Pilot’s Method to Managing a Team

Pilot’s Method to Managing a Team by Victor Kuarsingh

There is well known phrase used by many pilots which reads “aviate, navigate and communicate”.  Although managing a team is not directly comparable to flying a plane, I think there are many fundamental similarities which can help guide leaders in their journey when managing teams.  The method described here is really important to leaders in middle management who have moderate to large size teams, however can apply to anyone in leadership.  You, as a leader in such a situation, need to make sure you are managing both up, and down to get the job done.  Leadership mis-steps can create hardships for your team, and one may lose confidence from their senior leadership, the board, or shareholders if one cannot manage their area correctly.

First, each leader must realize that you don’t do all the real work, you are just responsible and in command of the team, as the captain is on the plane.  Many mechanical and computer functions are doing real work on the plane, and your teams are doing all the real work for you.   You are responsible to your team to help guide things toward the destination and make needed adjustments along the way.

To Aviate first, to me, is to make sure all the right things are happening at the fundamental layer of the team.  I know many leaders are well inclined to provide future direction, communicate things up to senior leadership, but without a functioning team, these needed high level duties can be for not.   Also, as in the case with a plane, should you run into trouble, you need to work, often directly, to take command and ensure you are part of the solution and keep the plane (or team in this case), in the air.   This is often the hardest thing to get right, and without fundamental control of the situation, all your other efforts are useless as you crash.  Good leaders need to be present, attentive and reactive as needed to help their teams along the way.

Once you have the team running well, all the right delegations in place, and you know you are safe, one can then focus on navigation.  Teams need to be accomplishing goals, running roadmaps, producing things and driving output.   With aviation in place, you can safely focus on making sure this is being done correctly.  It is important to set direction, adjust that direction, and chart courses around dangers as needed.  It is not always easy to do this well, and you may fly into difficult situations now and then (just like a pilot may unwillingly or unavoidably run into storms).   Communicating to your teams is a key part of this step and helps your team perform.  Remember to always be clear and upfront with your team on what you are thinking, your team members (co-pilots) can’t read your mind.

With all the fundamental team operations going well, and with all the right course and headings in place, a leader can focus on his next job – the wider communication.  I don’t mean standard team level communication and reporting, that’s often part of aviation, but I mean the upward communication to senior leadership.  This glorious task, often fraught with fear (if not going well) or satisfaction (when things are going well),  is defiantly needed.  Many call this “managing up”.   It is important to do this since you don’t want your leadership to only be exposed to the “bad stuff” since problems normally make it to the top naturally.  You want your leadership to also know when things are going well, and how your team is moving forward, solving problems and helping the business.    But be careful, if you spend too much time here, and not on the aviate and navigate items, you are likely to be left with challenges which may or may not be recoverable.  Don’t be so busy telling everyone your story, that you wind up hitting the ground or running into bad weather you can’t recover from.

Bad Leadership is easy, good leadership is hard.  Remember, you are not just “in command” of the team, you are fundamentally responsible for them and the output just like a pilot is responsible for the the safety of  the plane and the passengers.  Be present, be thoughtful, and help them to succeed.