I was on ZOOM reconnecting with a high school friend of mine who went to the United States Naval Academy. He is in his final years of service to our country and after catching up a little I wanted to learn his top leadership principles.
Commander Brett Holdiman has been in the cockpit of a plane for most of his naval career. Although there is a standard ranking approach to leadership within the military structure, leadership looks different when airborne: the superior/subordinate structure submits to the person who has the flight lead position regardless of rank. This concept is at the foundation of the first of his three leadership principles.
Creating Value in Others
As a member of the John Maxwell Team, I get this. Putting people first is the approach John lives out in his leadership style. I had to ask Brett what he meant by this idea of “creating value.” When leaders create value in others, they recognize they do not know everything. Since this is reality, Brett found two keys to make his teams feel valued.
During the early years of his flying career, Brett realized he had much less experience than those he led. He had a lot of education, but by the time he finished flight school, some of those he led had up to six years of experience in their area of expertise. He recognized the need to trust his people and make sure they knew their job matters. As leaders, these two habits create a culture of feeling valued by those we lead.
Create an Environment to Safely Speak Up
As we discussed leadership, Brett explained the difference in flight management compared to standard leadership. Any good aviator knows that 100% of the missions they flew would not go as briefed. A part of the flight management process is situational awareness and assertiveness. Whenever Brett was airborne, he knew he did not see the entire picture in front of him…there simply too much information to digest. But the same held true for his wingmen. This fact highlights the importance of trust within his flight. It created an environment where everyone was comfortable enough to speak up in the event he was missing something, even when they were a lower rank or newer pilot.
During the heat of a mission, the importance of rank decreases drastically and leadership is flattened. The flight leader’s job is to be certain everyone feels safe to make their voice known. This happens well before take-off. As they go through their flight plan process (which I described here), an environment where others can speak up and share a dissenting view will potentially prevent deadly mission errors. This appropriately assertive culture starts before the mission, carries through the mission, and ultimately develops a healthy team during the mission.
Failure is a Path to Proficiency
None of us likes to fail and failure on a critical mission is not an option for Brett. There is a place, though, where Brett and his fellow aviators can safely fail…mission rehearsal. During this time, lives are not on the line and identifying key learning points during every flight debrief is critical. As leaders, we must have ways for our team members to test new ideas, fail, learn, grow, and try again.
Brett said they expect problems during every flight. Instead of running from them, however, challenges and obstacles are embraced, debriefed, and learned from. Their safe place to fail is during training. Similar to an athlete whose practice impacts performance, these Naval aviators must practice as if the mission is real so they are ready for anything during the real mission. As an organizational or team leader, evaluate your structure to determine where people have room to safely fail and learn.
The common theme through all three of these principles is an idea that has been ingrained in him from his training:
“The biggest resource in any organization is the people that make it run.”
What about you? On your team, in your organization, in your family . . . are people first? If you are a task-oriented perfectionist do you allow room for healthy dissent, mistakes and have a culture of care for your people? If you do not in one of these areas, what do you need to do today to move toward healthier leadership in one of these areas? Need help thinking into it? Contact me for a no cost thinking partner session to think into your leadership. In the meantime, Lead Well.
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