21.3 Foundational Competencies & Behaviors
Key Takeaways
- AFH 1 defines foundational competencies as observable, measurable patterns of knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to perform successfully across an Air Force career.
- Foundational competencies are grouped into four categories — Developing Self, Developing Others, Developing Ideas, and Developing Organizations — each addressed in its own AFH 1 chapter.
- Occupational competencies are specialty-specific; foundational competencies apply broadly across enlisted, officer, and civilian members and all organizational levels.
- AFH 36-2647, Competency Modeling, is the reference for both competency types and the source the SJT informational guide directs examinees to review.
- A competency is the underlying pattern; a behavior is the single observable action that provides evidence of it — the SJT presents behaviors and asks you to judge them against the competency.
Competency Versus Behavior
AFH 1 Section 7A supplies the definition the SJT rests on:
"Foundational competencies are observable, measurable patterns of knowledge, skills and abilities needed to perform successfully across a USAF career. The Foundational competencies are enduring and encompass attributes the USAF believes are critical to mission success."
They "prepare Airmen to operate successfully across the widest array of USAF tasks and requirements, and to adapt in a constantly changing operational environment," are "broadly applicable across (enlisted, officer, and civilian) USAF members, spanning all occupations, functions, and organizational levels," and "form the framework for force development in the USAF."
A competency is the pattern; a behavior is a single instance of it. You cannot observe "Accountability" directly. You can observe whether someone owns a mistake, holds a subordinate to a standard fairly, or shifts blame — and each of those observations is evidence for or against the competency.
That relationship is the whole SJT task. The scenario describes behaviors (what people did). The four options are behaviors (what you could do next). Your job is to judge each candidate behavior against the competency the scenario is testing, and identify the strongest and weakest.
The Three Competency Types
AFH 1 distinguishes three, and the exam tests the distinctions:
| Type | Definition |
|---|---|
| Core competencies | "Big picture concepts that the USAF does, or is expected to do or know, all the time" — "a key set of abilities or qualities at the heart of the organization's reason for being" that enable the Air Force to create airpower effects. Some are unique to the USAF; others are aligned across the branches |
| Occupational competencies | "Required of Airmen within a specific workforce category or specialty" — the technical and functional knowledge, skills and abilities needed to perform that function's mission successfully |
| Foundational competencies | Broadly applicable across all members, occupations, functions, and organizational levels; the framework for force development |
The reference for both occupational and foundational competencies is AFH 36-2647, Competency Modeling — the same publication the SJT Informational Guide tells examinees to review.
A clean discriminator: occupational competencies belong to your AFSC; foundational competencies belong to every Airman. The SKT tests the former. The SJT tests the latter.
The Four Categories
AFH 1 groups foundational competencies into four categories, "each of these competency categories is addressed in subsequent chapters of AFH 1":
| Category | AFH 1 chapter | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Developing Self | Chapter 15 | Accountability and self-management, perseverance, self-control, resilience, and communication — military, written, spoken, and electronic |
| Developing Others | Chapter 14 | Teamwork, developing people, service mindset, and leadership |
| Developing Ideas | Chapter 16 | Cognitive processes, critical thinking, informed decision-making, and handling uncertainty |
| Developing Organizations | Chapter 13 | Strategic thinking and results focus, resources and organizational structure, and change and problem solving |
This is the single most efficient fact in SJT preparation. All four categories map onto AFH 1 chapters that are tested on the knowledge half of the exam — Chapters 14 and 15 for both grades, and 13 and 16 additionally for E-6. Studying those four chapters prepares you for both halves of the PFE at once.
And the content lines up directly with the ALQs. Chapter 15's accountability, self-control, and communication; Chapter 14's teamwork, develops people, and leadership; Chapter 16's decision-making and innovation; Chapter 13's strategic thinking and results focus — these are the same behaviors the ALQ definitions describe, taught in narrative form.
A Repeatable Method for Ranking Responses
Use the same four steps on every scenario. Consistency matters more than cleverness on an SJT.
Step 1 — Name the competency
Ask: what is this scenario actually about? Most scenarios have one primary competency and one or two secondary ones. Use the ALQ list as your checklist — accountability, collaboration, communication, decision making, adaptability, initiative, innovation, stewardship, emotional intelligence, job proficiency.
Step 2 — State the behaviors that demonstrate it
For whichever competency you named, recall what strong and weak look like. For accountability, strong looks like owning the error, addressing it directly, following through; weak looks like deflecting, letting it slide, or blaming someone else.
Step 3 — Evaluate all four options against those behaviors
Score each as strong, adequate, weak, or unacceptable. Look first for automatic-reject patterns — options that are unethical, unsafe, outside regulation, or that avoid the problem entirely. Those are your least-effective candidates.
Step 4 — Take the ends of the ranking
The strongest option answers the most effective question; the weakest answers the least effective question. If two options seem close, ask which one better engages the actual problem in both directions — that one ranks higher.
A Worked Example
Scenario. You supervise a four-person team. One Airman has arrived 15 minutes late three times in two weeks. Another team member has made a sarcastic comment about it. Your flight chief has not said anything.
| Option | Response |
|---|---|
| A | Wait another week to see whether the pattern continues, to avoid overreacting |
| B | Speak with the Airman privately, ask what is going on, restate the standard, and follow up |
| C | Correct the Airman in front of the team so everyone sees the standard enforced |
| D | Recommend disciplinary action through the first sergeant without speaking to the Airman first |
Step 1 — Competency. Primary: Accountability. Secondary: Emotional Intelligence and Collaboration (the team climate is already affected).
Step 2 — Behaviors. Strong accountability: address it directly, gather information, hold the standard, follow through. Weak: ignore it, address it publicly, or jump straight to the most severe action.
Step 3 — Evaluate.
- A — weak. Avoids the problem; the pattern is established and the team has noticed
- B — strong. Direct, private, gathers information first, restates the standard, follows up
- C — unacceptable. Public correction damages trust and climate; it fails emotional intelligence outright
- D — weak. Skips the supervisory action clearly within your own authority and escalates first
Step 4 — Ends. Most effective: B. Least effective: C.
Why C rather than A for least effective? Because A is passive and C is actively harmful. Doing nothing lets a problem persist; humiliating an Airman in front of peers creates a second problem and damages the team the scenario says is already strained. When choosing between a passive option and a harmful one, the harmful one is worse.
That distinction shows up often, and it is the one place where "avoids the problem" is not automatically the least effective answer. Note that the official sample item has no actively harmful option — which is exactly why avoidance ("ignore the NCO") is keyed worst there.
Why the Method Beats Intuition
The informational guide states that keys are retained only where there is clear consensus among Chief Master Sergeants, behavioral scientists, and E-7/E-8 subject matter experts, using "guidance on successful actions provided by the Air Force foundational competencies."
That means the answers are anchored to a published standard, not to a test writer's preference. Airmen who try to guess what the writer wanted tend to score inconsistently. Airmen who name the competency, recall its behaviors, and rank all four options against them are doing exactly what the SME panel did — which is the closest thing to reverse-engineering the key that the format allows.
Practice the four steps on every sample item in the informational guide until naming the competency takes a few seconds. That speed is what lets you finish the last section of a two-hour exam without rushing.
How does AFH 1 define foundational competencies?
Into which four categories does AFH 1 group the foundational competencies, and where are they taught?
A scenario offers one option that passively waits out a problem and another that publicly humiliates a subordinate. Which is more likely the least effective response?