:32):
concerns, or to lodge complaintswhen they think that something
is not being done correctly. Andso you can be doing the right
thing or believe you're doingthe right thing. But if it's not
communicated well, or if it'sjust, maybe you don't see some
aspect of the situation whereit's the wrong thing for someone
else, or whatever it might be,people can lodge complaints. And
once it's lodged against you,there's not a lot you can do
(20:55):
about it. Other than just keepon Keep your head up, try to do
the right thing. Be honest, whenyou're asked questions, that
kind of stuff. But I have seen,and I'm curious to know if you
have as well. In general, if youreally are trying to do the
right thing, it usually turnsout, okay, it's not painless,
going through a complaint goingthrough that an investigation,
(21:16):
any of that stuff, which Ipersonally have gone through, is
not fun, I really did not enjoyit.
Unknown (21:25):
I would imagine not.
LTP (21:26):
The first one hurts the most, they never get easy, but
the first one hurts the most.
But in general, therepercussions and there and
honestly, even if you'reinnocent, there's sometimes are
some repercussions to yourpsyche, to maybe to the job that
you're in right there. Becausepeople know about all this water
under the bridge. So even ifyou're if you're found not to
(21:47):
have done it, people are awarethat this is going on, and they
don't have the whole story. Sothey you know that that hole
where there's smoke, there'sfire mentality Can you can come
in, so you can still deal withsome stuff. But in general, the
big stuff doesn't happen if youare doing the right thing and
coming from a place of respectand trying to help people, even
if you did it wrong, even if youmessed up. I have seen that in
(22:09):
general. It works out. Okay. Ihaven't I have personally not
seen somebody be massivelynegatively affected. When they
were doing the right thing. Ihave seen someone whose
assignment was turned upsidedown by false complaints. Oh,
absolutely. But I haven't seenany administrative action. You
(22:30):
know, have you seen? Have youseen that?
Unknown (22:36):
I would say I would, I would have to agree with you it
as long as you are absolutely onthe right side of that coin. And
you know, you're doing the rightsteps. And, you know, engaging
with the right people. Andunfortunately, I have to, you
know, full disclosure, you gotto cover your butt too. If you
didn't document it, it didn'thappen. So if you didn't make
sure the right people were inthe room with you, or you had
(22:58):
someone to that conversation or,you know, you you wrote up a
memorandum to state X, Y and Zhappened and on this date. And
you know, it's documented. Iwould absolutely say you're
definitely not going to havethose administrative actions,
those repercussions? Will itprobably tone your life and
potentially a little bit of yourcareer upside down? Yeah,
(23:20):
absolutely. I've seen that manytimes on both the enlisted and
the officer side already. Theshort example I'd give you is
you know, another troop threeladders for you, ma'am. Oh, s I,
for those who don't know, theOffice of Special Investigations
is the Air Force's, quote, FBI.
And I've been in their room now,three times in my career.
(23:42):
Fortunately, none of them werepointed at me. But they were
pointed at my people. Andunfortunately, that also becomes
you know, you have to be afootto to take care of your people
defend your troops. But again,they have found the right side
of that coin. In that situation,no negative impacts came to that
troop. All these claims were100% completely malicious and
(24:02):
false. And we could actuallyprove it. Did it impact a few
parts of his life and career forshort term? Absolutely. Did he
come back from it and there wasno administrative actions?
Absolutely. He's now livinggrade as an NCO didn't affect
his career progression. We wereable to still, you know, fix
that and take care of that. Butyeah, it definitely can be a
(24:24):
hard thing to try to be doingthe right thing when everybody
is looking at you in thesituation saying, You're the
you're the bad guy.
LTP (24:34):
You just brought up something that I think is really
interesting. When we hear wecome,
Unknown (24:42):
it goes again.
LTP (24:44):
So when when you have someone who's accused of
something in the military,obviously, or that can extend to
criminal circumstances as wellas a civilian, you wouldn't
necessarily be dealing withsomeone's criminal activity in
the job. Although there may bedisciplinary action, you know,
that kind of stuff. But one ofthe things that I think some
(25:06):
people can really have a hardtime with is supporting the
person separate from the action,understanding that one, they're
innocent until proven guilty,even if you believe it to be
true. But to you know, thisperson, especially in the
military, they are still yourairman, they are still your
troop. So it doesn't matter howterrible they are, if they did
(25:28):
the most heinous thing, the onething that bothers you more than
anything else, it's still ourresponsibility as supervisors,
as leaders, to treat them ashuman beings and try to get them
through that and support themwhilst you know, and so have you
seen that be an issue? Or do youfind that a struggle?
Unknown (25:46):
I would say, it definitely can be, I would say
you're stuck in a placesometimes, you know, as you
know, the leader you're supposedto be, you know, the leader you
want to be, which obviously, aretwo very different things
sometimes, and sometimes theyget very blurry. We joke is, you
know, and the officer call youlive in the gray, that's what
you get paid for. There is no,you know, left, right, middle
(26:08):
those you live in the gray allday. So I would say yeah, it
gets a little hard sometimes,because as an individual, you
may have your own thoughts, yourown ethical beliefs, your own
leadership, beliefs, your ownmorals, etc. And think about
those actions are those thingsthat someone did, whether it's
(26:28):
in the military in the civiliansector, you know, but you kind
of look at it from a differentperspective. And that
perspective sometimes getsblurry as the supervisor, you
gotta wonder, well, am I justletting my own feelings get into
this? Or am I just being thatobjective supervisor that I know
I should be. And that gets alittle boy, sometimes, depending
(26:51):
on the situation, I've beenfortunate enough thus far in my
career, and knock on wood, towhere nine times out of 10, my
personal life choices andthoughts and morals, and you
know, beliefs have not swayed myopinions of my people. But I
will say, you know, the exampleI brought up earlier about the
(27:11):
troop with the self harmideations, and again, he's, you
know, no longer in the service.
And I'll be full disclosure thatwas partly due to his own doing,
and partly due to mine and thecommanders doing, you know, even
to this day, there are momentswhere I look back on that
situation, and really, I justwant to be like, you know, what,
I'm so glad I, we got him out,you know, our forces better for
(27:33):
it. And I don't say that toattack the individual, because I
genuinely to this day believeboth as a form of super as his
former direct supervisor, and asan hour nursing officer, that
there were some things thatneeded to get addressed, you
know, with him, in his wellbeing, and I do hope to this day
that he's doing well, I do. Butthe way that it turned into the
(27:55):
direct lash at me, both fromhim, and you know, his family,
when all you know, me and ourleadership were trying to do was
help him. You know, that's ahard thing to think about, you
know, that's a hard thing tocome by, and have where, oh, I'm
still gonna be here, and be yoursupervisor and engage with you
and genuinely care, when you'recoming at me in a way that, you
(28:18):
know, can make me both get introuble legally and ethically.
And, you know, just just kind ofput that down. So yeah, it's
absolutely difficult and youhave to own it. I would say, if
you don't, then you're doing itwrong. Because we're not
perfect. We're all human, assupervisors, we're all human as
leaders, both civilian andmilitary side. And that's just,
(28:39):
it's just how it is. But at theend of the day, I'm not the
perfect supervisor. I'm not theperfect officer, I was not the
perfect NCO by any means. Butyet, you still have to, at the
end of the day, do your job. Youknow, no matter what the mission
has to come first, your peoplehave to come first. And, you
know, a great supervisor oncetold me, people first mission
(29:00):
always and if you live by that,you're probably going to do
okay, every time.
LTP (29:07):
Yeah, I agree with that.
You know, it's one of thosebalances. I like to not not no
information that I don't need toknow, in some way, even though
Unknown (29:20):
I'm sure
LTP (29:20):
when I was in training. We, we went every Monday we went
into a prison to do medical careby I had a clinic in the prison.
And we Yeah, we want to let thegirls weren't allowed to wear
dresses. And so it was a veryinteresting experience. But I
(29:41):
didn't like to know what theydid. I didn't I didn't want to
know and I don't have anyjudgment. Like I mean, lots of
people are incarcerated for lotsof different reasons. But people
that you know, there are certaincrimes that really resonate with
people you know, crimes againstchildren and crimes against
women domestic violence typeThings were, you know, that can
be very personal for people. AndI didn't, I didn't want to know
(30:07):
because I didn't want to evenhave the possibility of my
medical care being influenced bymy opinion of their, of their
crimes. Now as I got older, Ibecame better at separating and
really compartmentalizing, whichis I do very well, which is not
always a good thing. But incommand, sometimes you have to
have as a supervisor, or as acommander, as a leader,
(30:29):
sometimes you have to have allof that information. So you
really have to learn torecognize when that information
might be influencing yourdecision making and find a way
to step out of it. And some ofthe ways I did that were by
using advice, you know, trustedadvisor, sharing the situation
with one or two people that Icould trust and kind of getting
their perspectives, or one of myfavorite things to do is,
(30:53):
whatever your opinion aboutdiscipline or guidance or
whatever it is on this person,pick someone who's the opposite
of how you feel. So if it's yourfavorite person, pick your least
favorite, would you do the samething? And vice versa? This is
the person that causes you themost trouble if this is one of
your good ones, would you do thesame thing and kind of
juxtaposing those, those thingswere very helpful for me to say,
(31:17):
okay, am I being objective? Doesthe does the crime fit? Or the
punishment fit the crime? Doesthe award fit the
accomplishment? Like what are wedoing here?
Unknown (31:25):
Oh, for sure. I think that's an awesome example. And I
am actually a kind of a littleenvious that you got to have
that clinical experience. Thatis pretty awesome to me. But I
also commend colleagues andpeers and teachers for doing
that. Because a lot of peoplecouldn't do that. To be very
frank, as you know, a lot ofpeople in our world in medicine
(31:46):
would absolutely, unequivocallyjust say absolutely not.
LTP (31:50):
No, it was it was an amazing experience. And
honestly, I feel very lucky tohave had the opportunity to
contribute to their medicalcare, because they did not get
the medical care was not asfrequent or as extensive as I
would have liked. And there werepatients. So you know, I speak
(32:11):
Spanish. There aren't a lot ofpeople in South Carolina that
speak Spanish. And I had all ofthe I had all of the Spanish
speaking, prisoners would seeme. And I had one guy, no one
had taken his cast off andforever long because he'd been
trying to tell them that it wastime to come off. And because it
had happened before hisincarceration and so there were
things like that, that just mademe so sad that there's no one
(32:32):
here to talk to this person. Butwhen one guy were talking, and
my Spanish, I didn't get totalk, speak Spanish a lot when I
moved out of San Antonio. And soyou feel a little rusty, like
sometimes people are talking andyou know, in San Antonio, it's
all Mexican Spanish, which iswhat I speak. But in South
Carolina, we have DominicanEcuador, El Salvador, like you
(32:53):
name it, there's lots ofdifferent people. And so in the
dialects are a little different.
The accents are very different.
They use conjugations like forus that we don't really use in
Mexican Spanish, so isdifferent. So I had to really
think when I was speakingSpanish, well, this guy was here
to see me about his ankle orsomething or his wrist. I
forget, it was somethingstraightforward. And we're
talking and he's like, Can I askyou another question? I said,
(33:14):
Absolutely. And he startstelling me, and I have to step
back and I'm like, oh, mygoodness, I can't be. I can't
be. This must be wrong. I'm notunderstanding. And I asked him
again, he was telling me heneeded his anti psychotic
medications, because since he'dbeen in the prison, oh, boy, he
had not gotten his medications.
And the voices that tell him tohurt people are back.
Unknown (33:40):
And and call your listeners can't see my face
right now. But yeah,
LTP (33:46):
hold one, sir. Thank you for telling me. Hold on. I'm
gonna get you home. And but youknow, as an orthopedic surgeon,
I didn't hear sounds like thevoice is telling me to kill
people are back. That's notsomething I heard a lot in
north.
Unknown (34:01):
Wow,
LTP (34:02):
wait, I was I was so grateful that he told me, you
know, and it just made me so sadthat there was no one else for
him. So I we kind of digressinga little bit fun to talk about
that part of my practice,because it was it was
fascinating. And I actually tookcare of a lot of really
fantastic,
Unknown (34:18):
really the nurse and me it's not helping the situation.
LTP (34:21):
I got to talk about some talk to some really fantastic
individuals who were, you know,being imprisoned means made a
mistake, and you got caught andwho knows who knows beyond that,
but I was glad to be part ofhelping them get good medical
care, because we did in fact,give them good medical care. But
it's just an interestingperspective to to have to hear
(34:43):
those things and understandtheir crimes, and have to act on
it. And that was one thing thatI had to grow into as a leader
as being able to hear thatinformation and still try to
make an objective decision or atleast recognize that it might be
influencing how I was thinkingabout the situation. So I needed
to step back for myself as Imake the decision.
Unknown (35:03):
And again, that's, you know, it's extremely
commendable. And I is I got tospend part of my summer doing my
commissioning program, workingfor an NP friend of mine, a
nurse practitioner friend whoworked at a low income homeless
clinic, and I got to be hernurse for the summer. She's
like, Hey, you want to come workfor me? And I'm like, Yeah, but
I gotta do it for free. As longas you're good without paying
me, she's like, Oh, I won't payyou. Like, well, they were great
(35:27):
then. And, you know, we had amobile clinic out at a, you
know, a homeless shelter. And,you know, similar circumstances
of just, you got to remainobjective. And it also taught
me, you know, leadership isfluid, it's ever changing, and
it's fluid. And in maintainingyour objectivity like that, as a
leader, it's not easy. And asyou just spoke on, you know,
(35:48):
seeing those patients, and beingable to pull that information
versus, you know, your, yourlens on at that point, I would
say you had your orthopedicsurgeon lenses on the second,
the word psych came in, out ofsomebody's mouth, I'm jumping on
it. Because I'm like, Oh, well,we need to handle that. And, you
know, my lens at that pointwould be different. And even
(36:09):
now, I would say, you know, thesurgeons and physicians I work
with our lenses are verydifferent, you know, as leaders,
outside of medicine, just asleaders in general, everybody
wears a different lens, youknow, the company grade officers
wear a different lens in thefield grade officers, as you
know, but you know, we do isjust in general, and I think we
see it a lot in the civiliansector, you know, in our lenses
or blood to the civilian sector.
And we're like, what's going on,but all we see is what, you
(36:33):
know, gets portrayed, you know,on social media, really, what
lens are we looking through iswhere I would go with that. And,
you know, again, commendablethat, you know, anyone yourself
and your peers would even godown that road. And that you,
ma'am, were able to pull thataway from it, especially when
that could have potentiallyturned into a very dangerous
situation.
LTP (36:52):
Right. Exactly. No, I agree. I feel really blessed
that I got to be there. Andabsolutely, and I hope he's
doing okay. I mean, Oh,absolutely.
Unknown (36:59):
I the fact that he was aware of it, and was bringing it
up, for sure. Good on him as apatient. Yeah, that's what I
would say to that. For sure.
LTP (37:08):
So, so final thoughts. We talked a lot about supervisors,
and the challenges and thebenefits of being a supervisor.
What's one piece of advice thatyou would give to someone
supervising people for the firsttime or maybe just increasing
their their scope ofsupervision,
Unknown (37:29):
I have to say I try very hard to maintain the
humbleness and being asupervisor because you have to
be. And I've had some great,great supervisors, as I've said,
and, you know, I'll dime out oneof them real quick, retired
master and Christopher Dooleywas my very first enlisted
supervisor, great leader, greatsupervisor has taught me,
(37:50):
everything you're hearing fromme today, most probably have
been shaped coming from him. Anddefinitely credit him with where
I am today as a supervisor. Thatsaid, it's one don't stop
learning as a supervisor. It isa never ending realm of learning
to get better as a supervisor.
Always listen to the ones thathave been doing it longer than
(38:10):
you. Good, bad or indifferent.
Listen, always get that feedbackabout how you did Hey, you know,
got this situation, sir. Ma'am.
You know, I did this, what doyou think, you know? And if they
say, you jacked up, take it belike, Okay, what do I do next
time, so I don't jack up. Justkeep moving on from it and go
from there. And don't let thatstop you being a supervisor. So
(38:32):
as we kind of talked about, youknow, as a supervisor, don't
take no from those who can't whocan't say yes to you, especially
as a supervisor, because it'syour job to do that for your
troop. You know, they're theones that are going to come to
you for a yes or no, and a lotof times you either yes or no,
but a lot of times it's aboveyou, and you have to go to your
supervisor or your leadership instand in between them and the
(38:55):
boss. And, you know, standing inbetween the commander and one of
your airmen, defending your mangets challenging for sure. So
you have to be ready for that,you know, lastly, just don't
ever take, this is the way we'vealways done it. It's a cop out
to me. If there's a way toimprove on something, and I hate
using the word fix, I'll sayimprove. Because you never
(39:15):
really need to fix somethingbecause it's working, but isn't
working as efficiently as it canbe. So let's improve it in with
that, you take care of people,you know, always take care of
people and don't take thatexcuse of Well, that's just how
we've always done it. Becausereally, you're not going to
improve anything both inyourself and as a supervisor, so
you can't improve with people.
(39:36):
You know, if you're just goingto take that and you know, cop
out to excuses like that, in myopinion.
LTP (39:41):
Awesome. So you, you see supervisors as advocates.
Unknown (39:47):
At the end of the day, I would say that is the perfect
medical slash supervisor return.
Yeah, we are the advocates andit's probably why I'm a nurse is
you know, you advocate for yourpeople at the end of the day, no
matter how you look at it.
LTP (40:00):
I love it. I love it.
That's a great answer. Thank youso much. Thank you so much for
being here today. I reallyenjoyed talking to you. And I
think that your perspective,obviously, we share the
firefighter into medicalpathway. But I appreciate all of
the steps that you took in orderto grow where you are today. I
(40:22):
think that that's really it'sreally powerful to have gone
through some of those wicketsand learn those lessons so that
you're more prepared to to bethat advocate today. So thank
you so much for being heretoday.
Unknown (40:36):
No, ma'am. Thank you so much. I truly do appreciate it.
It was a lot of fun. You know,hopefully everyone will take
something away from today andyou know, just improve upon
themselves for the future.
LTP (40:45):
Awesome. So leadership and followership may change, but
they're important at everysingle level. So this week,
spend some time with yourjournal. Think about what makes
a great boss or supervisor, whoare the best bosses you've had
and what did they do? Now lookat your own behavior. Are you
doing those things every singleday, if you're not brainstorm
(41:09):
some ways that you canincorporate them into the way
that you lead? Now, you mightnot actually be in charge, but
that doesn't mean that you don'tlead the people around you. And
we can always practice theseskills to get better at them.
That's been our discussion ofleadership and followership with
Lieutenant Nick pelzer.
Hopefully you enjoyed thediscussion. If you did, give it
a like, subscribe or share witha friend. If you didn't drop me
(41:31):
a note on what I could dobetter. Next time, we'll talk to
Dr. Stephanie Wilson aboutgiving yourself grace. Don't
forget to spend some timejournaling and then head over to
www dot level the pursuit.com toshare your insights and your
successes. I can't wait to learnfrom your thoughts. Thanks again
for joining level the pursuit.
(41:55):
Well, we can't choose where westart. We can choose our dreams
and how we pursue them.
Remember, success is a teamsport and there's room for all
of us to achieve our goals. Sobe a good leader. Be a good
follower and do something great
In the race to success, we're not all starting from the
same place. Level the Pursuitseeks to fill in the gaps and
provide accessible bite sizedleadership lessons for anyone
looking to improve their skillsand prepare for the next step,
whatever that might be.
Welcome back peeps, I hopeyou're having a great week. And
if you're in one of the areas ofthe country that's been
absolutely pummeled by thestorm, I hope you're doing okay
(00:29):
and that your families are safe.
I know that my family has dealtwith and still doesn't have
potable water and finally gottheir power back on. And so
hopefully, you and yours aredoing okay, if you're if you're
dealing now dealing with that aswell. Today, we have a treat,
we're going to talk toLieutenant Nick Palczer. So this
guy is a man after my own heartstarted as a firefighter and
went back to school to become anurse. And he's now serving our
(00:52):
country as a nurse, absolutelykicking butt and doing it. And
he has some really greatperspectives having been rising
up through the NCO Corps, andsupervising at different levels.
And then now being an officerand supervising in a completely
different way. So he has somegreat perspectives on the best
ways to lead and the best waysto follow as you go through that
progression. This week, givesome time to what makes a really
(01:15):
good supervisor. Think about thethings that you do in your life.
And then find some ways that youcan incorporate them better into
how you behave as a professionaleach day.
So Nick, welcome. It is such apleasure to have you here today.
I'm really excited to get totalk to you a little bit about
(01:37):
your experiences and hear thegreat things that you're up to.
Unknown (01:40):
Oh, well, thank you for having me, ma'am. It's a
pleasure to be here. Again, Ialways try to bring something to
the table, but we'll, we'll seehow we do.
LTP (01:49):
It's gonna be awesome. So let's start out with an easy
one. Why don't you just tell usa little bit about your
experiences? How you got to be anurse today? Where did you start
and where and what was your pathto get there?
Unknown (02:05):
So that's actually a really crazy question. The short
version is so I graduated highschool in 2011. From Jensen
Beach, Florida, went to JensenBeach High School home of the
Falcons. From there, I decided Iwas going to go to Virginia
Military Institute didn'tgraduate VMI as much as I loved
being a rat and getting my headshaved once a week, which is a
(02:27):
great time. I left VMI after asemester, decided I was going to
enlist because that's always agood thing. Obviously, I decided
to enlist in the Air Force,because that's the right choice
and I had the choice. And thenfrom there, I got a contract as
a firefighter in 2012. And itwas already an EMT. So it was a
(02:48):
nice fit. And I had alwayswanted to go medical. So the
plan was eventually to go intothe NURSE Corps. So from there I
left in 2012 for lackland AirForce Base for BMT basic
military training where you havea lot of fun, as people will
tell you fun in quotes. And thenfrom there, I went to Goodfellow
Air Force Base in went to theFire Academy there for the
(03:12):
Department of Defense. It's ajoint school, a lot of fun,
great time. We own a lot ofcertifications out of it, which
I still hold to this day, whichare amazing. And then from
there, I got an assignment toKadena Air Base to Okinawa,
Japan. first assignment as abrand new agency at 19 years old
and Japan was amazing. I spent alittle over two years there,
(03:32):
which I could not go withoutsaying I met my lovely wife
there. And we've been married.
As of this April, we'll havebeen married seven years. So
thank you. So we were enlistedtogether. So we spent some time
there. And then in 2015 fastforwarding through my time in
the fire department, we cameback to the states to go to fi
one which is in Cheyenne,Wyoming, which is really cold.
(03:54):
Just so everyone Fun fact. Andthen from there, that was when
the nursing part kind of startedto be I had been doing prereqs
you know, along the way, tryingto eventually you know, go to
college, be that good airman andget my degrees. My got my
community college of the AirForce Associate Degree in fire
science pretty early on. So Ihad a lot of prereqs done.
(04:15):
Excuse me. So I went from toeveryone started doing more
prereqs for nursing schoolstarted getting to the the
anatomy, the physiology andstuff like that. And then I
applied to go to nursing schoolat the local community college.
Because to commission there'sonly a couple ways to get into
the NURSE Corps. One of which isto have a degree beforehand and
(04:38):
the other which is called thenursing list, commissioning
program. So I was working in thefire department long story
short, I got accepted intonursing school while I was an
Effie one to an associate degreeprogram. Did poda my associate
degree program while still onactive duty in the fire
department. We did 48 hours on72 hours off which as you know,
(04:59):
ma'am, is a great schedule, buta very busy one. Went to nursing
school, started doing that. Andthen in May of C was May of 18,
I got picked up for the nursingholistic commissioning program.
And then I transferred over tothe University of Wyoming to the
ROTC detachment there were myjob was simply go to school,
(05:22):
which if you don't, anyone whodoesn't know going to school,
and getting paid to go to schoolis a great job. And then in
2019, of the fall 19, Igraduated University of Wyoming
with my bachelor's degree innursing. And then from there, it
was off to a bunch of training.
(05:42):
And then here I am now sittingat Wright Patterson Air Force
Base as a nursing officer. Sothat's kind of the long and
skinny on how we got to thispoint in life.
LTP (05:52):
So I'm interested, you went to VMI. And you were, obviously
you are very intelligent, you'restill are very intelligent,
obviously, you were disciplined.
And you you took those intoenlisting the Air Force. So what
changed that you weren't able toget it while you're at VMI, but
you were able to continue movingforward.
Unknown (06:15):
So that is always another one I get to from a lot
of people, especially my myformer troops used to ask me
that question a lot, too. So Ileft VMI, after the semester, a
lot, some of it I willabsolutely say had to do with
money. I did not havescholarships and full rides that
I would have had had I stayed ina different state, or gone to a
(06:35):
different school, my grades inhigh school were decent, but
they weren't getting me a fullride to any college that I
wanted. out of state tuition toa different place other than
Florida was pretty pricey. So Idid take out a little bit of
student loan to get through thesemester, my parents weren't
able to, you know, finance mycollege tuition by any means,
(06:56):
which was fine by me. And thenI'll say a lot of it without
going too crazy. Otherwise, we'dbe here for hours I was I was
definitely still a little I wasall say emotionally mature. I
thought VMI was a lot worse thanit was looking back. You know,
(07:17):
things back home, there weresome things that I was still
hanging on to that I probablyshouldn't have been. And it
really just turned into like,Well, I'm not going to become a
nurse being at VMI, because Iwas going to get a bachelor
degree in biology, and thenwould have had to go be you
know, God knows what officer atthat point, honestly, because it
would have just been Hey, hereyou go. And then eventually
(07:40):
tried to transition into theNURSE Corps. And I'm like, well,
that's gonna be a really longtime and probably not get me
what I want. So this might be abetter road. And I could get
some experience in the theenlisted corps get a lot of
training and education out ofit, you know, at the Air Force a
dime, of course, and thenprobably have a better chance of
(08:02):
going commissioning and becominga nurse rather than trying to go
that road. I'll say, I have noregret. I loved VMI It was a
lifelong dream that mygrandfather actually instilled
in me to go to VMI he did thesame thing. He also did the same
thing he did not graduate VMI heleft your life. He left after
his rap semester, just like Idid the first the first semester
(08:24):
the fall, because he was a classof 44 Well, what about the
class? 44 so neat, I say what heactually did, you know, he and
all his friends left andenlisted off to war.
LTP (08:38):
Wow, that's, that's crazy.
So I I can't really emphasizewith that with that decision
making process. So I you know, Iwent to Yale, and it was really
expensive. My Grades actuallywere quite good. And I had quite
a bit of scholarship support andalso need based from Yale
because Yale doesn't give meritbased scholarships, you don't
(09:01):
getting better grades doesn'thelp you there, but they do give
me base based on how much moneyyou have. Good. But if I had
gone to Alabama, Oklahoma, therewere several schools that were
recruiting me for my grades formy academic performance, I could
get a full ride. And so I hadpeople in my family saying, Why
are you so selfish? Why are youso conceited that you think you
(09:22):
have to go to the school andplace this burden on everyone?
Instead of going to one of theseschools, it's free. And I was
determined to go I mean, and Iwas you know, I was a
knucklehead, also it you know,you have this this things in
your head and you have this,this way of looking at yourself.
So, I push through. Exactly. AndI was in a similar situation. My
sophomore year, we got to thepoint when I went home for
(09:44):
Christmas, my sophomore year,there was no more money. And my
mom had had had some job issuesand, and I was working full time
at school. I had been workingfull time the whole time. I was
there and I went home forChristmas. So I was like, oh, my
goodness, I, I'm not going back.
We, I can't afford it, I don'thave the money, and through
(10:07):
massive blessings. And I hadbeen banging the door and the
financial aid office for thelast year and a half about
slowly how they evaluated myfinances. And because it without
getting too far into it, theywere taking some things into
account that were not reasonableto take into account. And so I
was paying more than I shouldhave based on their algorithm.
(10:29):
So I'd go in every semester andfight, fight, fight. And when I
was home for Christmas, and Ihad made the decision, I'd
realized, I'm not going back, Ican't afford, we don't have the
money, I can't go back. Theycalled me over Christmas and
said, Hey, we reevaluate yourfinances. And we've taken these
other things into account asyou've asked, and this is your
new scholarship. And I was ableto go back to school. So I was
(10:51):
in exactly the same positionyou're describing, I just
happened to be very, very luckythat it went the other way. But
I very easily could have donethis.
Unknown (11:02):
I mean, it's not a bad career. And I have many prior
enlisted friends who did becomedoctors like yourself, and I, by
no means Will I ever say I havethe brain capacity that you do
to go to MD school. I couldn'tdo that to save my life. But no,
I would call that persistence. Iwould say you showed nothing but
(11:22):
persistence. And you didn't. Youdidn't let them let the people
who couldn't say yes, you didn'tlet them say no,
LTP (11:29):
absolutely. No matter we're gonna get to that. But I love
it. My husband loves it too.
Because he so um, so tell me sohis perspective was never
present your proposal to someonewho doesn't have the power to
say yes. And but yours is alittle different. Tell me a
little bit about your thought.
Unknown (11:51):
So I would say it's very similar. And I will not say
that that's copyrighted by me byany means. I've actually heard
that from many supervisorscoming up through the enlisted
side, I would say I actuallyagree with that, you know, you'd
ever don't bring I'm not gonnabring a proposal to my flight
commander, my squadroncommander, my Chief Nurse. Um,
(12:11):
you know, unless I know, hey,this is the proposal for this
person, they have the power tosay yes.
LTP (12:18):
So you your enlisted perspective, really gives you a
leg up on that, you know, a lotof our young enlisted are
supervising tons of peoplebefore they even get to, you
know, they might be 22 and besupervising several people. And
I think that experience isreally, really cool. How do you
feel that that helps you tobuild as you look at your your
(12:38):
professional career now isgoing, you know, going into
nursing.
Unknown (12:42):
So I would absolutely say being a supervisor was one
of the best experiences of mycareer. To this day, and right
now, I don't technicallyofficially supervise anybody.
You know, as as a nurse, as youknow, ma'am, being a doctor, I
supervise my Tech's on thefloor, you know, my my medical
technicians, as the nurse, andI, you know, I'm over them as an
(13:03):
officer, obviously, just in thechain of command. But I actually
don't officially rate orsupervise anybody at this time,
which, frankly, is actually kindof a nice breather, because I
was doing it for a while. Butabsolutely the best experience
and one of the best experiencesof my career. I learned a lot
and gained a lot, made plenty ofmistakes along the way, being a
(13:23):
supervisor, fortunately didn'tharm anyone or harm anyone's
careers. Except maybe my own atthat point. I think the
experience of it has probablyled me to be able to be where I
am today. Being able tosupervise is probably one of the
most fulfilling things I've everdone, you know, contrary to
being a nurse's, probably aboutthe same equivalency is, you
(13:44):
know, you're still making animpact on people. But I liked
being able to give my troops myairman kind of a different light
in a different perspective. Weall hear this, you know, beat
down, beat down, beat down andknow nothing but work. Nolan,
Kaos? Well, I actually triedvery hard to make a point to let
my troops know that, well, ifthe bosses didn't care I did.
(14:04):
And I had the power to go, youknow, stand in front of the
bosses on their behalf. And if Icould, I would, obviously there
was some specific trials andtribulations to that concept,
where some of them got thenoncommissioned officer side of
me that was guiding them in avery direct manner will go with
right. But for the most part, Iwould say it was it was a
(14:27):
learning experience and greatexperience. And it definitely, I
think it helps me today being anurse and an officer.
LTP (14:34):
What mistakes have you seen young young supervisors make?
Unknown (14:39):
I'll own my first one, me, actually on that all day.
One mistake of very specificsituation was I had a troupe
who's no longer in the AirForce. He's doing well from what
I hear, but I haven't spoken tohim in a while due to a number
of factors is you want to alwaysengage with them. troops and
(15:00):
their family. It was a troopthat came to me and was telling
me he had thoughts of self harm.
At one point, there had been awhole build up to this story of
me, checking on him on the dayon dailies, you know, with work
and talking to the bosses andour management and the fire
department, culture as a wholeis, you know, man, sometimes,
you know, that's, unfortunately,one of those things is, you
know, self harm is something wedeal with very frequently. And
(15:22):
as young airmen, you know, beingaway from home at our first
assignment, that's also a veryreal thing that we have to
engage on with our people. So mymistake in that, though, was not
that I wasn't engaged with him,because I was probably, I would
say, overly engaged to a point,just because I wanted to make
sure we didn't miss anything,you know, I wanted to make sure
(15:42):
he knew, hey, somebody wasthere, which I thought was the
right way. And my supervisorsthat I sought counsel from, you
know, from my purpose was, youknow, yeah, you're doing the
right things. My mistake was is,and it's more of the leadership
side, and the supervisor side,is that you want to always be
open and engaged with yourpeople and their family. And
(16:03):
unfortunately, I got a littleover engaged with his spouse in
the regard of just passinginformation. And unfortunately,
as you know, in the, in themilitary world, there comes a
point where I have to say, Ican't speak to you, as a as the
family member, I'm only here butfor the troop. For this
(16:24):
situation, you need to contactthe first sergeant. And it
turned into this particularspouse just coming at me saying
abuse of authority, I made upthe story, you know, he never
said these things to me, when Iwould, you know, to this day
swear on a stack of Bibles thathe did. And then, you know, I
brought him to the resourcesthat he needed, you know, the
(16:48):
mental health counselors, and,you know, the physicians and my
job was to bring him to theresources. Well, the resources
were the ones that made all thedecisions at that point, not me,
but I was getting the brunt fromthe family side of it, which was
understandable. You know, it wasa very, very tense, very
delicate situation. But I wouldsay, the mistake was just, you
know, knowing that line of whenyou have to just say no, you
(17:09):
have to say no to the family sayyou have to talk to these
people, not me, my mistake, mybiggest learning lesson I
learned very early as asupervisor, young supervisors
today, I think a lot of it isjust sometimes they forget,
sometimes just sitting back,shutting up and listening does
wonders. I say that with themost love to all supervisors in
(17:30):
civilian sector, militarysector, but especially in the
military, sometimes we justdon't shut up and listen. Great
individual, I learned from onetime a former command chief of
mine. And if I said his name,you'd absolutely know who I'm
talking about, I guarantee it.
Never take it never pass up agreat opportunity to shut the
hell up.
LTP (17:52):
That's powerful advice.
Unknown (17:53):
And with that, I will now shut the hell up.
LTP (17:57):
So you know, everything had there's two sides to every coin.
So I think that you justhighlighted one about being a
frontline supervisor is that youhave the opportunity to be
engaged. And to interface withthe family interface with the
people in the military, weinterface with the family, as
(18:17):
civilians don't necessarily dothat as much, but to really be
there for someone andpotentially be a powerful force
for good. But that proximityalso puts you in a position to
be the face of the organizationin a negative way, and to be the
easy one that they can reach outto if something doesn't go the
way they want. So that can be areally difficult thing to
balance is. And I wonder ifthat's one of the reasons that
(18:42):
some supervisors are hesitant toengage, it's not so much that
they're afraid to get involved.
Some of them are probably afraidto get involved. But I think
some of them are probably alsoafraid of being the recipient of
all of the backlash.
Unknown (18:56):
I couldn't agree more.
Ma'am, that's that that isputting it probably a lot
simpler than I just explainedthat entire story. It really is
because it actually is somesupervisors and you know, I
would argue, even officers, Iwould say sometimes we're
absolutely afraid of backlash,and I wouldn't say so much
negative or repercussion, but asmuch as it as backlash, just
(19:18):
getting, you know, doing thewrong thing when you're trying
to do the right thing or doingthe right thing, and then you
become the object of the wrongthing. And that's absolutely
true. Supervisors sometimesdon't because of that fear. You
know, in the military, we hear,you know, the Inspector General,
or Equal Opportunity office. Youknow, we hear all these big
(19:39):
things. The first sergeant, youknow, you hear all these big
scary things, when in reality,they're not that real big and
scary. I mean, yes, thatsituation did lead to me having
to go sit in front of somepeople that I would have
preferred not to sit in front ofand answer some questions.
However, my I had always kept mychain of command and my
leadership engaged with me andknew that deep down, I was doing
(20:00):
the right thing, and had no realsay in the outcome, just I just
became the opposite object ofthe fixation in this situation,
which is understandable.
LTP (20:12):
That's a great point.
That's one thing that I reallytry to emphasize and I have
personally lived through it onseveral occasions, is when you
are trying to do the rightthing, you are taking a stand in
one direction or another. Andwhen you do that, some people
are not gonna like it. So thatcan be a real challenge, because
we do have so many mechanismsfor people to voice their
(20:32):
concerns, or to lodge complaintswhen they think that something
is not being done correctly. Andso you can be doing the right
thing or believe you're doingthe right thing. But if it's not
communicated well, or if it'sjust, maybe you don't see some
aspect of the situation whereit's the wrong thing for someone
else, or whatever it might be,people can lodge complaints. And
once it's lodged against you,there's not a lot you can do
(20:55):
about it. Other than just keepon Keep your head up, try to do
the right thing. Be honest, whenyou're asked questions, that
kind of stuff. But I have seen,and I'm curious to know if you
have as well. In general, if youreally are trying to do the
right thing, it usually turnsout, okay, it's not painless,
going through a complaint goingthrough that an investigation,
(21:16):
any of that stuff, which Ipersonally have gone through, is
not fun, I really did not enjoyit.
Unknown (21:25):
I would imagine not.
LTP (21:26):
The first one hurts the most, they never get easy, but
the first one hurts the most.
But in general, therepercussions and there and
honestly, even if you'reinnocent, there's sometimes are
some repercussions to yourpsyche, to maybe to the job that
you're in right there. Becausepeople know about all this water
under the bridge. So even ifyou're if you're found not to
(21:47):
have done it, people are awarethat this is going on, and they
don't have the whole story. Sothey you know that that hole
where there's smoke, there'sfire mentality Can you can come
in, so you can still deal withsome stuff. But in general, the
big stuff doesn't happen if youare doing the right thing and
coming from a place of respectand trying to help people, even
if you did it wrong, even if youmessed up. I have seen that in
(22:09):
general. It works out. Okay. Ihaven't I have personally not
seen somebody be massivelynegatively affected. When they
were doing the right thing. Ihave seen someone whose
assignment was turned upsidedown by false complaints. Oh,
absolutely. But I haven't seenany administrative action. You
(22:30):
know, have you seen? Have youseen that?
Unknown (22:36):
I would say I would, I would have to agree with you it
as long as you are absolutely onthe right side of that coin. And
you know, you're doing the rightsteps. And, you know, engaging
with the right people. Andunfortunately, I have to, you
know, full disclosure, you gotto cover your butt too. If you
didn't document it, it didn'thappen. So if you didn't make
sure the right people were inthe room with you, or you had
(22:58):
someone to that conversation or,you know, you you wrote up a
memorandum to state X, Y and Zhappened and on this date. And
you know, it's documented. Iwould absolutely say you're
definitely not going to havethose administrative actions,
those repercussions? Will itprobably tone your life and
potentially a little bit of yourcareer upside down? Yeah,
(23:20):
absolutely. I've seen that manytimes on both the enlisted and
the officer side already. Theshort example I'd give you is
you know, another troop threeladders for you, ma'am. Oh, s I,
for those who don't know, theOffice of Special Investigations
is the Air Force's, quote, FBI.
And I've been in their room now,three times in my career.
(23:42):
Fortunately, none of them werepointed at me. But they were
pointed at my people. Andunfortunately, that also becomes
you know, you have to be afootto to take care of your people
defend your troops. But again,they have found the right side
of that coin. In that situation,no negative impacts came to that
troop. All these claims were100% completely malicious and
(24:02):
false. And we could actuallyprove it. Did it impact a few
parts of his life and career forshort term? Absolutely. Did he
come back from it and there wasno administrative actions?
Absolutely. He's now livinggrade as an NCO didn't affect
his career progression. We wereable to still, you know, fix
that and take care of that. Butyeah, it definitely can be a
(24:24):
hard thing to try to be doingthe right thing when everybody
is looking at you in thesituation saying, You're the
you're the bad guy.
LTP (24:34):
You just brought up something that I think is really
interesting. When we hear wecome,
Unknown (24:42):
it goes again.
LTP (24:44):
So when when you have someone who's accused of
something in the military,obviously, or that can extend to
criminal circumstances as wellas a civilian, you wouldn't
necessarily be dealing withsomeone's criminal activity in
the job. Although there may bedisciplinary action, you know,
that kind of stuff. But one ofthe things that I think some
(25:06):
people can really have a hardtime with is supporting the
person separate from the action,understanding that one, they're
innocent until proven guilty,even if you believe it to be
true. But to you know, thisperson, especially in the
military, they are still yourairman, they are still your
troop. So it doesn't matter howterrible they are, if they did
(25:28):
the most heinous thing, the onething that bothers you more than
anything else, it's still ourresponsibility as supervisors,
as leaders, to treat them ashuman beings and try to get them
through that and support themwhilst you know, and so have you
seen that be an issue? Or do youfind that a struggle?
Unknown (25:46):
I would say, it definitely can be, I would say
you're stuck in a placesometimes, you know, as you
know, the leader you're supposedto be, you know, the leader you
want to be, which obviously, aretwo very different things
sometimes, and sometimes theyget very blurry. We joke is, you
know, and the officer call youlive in the gray, that's what
you get paid for. There is no,you know, left, right, middle
(26:08):
those you live in the gray allday. So I would say yeah, it
gets a little hard sometimes,because as an individual, you
may have your own thoughts, yourown ethical beliefs, your own
leadership, beliefs, your ownmorals, etc. And think about
those actions are those thingsthat someone did, whether it's
(26:28):
in the military in the civiliansector, you know, but you kind
of look at it from a differentperspective. And that
perspective sometimes getsblurry as the supervisor, you
gotta wonder, well, am I justletting my own feelings get into
this? Or am I just being thatobjective supervisor that I know
I should be. And that gets alittle boy, sometimes, depending
(26:51):
on the situation, I've beenfortunate enough thus far in my
career, and knock on wood, towhere nine times out of 10, my
personal life choices andthoughts and morals, and you
know, beliefs have not swayed myopinions of my people. But I
will say, you know, the exampleI brought up earlier about the
(27:11):
troop with the self harmideations, and again, he's, you
know, no longer in the service.
And I'll be full disclosure thatwas partly due to his own doing,
and partly due to mine and thecommanders doing, you know, even
to this day, there are momentswhere I look back on that
situation, and really, I justwant to be like, you know, what,
I'm so glad I, we got him out,you know, our forces better for
(27:33):
it. And I don't say that toattack the individual, because I
genuinely to this day believeboth as a form of super as his
former direct supervisor, and asan hour nursing officer, that
there were some things thatneeded to get addressed, you
know, with him, in his wellbeing, and I do hope to this day
that he's doing well, I do. Butthe way that it turned into the
(27:55):
direct lash at me, both fromhim, and you know, his family,
when all you know, me and ourleadership were trying to do was
help him. You know, that's ahard thing to think about, you
know, that's a hard thing tocome by, and have where, oh, I'm
still gonna be here, and be yoursupervisor and engage with you
and genuinely care, when you'recoming at me in a way that, you
(28:18):
know, can make me both get introuble legally and ethically.
And, you know, just just kind ofput that down. So yeah, it's
absolutely difficult and youhave to own it. I would say, if
you don't, then you're doing itwrong. Because we're not
perfect. We're all human, assupervisors, we're all human as
leaders, both civilian andmilitary side. And that's just,
(28:39):
it's just how it is. But at theend of the day, I'm not the
perfect supervisor. I'm not theperfect officer, I was not the
perfect NCO by any means. Butyet, you still have to, at the
end of the day, do your job. Youknow, no matter what the mission
has to come first, your peoplehave to come first. And, you
know, a great supervisor oncetold me, people first mission
(29:00):
always and if you live by that,you're probably going to do
okay, every time.
LTP (29:07):
Yeah, I agree with that.
You know, it's one of thosebalances. I like to not not no
information that I don't need toknow, in some way, even though
Unknown (29:20):
I'm sure
LTP (29:20):
when I was in training. We, we went every Monday we went
into a prison to do medical careby I had a clinic in the prison.
And we Yeah, we want to let thegirls weren't allowed to wear
dresses. And so it was a veryinteresting experience. But I
(29:41):
didn't like to know what theydid. I didn't I didn't want to
know and I don't have anyjudgment. Like I mean, lots of
people are incarcerated for lotsof different reasons. But people
that you know, there are certaincrimes that really resonate with
people you know, crimes againstchildren and crimes against
women domestic violence typeThings were, you know, that can
be very personal for people. AndI didn't, I didn't want to know
(30:07):
because I didn't want to evenhave the possibility of my
medical care being influenced bymy opinion of their, of their
crimes. Now as I got older, Ibecame better at separating and
really compartmentalizing, whichis I do very well, which is not
always a good thing. But incommand, sometimes you have to
have as a supervisor, or as acommander, as a leader,
(30:29):
sometimes you have to have allof that information. So you
really have to learn torecognize when that information
might be influencing yourdecision making and find a way
to step out of it. And some ofthe ways I did that were by
using advice, you know, trustedadvisor, sharing the situation
with one or two people that Icould trust and kind of getting
their perspectives, or one of myfavorite things to do is,
(30:53):
whatever your opinion aboutdiscipline or guidance or
whatever it is on this person,pick someone who's the opposite
of how you feel. So if it's yourfavorite person, pick your least
favorite, would you do the samething? And vice versa? This is
the person that causes you themost trouble if this is one of
your good ones, would you do thesame thing and kind of
juxtaposing those, those thingswere very helpful for me to say,
(31:17):
okay, am I being objective? Doesthe does the crime fit? Or the
punishment fit the crime? Doesthe award fit the
accomplishment? Like what are wedoing here?
Unknown (31:25):
Oh, for sure. I think that's an awesome example. And I
am actually a kind of a littleenvious that you got to have
that clinical experience. Thatis pretty awesome to me. But I
also commend colleagues andpeers and teachers for doing
that. Because a lot of peoplecouldn't do that. To be very
frank, as you know, a lot ofpeople in our world in medicine
(31:46):
would absolutely, unequivocallyjust say absolutely not.
LTP (31:50):
No, it was it was an amazing experience. And
honestly, I feel very lucky tohave had the opportunity to
contribute to their medicalcare, because they did not get
the medical care was not asfrequent or as extensive as I
would have liked. And there werepatients. So you know, I speak
(32:11):
Spanish. There aren't a lot ofpeople in South Carolina that
speak Spanish. And I had all ofthe I had all of the Spanish
speaking, prisoners would seeme. And I had one guy, no one
had taken his cast off andforever long because he'd been
trying to tell them that it wastime to come off. And because it
had happened before hisincarceration and so there were
things like that, that just mademe so sad that there's no one
(32:32):
here to talk to this person. Butwhen one guy were talking, and
my Spanish, I didn't get totalk, speak Spanish a lot when I
moved out of San Antonio. And soyou feel a little rusty, like
sometimes people are talking andyou know, in San Antonio, it's
all Mexican Spanish, which iswhat I speak. But in South
Carolina, we have DominicanEcuador, El Salvador, like you
(32:53):
name it, there's lots ofdifferent people. And so in the
dialects are a little different.
The accents are very different.
They use conjugations like forus that we don't really use in
Mexican Spanish, so isdifferent. So I had to really
think when I was speakingSpanish, well, this guy was here
to see me about his ankle orsomething or his wrist. I
forget, it was somethingstraightforward. And we're
talking and he's like, Can I askyou another question? I said,
(33:14):
Absolutely. And he startstelling me, and I have to step
back and I'm like, oh, mygoodness, I can't be. I can't
be. This must be wrong. I'm notunderstanding. And I asked him
again, he was telling me heneeded his anti psychotic
medications, because since he'dbeen in the prison, oh, boy, he
had not gotten his medications.
And the voices that tell him tohurt people are back.
Unknown (33:40):
And and call your listeners can't see my face
right now. But yeah,
LTP (33:46):
hold one, sir. Thank you for telling me. Hold on. I'm
gonna get you home. And but youknow, as an orthopedic surgeon,
I didn't hear sounds like thevoice is telling me to kill
people are back. That's notsomething I heard a lot in
north.
Unknown (34:01):
Wow,
LTP (34:02):
wait, I was I was so grateful that he told me, you
know, and it just made me so sadthat there was no one else for
him. So I we kind of digressinga little bit fun to talk about
that part of my practice,because it was it was
fascinating. And I actually tookcare of a lot of really
fantastic,
Unknown (34:18):
really the nurse and me it's not helping the situation.
LTP (34:21):
I got to talk about some talk to some really fantastic
individuals who were, you know,being imprisoned means made a
mistake, and you got caught andwho knows who knows beyond that,
but I was glad to be part ofhelping them get good medical
care, because we did in fact,give them good medical care. But
it's just an interestingperspective to to have to hear
(34:43):
those things and understandtheir crimes, and have to act on
it. And that was one thing thatI had to grow into as a leader
as being able to hear thatinformation and still try to
make an objective decision or atleast recognize that it might be
influencing how I was thinkingabout the situation. So I needed
to step back for myself as Imake the decision.
Unknown (35:03):
And again, that's, you know, it's extremely
commendable. And I is I got tospend part of my summer doing my
commissioning program, workingfor an NP friend of mine, a
nurse practitioner friend whoworked at a low income homeless
clinic, and I got to be hernurse for the summer. She's
like, Hey, you want to come workfor me? And I'm like, Yeah, but
I gotta do it for free. As longas you're good without paying
me, she's like, Oh, I won't payyou. Like, well, they were great
(35:27):
then. And, you know, we had amobile clinic out at a, you
know, a homeless shelter. And,you know, similar circumstances
of just, you got to remainobjective. And it also taught
me, you know, leadership isfluid, it's ever changing, and
it's fluid. And in maintainingyour objectivity like that, as a
leader, it's not easy. And asyou just spoke on, you know,
(35:48):
seeing those patients, and beingable to pull that information
versus, you know, your, yourlens on at that point, I would
say you had your orthopedicsurgeon lenses on the second,
the word psych came in, out ofsomebody's mouth, I'm jumping on
it. Because I'm like, Oh, well,we need to handle that. And, you
know, my lens at that pointwould be different. And even
(36:09):
now, I would say, you know, thesurgeons and physicians I work
with our lenses are verydifferent, you know, as leaders,
outside of medicine, just asleaders in general, everybody
wears a different lens, youknow, the company grade officers
wear a different lens in thefield grade officers, as you
know, but you know, we do isjust in general, and I think we
see it a lot in the civiliansector, you know, in our lenses
or blood to the civilian sector.
And we're like, what's going on,but all we see is what, you
(36:33):
know, gets portrayed, you know,on social media, really, what
lens are we looking through iswhere I would go with that. And,
you know, again, commendablethat, you know, anyone yourself
and your peers would even godown that road. And that you,
ma'am, were able to pull thataway from it, especially when
that could have potentiallyturned into a very dangerous
situation.
LTP (36:52):
Right. Exactly. No, I agree. I feel really blessed
that I got to be there. Andabsolutely, and I hope he's
doing okay. I mean, Oh,absolutely.
Unknown (36:59):
I the fact that he was aware of it, and was bringing it
up, for sure. Good on him as apatient. Yeah, that's what I
would say to that. For sure.
LTP (37:08):
So, so final thoughts. We talked a lot about supervisors,
and the challenges and thebenefits of being a supervisor.
What's one piece of advice thatyou would give to someone
supervising people for the firsttime or maybe just increasing
their their scope ofsupervision,
Unknown (37:29):
I have to say I try very hard to maintain the
humbleness and being asupervisor because you have to
be. And I've had some great,great supervisors, as I've said,
and, you know, I'll dime out oneof them real quick, retired
master and Christopher Dooleywas my very first enlisted
supervisor, great leader, greatsupervisor has taught me,
(37:50):
everything you're hearing fromme today, most probably have
been shaped coming from him. Anddefinitely credit him with where
I am today as a supervisor. Thatsaid, it's one don't stop
learning as a supervisor. It isa never ending realm of learning
to get better as a supervisor.
Always listen to the ones thathave been doing it longer than
(38:10):
you. Good, bad or indifferent.
Listen, always get that feedbackabout how you did Hey, you know,
got this situation, sir. Ma'am.
You know, I did this, what doyou think, you know? And if they
say, you jacked up, take it belike, Okay, what do I do next
time, so I don't jack up. Justkeep moving on from it and go
from there. And don't let thatstop you being a supervisor. So
(38:32):
as we kind of talked about, youknow, as a supervisor, don't
take no from those who can't whocan't say yes to you, especially
as a supervisor, because it'syour job to do that for your
troop. You know, they're theones that are going to come to
you for a yes or no, and a lotof times you either yes or no,
but a lot of times it's aboveyou, and you have to go to your
supervisor or your leadership instand in between them and the
(38:55):
boss. And, you know, standing inbetween the commander and one of
your airmen, defending your mangets challenging for sure. So
you have to be ready for that,you know, lastly, just don't
ever take, this is the way we'vealways done it. It's a cop out
to me. If there's a way toimprove on something, and I hate
using the word fix, I'll sayimprove. Because you never
(39:15):
really need to fix somethingbecause it's working, but isn't
working as efficiently as it canbe. So let's improve it in with
that, you take care of people,you know, always take care of
people and don't take thatexcuse of Well, that's just how
we've always done it. Becausereally, you're not going to
improve anything both inyourself and as a supervisor, so
you can't improve with people.
(39:36):
You know, if you're just goingto take that and you know, cop
out to excuses like that, in myopinion.
LTP (39:41):
Awesome. So you, you see supervisors as advocates.
Unknown (39:47):
At the end of the day, I would say that is the perfect
medical slash supervisor return.
Yeah, we are the advocates andit's probably why I'm a nurse is
you know, you advocate for yourpeople at the end of the day, no
matter how you look at it.
LTP (40:00):
I love it. I love it.
That's a great answer. Thank youso much. Thank you so much for
being here today. I reallyenjoyed talking to you. And I
think that your perspective,obviously, we share the
firefighter into medicalpathway. But I appreciate all of
the steps that you took in orderto grow where you are today. I
(40:22):
think that that's really it'sreally powerful to have gone
through some of those wicketsand learn those lessons so that
you're more prepared to to bethat advocate today. So thank
you so much for being heretoday.
Unknown (40:36):
No, ma'am. Thank you so much. I truly do appreciate it.
It was a lot of fun. You know,hopefully everyone will take
something away from today andyou know, just improve upon
themselves for the future.
LTP (40:45):
Awesome. So leadership and followership may change, but
they're important at everysingle level. So this week,
spend some time with yourjournal. Think about what makes
a great boss or supervisor, whoare the best bosses you've had
and what did they do? Now lookat your own behavior. Are you
doing those things every singleday, if you're not brainstorm
(41:09):
some ways that you canincorporate them into the way
that you lead? Now, you mightnot actually be in charge, but
that doesn't mean that you don'tlead the people around you. And
we can always practice theseskills to get better at them.
That's been our discussion ofleadership and followership with
Lieutenant Nick pelzer.
Hopefully you enjoyed thediscussion. If you did, give it
a like, subscribe or share witha friend. If you didn't drop me
(41:31):
a note on what I could dobetter. Next time, we'll talk to
Dr. Stephanie Wilson aboutgiving yourself grace. Don't
forget to spend some timejournaling and then head over to
www dot level the pursuit.com toshare your insights and your
successes. I can't wait to learnfrom your thoughts. Thanks again
for joining level the pursuit.
(41:55):
Well, we can't choose where westart. We can choose our dreams
and how we pursue them.
Remember, success is a teamsport and there's room for all
of us to achieve our goals. Sobe a good leader. Be a good
follower and do something great
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