Exploring the Intersection of Performing Arts and Military Leadership with the Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force (CMSSF) Chief Towberman

Leadership is an art, a craft that needs to be honed and perfected over time. This is especially true in the military where the stakes are high and the responsibilities vast. In a fascinating conversation with Chief Master Sergeant of the United States Space Force (CMSSF) Chief Master Sergeant Roger Towberman, we delve into the core aspects of leadership and the role strategic thinking plays in it.

CMSSF Towberman is no stranger to the challenges and rewards of leadership. In our discussion, he emphasizes the importance of nurturing relationships and building a network of support. This, he argues, is integral to effective leadership. In his words, leadership is not a solitary endeavor but a collective one, where the success of a leader is a reflection of the efforts of those around him.

Show Notes

Intro 00:00 – 03:38

Describing Why Life is currently GREAT
03:39 – 05:08 CMSSF Towberman Well, I mean, we're down here at AFSA, which is always, it just reminds me of how many people in this business of ours have touched my life and how many people share in my story. And so as you kind of get towards the end, and you're starting to wind down and there's a lot of reflection and stuff. It's really, it's beautiful to be surrounded by all of these living memories, right? And you just see people and smiles and you can kind of feel all those feelings over again. And so it's just right now, like in this moment, it's just really neat to be here and see all the all the many, many friendly faces that come along to this annual festival.

Reflecting on his career, a memory that stands out
05:09 – 08:20 CMSSF Towberman Like a single memory, there's kind of key inflection points. I remember walking the hallway at the old AIA headquarters and somebody saying, hey, do you want to learn Algerian? And I said, sure. It wasn't even Algerian, it was Albanian. But I remember that conversation. I remember saying yes, and then changes the trajectory of my career forever. I remember a very important influential person in my career stepping in on a very specific day when a commander, a then-Colonel, now about to be four star general, Jeff Kruse had to make a decision on who to hire as a command chief and somebody stepping in and saying, hey, I think you need to wait for some more information and tease this out. That's one of the most important moments in my career and I wasn't even there, which I think is maybe interesting. That maybe the most important thing happening in your life, you're not even present for it. It's happening somewhere else. I think it's important that we remember that when we're in those rooms talking about other people. It's never been fun for me to do that. I actually dread it. But your developmental team meetings, or you go down for in order to rewrite curriculum or you know, you have these conversations, you're talking about policy, you're having conversations in a very small group, in a room, and you're deciding things that will impact people's lives and the lives of their families. And for all you know, it's going to be a turning point, a really important point in their life. And how seriously are you taking those obligations or are you making it about you and your opinions, right?  It’s interesting that you asked that, just what popped in my head. I have never really thought about it in that way before, but maybe the most important moment in my entire career I wasn’t even present for.

Advice for making people feel significant in the moment, especially in a crowded world
08:30 – 10:24 CMSSF Towberman First you have to believe that they are important. If you don't believe that, if you don't care to think about people as important as individuals, I think allowing them to feel that way is way more difficult. I think you just have to believe it and then you have to listen. I think that's maybe the most important thing is listen, ask real questions, be genuinely interested in who people are and how they think and what their opinions are, whether or not they mesh with yours. I think genuine interest and questions that are born out of genuine curiosity are a lot harder to misread. And I think they're just, there's sort of a, I think an inviting...There's this inviting way about people that ask questions and seem genuinely interested in, people that seem genuinely interested in who you are and what makes you tick.

2-3 book recommendations based on listening and connection skills
10:28 – 12:54 CMSSF TowbermanI read a lot. I think it's hard to say, Hey, make sure I tend to have books that matter based on the situation. I really like kind of making sure I mix in classics from time to time. I think when you read something that millions of people have read, you're connected to all of those people and to all of those to all this humanity that has read this classic literature. So I always tell people like pick up, start with Old Man in the Sea because I think it's pretty short, it's easy. If you're intimidated by classic literature, start with something, you know, Don't Grab Don Quixote. Although fantastic book, right? Like my very favorite. I think there's a lot of books on leadership and feeling and we all know those people. I think it’s fun to read history. There is the Federalist Papers and see what our founding fathers were thinking. How do you get this balance between different levels and layers. I think we go through that a lot. I think it's part of any bureaucracy, and so it's something that from a Space Force perspective, I found really interesting. Moneyball, I found very interesting. I think it was very interesting and apropos to our journey as a Space Force like a lot of conversations I have with experts that know how it's done and I'm like, yeah, but is that how it's supposed to be done? Is that still working kind of conversation. So yeah, I could sit here and talk different books all day. I think Talking with Strangers was a good book. I think Daniel Pink wrote a book called Time that I really like, or When, sorry, that I really like that's about time and how we use it and how our brains are affected by, you know, our different rhythms. I think continue to grab things sort of outside of your normal interests and you can't be too eclectic. 

On what THREATS are most concerning and people are not paying enough attention
14:05 – 18:12 CMSSF Towberman So I think I worry in general. I think I worry about the sort of information's control over us and how we're becoming increasingly vulnerable to being trapped inside of our own echo chambers. I'm not sure that we've fully wrapped our head around how real that is and for sure we haven't wrapped our heads around like how do we deal with it? How do I avoid getting trapped? The reality is information can be served to me at such volume and pace that I can't hope to get through it all. I think many of us will pick up our phone and open our email app and there's just hundreds and hundreds of emails a day. Does anybody read all of their email? You just scroll through things. And so if I've got more information than I can take in being delivered to me about what I already know, what I already think, how I already feel, what I already buy from the friends I already have, then where is the room for new information? Where's the room for new experiences? I can't even get through reverberations of my current experiences. How am I going to experience anything new? I think we've got to really understand how dangerous that is, how isolative it is to us and how unhealthy it is for us as human beings. And then we've got to deliberately step out of those echo chambers and find different things, be interested in different things, make new friends, try new foods, try new sports, try new TV shows, you know, whatever you're doing, because it's just trapping us And you don't feel trapped because it's pretty comfortable. Like I like all of this stuff. And so it feels I think pretty normal, but it's not normal at all. Something as simple as going shopping, right? There was a time when I would have to go to the mall and I'd have to walk past all the stores I wasn't shopping at to get to the store I was shopping. And so they had opportunity, right? I had opportunity to go, oh, I wonder what that is that I've never thought about before. Well, I wonder what this is over here. Or, oh, I didn't realize that that thing was going on, but that's all gone now. Now I just get fed stuff to me, and I can just go find the stuff that I already want. And so where's that opportunity for new experiences? Where's that opportunity to connect different ways to different things and different people. It's nowhere unless you deliberately seek it out, unless you deliberately bake it into your life.

Advice for leaders who are struggling on how to lead and influence up, along with taking time to think strategically
18:40 – 24:49 CMSSF TowbermanI think maybe a popular misconception is that as you move up in an organization, you have more opportunity to do what you want or that your opinion is more valued. And that may be true in some ways, but the truth is if you want to be successful is that as you move up in an organization, your opinion matters less because you're not there for your opinion, you're there representing other people. And so, you know, I get asked a lot what I want to do and I'm like, hey, that...What I want to do isn't relevant here. My recommendation or my advice, my counsel is going to be based on what I believe after careful observation and contemplation, what I think is the most responsible thing for the institution to do that's always, it's never going to be what I want. It's always going to be what as certain as I can be about what we're supposed to do and so I think that leading up really begins and ends with that. That says to frame things internally first, like you've got to see it in that manner, but then externally as well, like you've got to explain it in that manner. This isn't just me talking, like I'm, I'm suggesting that doing this is what's best for all of us for these reasons, right? And to really kind of walk, it's not, hey, I think you should do this boss. Well, I think we should do this. I have never had that conversation with a general officer where the two of us are sitting around discussing our opinions. And so I think that's kind of step one, is to really kind of always frame it from this obligatory position of care, right? I need to do what's in your best interest. And I believe that's normally there's an answer. That's not like who could do 17 different things. There's normally one thing that's in the organization or the people's best interest. And I think that's why you're there. That's why you're in the room. That's why you get it. So I think that would be the answer to the first question. The second question. I think I take time. I take time to think, I think a lot, but none of it will matter if you're not taking time to listen. And so I think that you've got to ask questions. You've got to go where people, other people aren't going. You've got to really kind of tap into what's going on inside people's hearts and inside their minds. And you can only do that through asking them questions and through listening to them. Oftentimes it's sort of a combination. Like you've really got to listen to what they're saying because their feelings are real, But especially when you're talking to junior folks, sometimes their understanding of the root causes of their feelings is way off. But you can't understand any of that if you're not listening to them first. And so someone says, well, I don't, you know, I'm uncomfortable. Well, I 100% believe you. Like you get to say whether you're uncomfortable. You get to say whether you're happy or whether you're not happy. Like you get to say that and it's not my place to tell you how you feel, but when you say, I feel this way because of this, then you ask more questions. Well, why do you think it's because of that? What's going on with that that you believe is causing this? Have you considered that it might be this other thing that's really behind that? Have you considered that it might be something else entirely? I think that you've got to kind of work through all of that and then you can go off and think. But if you're just thinking from your perspective, then how much hope do I have that you're going to come up with a solution that's good for me, right? That's just not. It's hard for me to believe that if anybody is off thinking by themselves, that they're going to come up with something that's in my best interest, right? So I want to be informed first. I want leaders to be informed. And ask questions and get information and then then go off and contemplate what the responsible thing to do is not what you want to do kind of back to the other question I think they're tied together maybe why you asked me at the same time.

Something new Chief Towberman learned as CMSSF that he did not expect
25:18 – 28:25 CMSSF TowbermanWell, I mean, I've said more than once that the one thing that I was not expecting was this weight, this obligation I have not for our guardians today, but guardians in a hundred years. I wasn't expecting to feel responsible for people that I'll never meet, but I have. And that kind of caught me off guard. And I feel like my back is strong and I did the work and I feel okay about it all, but it surprised me. And it's been heavy. You put that on you and it's like everything that's ever going to be less than perfect is my fault. And you feel like that every day for four years and it wears you out. And so that's, I don't know if that's something I learned that I wasn't expecting, but it's certainly something I discovered to be a very real thing, to feel this weight every day, to want to do right by people that I'll never meet that will never, you know, I'll never hear from them directly. And it's been interesting. So I think I've learned that think I learned from that, that you never know where sort of heaviness is going to come from. But you better be ready, and you better put in the reps and you better, I think maybe we talk a lot about, and I guess you can spend a lot of time trying to figure out what that straw is going to be and eliminate it, or you can just build like really bad-ass camels that have strong backs, right? Like I think that this is sort of, my belief is that I don't know what is going to be put on my back. And so every day I've got to try to be a little bit better than I was yesterday. I've got to be investing in myself so that I'm physically, mentally, emotionally as strong as possible because I don't know what's going to get thrown on my back tomorrow. And so I need to be ready. I can't assume that it's no more, no different than what's on my back today, right? It's constantly prepping for something more, for something different, and to never just sit back and think, oh, I got this, I know what I'm doing.

Where Chief Towberman falls on the vulnerable versus thick skin continuum
28:30 – 30:43 CMSSF Towberman I didn't know that was a continuum, but I feel like for me it probably varies a lot by sort of topic. There's some things that don't bother me at all and probably never will. And then there's other things that yeah, you know, like that really affects me a lot. Yeah, I think I'm probably a mix. I don't consider myself particularly thick skinned. I don't think I think I'm a pretty emotional, passionate person. Chances are everything's going to impact me one way or another, but I don't consider myself particularly susceptible to harm if you will if that's what vulnerable means in this context I certainly I'm pretty willing to be vulnerable Especially if I feel like it's going to help someone else, I think I'm fairly gritty if you will just in in general I think I’ve was raised pretty well to that we are like anybody else like I don't like to be like criticisms hard to hear for instance no matter I no matter who you are facing disappointment like a five if i thought i was doing a good thing and somebody says no it wasn’t a good thing like you failed like that I guess on that with those two bookends. I think I'd say that, I think it's always hardest to deal with disappointment of any kind when I'm not expecting it. So it's really about maybe expectation management. I don't like to be surprised. Like, oh, I, like that's what happened just then. That wasn't supposed to happen, right? And then that can really affect me, especially if I've upset somebody unintentionally. Really bums me out.

Helpful tools for anxiety
31:58 – 34:04 CMSSF Towberman I don’t do very well like when I can't control a situation, like it really crowds and people really create challenges for me. So as a rule, you know, I try to be consistent. I try to have routines. I try to bring that control while at the same time having a healthy...sort of response when it spins out of control. But yeah, It’s hard to explain. I think climbing in my head is, is a pretty weird thing, but, it's not, it's not necessarily order and, and structure because I don't need that if I'm not expecting to get it, but if I'm expecting to get it, then I need it. If I'm expecting to get confusion and chaos and I can wrap my head around it and it's okay, but it's really just once I've got kind of in my head, like what's supposed to happen. If it doesn't go that way, it can be very, that can be difficult. I think you just have to ask honest questions of yourself and you've got to put accountability squarely, you know, on your, on yourself, no matter what it is. And you just got to work every day to be, to be better than you were yesterday. I think structure is good. I think routine is good. It's helpful for me when I do that. And it's helpful to have good teammates as well. I lean on my wife a lot. She knows all the things I'm bad at. And so it's no point trying to hide them. It's more just talk through it.

Childhood coping method he unknowingly developed only to realize later that it was not normal, but critical to adulthood success
34:20 – 37:54 CMSSF TowbermanI don't think I realized kind of growing up that I wasn't particularly good at empathy. And so through a lot of trial and error, I learned to understand people intellectually through observation, not necessarily like, oh, I get it. That person's upset because I can feel that they're upset that these are the things. And so that's allowed me over decades now, I can be pretty good at reading people because of that, right? So you learn to sort of dissect things. And it all happened very organically for me. And I didn't even realize that that's what I'd done until I watched my son growing up with Asperger's and talking to his doctors and watching him sort of navigate the world. I think that's when I was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Now I know like how I got here and why I did this. And so I think that's probably the biggest thing. I also think I spent a lot of time as a child and as a young adult performing, right? I was a musician, I do school plays, these kinds of things. But I spent a lot of time performing. And I think that in many ways, you know, leadership is a performance. And so a lot of the things that I think resonate with people that I do today is really go back to being able to read a crowd, be able to respond to kind of in real time respond to the energy in a room, to be able to improvise, to be able to...approach the next gig like it's the first time you've ever done it, even though it's the hundredth time you've done it. That's one of the things at the highest levels of military leadership, it's really, really difficult to have the same conversation for the thousandth time and still allow it to have the energy that it deserves. This is the first time that...you and I have had this conversation and you deserve for it to feel like that, even if I've had this conversation a thousand different times. And so I think that, um, being a, uh, musician growing up and performing live, you know, and play free bird, like we're, we're, we're tired of playing that song, but if that's what the crowd wants, you do it again and you do it again and you do it again. And so I think, you know, in maybe in a very practical tactical sense, I think maybe that's something I learned in a deeper way, I do think that a lot of, I didn't know it at the time, but I spent a lot of time growing up trying to figure out why people were doing things because I didn't sort of understand it intuitively.

On moving to California to become a rockstar, molding his public speaking skills, describing a movie image that depicts leadership, and something he is world class at that people don’t know
38:00 – 40:28 CMSSF Towberman it was San Francisco Bay Area in 1986. Yeah, I mean I packed everything I owned and beat up old Catalina. From where? Where did you drive? Wisconsin. I grew up in Wisconsin, so I packed everything I owned and headed west and I mean we can see how it worked out. It didn't work out very well. Cause you're an amazing public speaker and you really get the crowds going. Do you feel like that's just that time has shaped your speaking skills today? I mean, I think it, yeah, like I just said, I think it was, I think it was helpful. I've practiced a lot. Like I've tried hard. I mean, this comes with the territory. So, you know, I try to be, I try to do whatever I'm being asked to do well. And I think probably that harkens back to way, way before I was singing and running around on stage. I think I was just raised to whatever I was being asked to do to try to do it the best I can. Man, you know, I'm trying to think of something clever and it's kind of blanked my whole mind. You know, we talked about Moneyball earlier. I don't know. I've got a weird affliction that I forget movies as soon as I watch them. Let's talk about it. That's interesting. Anything that I like about myself that people don't know? No, I think I'm a pretty open book. Sometimes I like to just sit around in the quiet and think.

Stories and storytellers that make him break out into applause, the book currently on his nightstand
40:30 – 41:42 CMSSF Towberman ones that are true to who they are. I think spinning a good yarn is, is a good skill. I think telling the truth is a necessary skill. Giving people a look into who you really are is important on my nightstand right now, Don Quixote. So I started, I reread it every once in a while. A lot of times I reread like the first third of it and then I'll put it away. And then when I pick it up again, I don't know why I don't start with the second third, but I think it's in many ways like a good, like I think a lot of movies are like this. Like they're pretty funny when they start and then they sort of as the character development happens, there's something about the comedy starts to fade. I think maybe that's why I read the beginning of Don Quixote over and over and over again. I don't know. I think it's hilarious. 

Placing a billboard anywhere in the world with his message for the world see and read, where would it be and what would it say
41:44 – 42:20 CCMSSF Towberman Oh man. I'd probably... I'd want to put it everywhere. And I just want it to say, you matter. Yeah, so that's I'm cheating a little bit, but I'd put it everywhere.

What the hero of his story wants and outro
42:40 CMSSF Towberman What does the hero of my story want? I just want to sit back and rest. It's been a pretty... It's been a long time. I've been working hard and just ready to watch everybody else take their turn and do great things. I want our guardians to build the future that they deserve. And I just, I don't want to meddle. I don't want credit. I don't want praise. I just want to let it all happen. And I'm going fishing.

Books and People mentioned: 

1. General Jeffrey Kruse
2. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
3. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
4. Moneyball by Michael Lewis
5. Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell
6. When by Daniel Pink

Quote: “You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.”- Jan Glidewell

Key Takeaways:

1. Our discussion with Chief Master Sergeant Roger Towberman offers valuable insights into the nuances of military leadership. From the power of strategic thinking to the importance of relationship building and self-care, the conversation is a rich resource for anyone seeking to understand and master the art of leadership.
2.  As the conversation concludes, one message resonates strongly - leadership is not just about leading; it's about learning, adapting, and growing with your team. It's about recognizing the contributions of others and celebrating collective success. Above all, it's about being human, showing vulnerability, and forging connections based on trust and respect.
3.  Whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting on your leadership journey, this podcast episode offers invaluable insights and lessons that can help shape your approach to leadership and guide you towards becoming a more effective, empathetic, and successful leader.

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