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Master Sergeants Need Specific Attributes to Achieve their Designated Responsibilities

• Master sergeants represent the first level of senior enlisted leadership in the Air Force and are expected to transition from being technical experts and first line supervisors to leaders of operational competence.
• There are a number of attributes master sergeants must have to be good leaders. These include key technical knowledge as well as four general categories of skills (i.e., cognitive skills, interpersonal skills, business/management skills, and strategic skills).

The Current Promotion System Can Be Improved to Better Assess Leadership Potential

• The current system provides good measures of many of the key characteristics identified as important for a master sergeant.
• Current promotion outcomes are largely based on whether airmen have the necessary knowledge and tenure, but not if they are able to actually apply that knowledge or have the motivation to take on increased leadership responsibilities.
• There are also problems with inflated performance scores; for example, the mean enlisted performance report score for all airmen eligible for promotion to master sergeant is 134 out of 135 points.
• Overall, the current promotion process is not effectively assessing the full range of abilities or leadership potential needed to successfully perform as a master sergeant in the Air Force.

Several Potential Options for Improvement Exist

• There are pros and cons to the available assessment methods that could be used to improve the selection system.
• Overall, adding a situational judgment test and board ratings as additional factors in the promotion process seem most promising.