JoAnne Bass, the first woman to earn the highest level in leadership in military service for a senior enlisted officer, takes leadership to a higher level in her own charismatic and critical way. During her 31 years of service in the U.S. Air Force, she has broken glass ceilings and remained true to her values of family, service, and hard work.
While speaking to a room of veterans, service members, military spouses, and advocates who make up the Class of 2025 of the George W. Bush Institute’s Stand-To Veteran Leadership Program, Bass shared lessons in leadership and motivated the group to continue achieving greatness, even during challenging times.
“The one leadership principle that always sticks with me, that I learned from my mom, is do your job and do it well. That applies to anything.”
For Bass, a self-proclaimed “Army-brat,” military life comes naturally. Initially, she thought joining the military would be the best way to pay for college and gain many benefits, but after years in the Air Force, she began to better understand what her, her father’s, and others’ service truly means.
“I really started to understand, about the eight-year mark, what it meant to wear our nation’s cloth – after some deployments, after working with some units with service members you’ve read about, people who have given their all – that’s when I really started to understand that service is way more than paying off my old Honda Civic…service is doing something higher than yourself.”
For many of the Stand-To scholars who have served our nation themselves, including military family members, Bass’s reflection on service resonated.
The scholars started on their five-month leadership journey last week first hearing from Bass and then a collection of program faculty including David Kramer, Executive Director at the George W. Bush Institute; Keith Hennessey, David Rubenstein Fellow at the George W. Bush Institute; Jason Galui, Director of Veterans and Military Families at the George W. Bush Institute; Rajeev Ramchand, Codirector and Senior Behavioral Scientist at RAND Epstein Family Veterans Policy Research; and Michael O’Leary, Teaching Professor and Senior Associate Dean for Custom Executive Education, Georgetown University McDonough School of Business.
Foundations of leadership were a consistent theme throughout the module. While leadership differs for everyone, all participants in the sessions—whether scholars or speakers—acknowledged that each person’s journey greatly influences their opportunities.
“I have always kept every door open and what I see looking back on my career, especially when I got picked as Chief Master Sergeant for the Air Force, was that every assignment I had throughout my career was a setup for the next assignment,” Bass said. “I didn’t realize it at all until that time, but every experience I had, every boss that I had – whether I liked their leadership style or not – every experience led me to the ultimate setup and still does.”
Scholars listened to stories and lessons from Stand-To alumni and participated in a democracy listening session where they had the opportunity to discuss the state of our nation’s democracy and trust in institutions. The scholars embraced the chance to have open, meaningful, and sometimes difficult conversations with their peers to learn about and practice pluralism, understanding how its woven framework supports our nation’s democracy.
Ultimately, although the scholars started the week as strangers, they left the module as one unit, ready to continue through the next Stand-To modules with a better understanding of each other’s stories and what motivates them and leaders like JoAnne Bass to continue serving our country. As Bass expressed warmly, “What gives me hope is that there is no more resilient nation in the world than the United States of America.”
