Our fascination with air travel
I just finished listening to the Freakanomics podcast series on air travel. As someone who has been involved in that industry for decades, I’m still fascinated by all the interesting facts, figures and singularities.
It reminded me why I was so curious about it when I was just a few years old. A visit to the airport was a grand event to see friends and family off, or to meet them on arrival. And why I chose to make it my professional career: from a front-line passenger service agent, to the executive suite and now an independent consultant.
Mr. Dubner did a great job creating these episodes: on the amazing safety record of the most complex and global transportation system; the challenges of running airlines and airports as a business; and its evolution from a luxury experience, to an indispensable (and mostly affordable) element of lives, societies, culture and commerce.
For me, however, there is an even more fascinating element often ignored or, at best, barely addressed when discussing “how difficult it is to manage as a business”: the quality and effectiveness of the leaders.
In a typical airline, around 80% of the employees are working front-line, customer and product facing roles. Nobody is closer to the experience as they are. To deliver great performance they require extensive technical training and years of experience.
But my “fascination” is how leaders develop the right values, behaviors and skills to mobilize these millions of individuals and teams to connect people by the billions, -and- do so while being engaged, inspired, motivated and delighted.
The truth is, very, very few airlines and airports achieve that standard. In part, I believe, it’s because of a “default” setting in most leaders minds, over-managing and under-leading their organizations.
Another issue is the lack of opportunities, channels, content and relationships to support and develop that “right” leadership style in front-line and middle managers, up to the executive suite and all other levels in between.
While still fascinated by the technology, innovations and the future of aviation, I am as excited to be part of the leadership effectiveness movement in this and many other industries.