Richmond, Va. –
Defense Logistics Agency Aviation’s Leadership Working Group recognized Rennae Kimbrough with its August Leadership Award for her individualized consideration and inspirational motivation skills, two of the four dimensions of transformative leadership. Kimbrough is the Airframes I Division deputy chief within the activity’s Supplier Operations Commodities Directorate.
Kimbrough joined the division while DLA Aviation was under mandatory telework restrictions last year. Despite the lack of in-person interactions, she has gained the trust and respect of the entire division, according to Mark Dobranski, the division’s chief, who nominated her for the award and said in his nomination that she is a natural coach and role model.
Kimbrough said she is grateful to her leadership, her peers and her team for this recognition. She is honored to serve as a leader at DLA to a wonderful group of hard working and motivated individuals.
Dobranski said her skills proved valuable as 70% of the division’s management team had less than a year of leadership experience when she arrived.
“She’s been instrumental in the development of the leadership team, creating an environment that values learning, accountability and teaming,” he said. “The first line [supervisors] have learned how to better communicate priorities, motivate, inspire and hold employees accountable under her guidance and tutelage.”
She coached the first line supervisors on priorities within their teams, connecting those priorities to DLA’s mission.
“She gave each supervisor the confidence and knowledge to figure out how to implement and manage priorities within their teams,” said Dobranski. “As a result of Rennae’s efforts, supervisors focused their efforts on readiness wedges and aged PRs [purchase requests], reducing each priority by 65% and 17% respectively, over 1.5 months.”
Kimbrough served as division chief in August when Dobranski was out for most of the month. Under her direction, the division exceeded their award goal by 20%.
She developed and implemented changes to the division’s Critical Safety Item process to allow better oversight of CSI awards. Her changes were the main reason the division had zero CSI audit findings in June despite processing the second most CSI awards in the directorate.
“Her knowledge has been tremendous asset to the division,” said Dobranski. “However, it’s her ability to make employees feel valued, as part of the team, that sets her apart as a great leader.”
Kimbrough said it has always been her goal to serve as the type of leader that she would want to have, one that is relatable, reliable, knowledgeable, willing to get in the weeds to assist, inclusive and there to be a listening ear.
With the workforce being our number one asset, she said she is always reminded of Theodore Roosevelt’s quote “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”