How to Incorporate Leadership into BizAv CRM Training

On January 15, 2009, less than two minutes after take-off, the captain of US Airways Flight 1549 reported to Air Traffic Control that there was an emergency with bird strikes impacting both engines.

With each engine now inoperative, and unable to complete the engine dual failure checklist, the captain started the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) and took control of the aircraft.

Initially he informed the control tower of his intent to return to LaGuardia. He quickly realized, however, that it would not be possible to return to the runway and instead he informed the controller that he had no other alternative but to land on the Hudson River.

Thanks to the leadership of Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger, Flight 1549 made a controlled water landing, saving the lives of all 155 passengers aboard the aircraft.

In a 2017 academic article entitled ‘Leadership and Crew Resource Management in High-Reliability Organizations: A Competency Framework for Measuring Behaviors’1, Mark P. Alavosius, Houmanfar Ramona, Steven Anbro Kenneth Burleigh and Christopher Hebein highlight:

“During the ensuing investigations, it was determined through flight simulations that any other alternative course of action would have resulted in mass casualties and destruction of property. The individual and collective behavior of the captain and crew members define exemplary responding of the flight crew in a crisis situation and set performance aims, which might be established in training other flight crew.”

Leadership Training Essential for All Crewmembers

According to Antonio I. Cortés in a 2011 article entitled ‘Flight Crew Leadership’2, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) defines leadership in the context of influence, and explains that a leader should recognize the wishes of the crew, lead by example, and use persuasion to create an understanding of goals to achieve.

“ICAO stresses that leadership and followership skills can be learned and states that leadership training is essential for all crewmembers, since even junior employees may be called to perform leadership duties at different times,” he highlights.

“In the aviation industry, captains must use a combination of their authority, awareness of a situation, and soft skills (such as communication) in order to guide the behavior of crewmembers”.

According to Alavosius et al., meanwhile, CRM offers a useful perspective on leadership and management as it operates within defined environments such as cockpits where operational boundaries are relatively clear, behaviors can be objectively defined and interconnectedness with other organizational settings (e.g., mission control rooms) can be articulated with a high degree of precision.

Two Primary Challenges to Aviation Leadership Competency

Leadership competency for CRM faces two primary challenges, Alavosius et al. highlight.

• First, leaders must maintain the integrity of procedures, and ensure that crew members follow complex and precise procedures.
• Second, leaders must be able to manage unexpected events (for example, excessive pressure) that can interrupt the normal flow of plans.

“CRM necessitates the support of leadership to be effective, in that hierarchical leaders are in the position to organize and manage the resources available for a job site. By identifying some key outcome measure (e.g., rates of injury), the safety performance of a leader can be assessed by the performance of a crew,” they suggest.

Aviation Leaders Produce More Leaders

Effective leaders produce equally effective crew members capable of achieving desired outcomes. Using crew safety as an example, effective leaders plan for – and manage – contingencies in the Flight Department in a way that minimizes, or even eliminates, injuries.

Importantly, leadership is not exclusive to organizational leaders (such as the Aviation Director). Although these figures are crucial for the systemic implementation of CRM, any member of a Flight Department team can exercise leadership. In CRM, the leader is responsible for ensuring that all crew members possess the necessary skills to perform their specific tasks.

In order to achieve this, they must use the resources associated with different roles and evaluate the capabilities of team members, ensuring that each is qualified for their role, according to Alavosius et al.

“When members of a team work in coordination with a common goal, they create interlocking contingencies that are reinforced at the group level. This interlocked behavior, by definition, puts members of a crew into contact with other members of a crew, which then may create collective contingencies for the tasks being performed,” they highlight.

In summary, Leadership as it applies to CRM in Business Aviation, is a core training element which should have a focus on how it can play a part in turning demanding situations into successes. But the goal of true leadership CRM training should always be coupled with a focus on followership, in a context of coordinated efforts within the Flight Department.

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Footnotes:
[1] Mark P. Alavosius, Houmanfar Ramona, Steven Anbro, Kenneth Burleigh, Leadership and Crew Resource Management in High-Reliability Organizations: A Competency Framework for Measuring Behaviors, May 2017. 10.1080/01608061.2017.1325825
[2] Antonio I. Cortés, January 2011, Flight Crew Leadership. https://nbaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Flight-Crew-Leadership-January-2011.pdf