Leadership
I attended the The AEA 57th Annual International Convention & Trade Show in Nashville, TN, in March. Sean D. Tucker, well-known National Hall of Fame Team Oracle acrobatic pilot, spoke at the opening ceremony. Tucker is considered by many to be the world’s premier aerobatic pilot.
Tucker began by speaking about how humble you need to be as a leader and the significance of the responsibilities you have. I was impressed with Tucker’s level of enthusiasm for his job and with his attitude towards his team and his passion towards learning and excellence.
Tucker’s view of being a good leader involves taking responsibility for the people who have dedicated their careers to support you, empowering the people around you to communicate their ideas and opinions to you, and making the changes necessary to make your team’s job easier. Tucker believes that he has a responsibility to the people on his team because they have dedicated their lives and career to his team. “I owe it to these people to be the best I can be and not hurt myself,” he says. He lives his entire life this way by working on his flying skills as well as his mental and physical conditioning.
He says that it wasn’t easy when he first began debriefing. He explains that hearing from people that you aren’t doing things correctly isn’t easy on the ego, but as time goes by, you realize that it begins to make your team better and everybody wins. “After every 20 minutes of flight, I sit down for more than an hour of debrief with my staff,” says Tucker. He explains that they go through every aspect of the flight and discuss how it can be done better.
Tucker further explains that the tone that you set for your team determines the greatness of the team. It’s important for a leader to make the best choices. “If you do things the right way, they will do things the right way,” Tucker stresses. “If you take short cuts, they will take short cuts. If you want your team to be the best, you need to be the best.”
After Tucker’s talk about leadership, he played a video of one of his flights during which he had a young passenger. Tucker is the chair of EAA’s Young Eagles program that was organized to get young people interested in aviation, and this ride was a part of the program. During the flight, Tucker was performing a maneuver and while in the middle of it, the propeller separated from the aircraft. The young passenger, as you would imagine, was quite upset, but Tucker calmed her by explaining what he was going to do and that she was with someone that could land the aircraft without any problems. “You’re with me,” he said, “there’s no reason to worry.” All the while he was controlling the aircraft, evaluating the situation, planning a non-powered landing and keeping his own emotions in check. This is where all the dedication, training and commitment to excellence paid off. He was prepared for adverse conditions in every aspect — mentally and physically.
Before each show, Tucker spends time with his eyes closed, envisioning his performance. He uses his hands as if they are the aircraft and he twists and turns his hands to simulate the actual aerobatics. It would be helpful for each of us in our jobs to occasionally close our eyes and envision what where we are going and how we are going to get there. Do we think of our job from beginning to end? Do we review our goals regularly to make sure we are on track, or do we just fly by the seat of our pants and hope that we don’t crash?
As leaders, we often get caught up in the day-to-day grind and don’t stop to improve ourselves. It’s important for each of us, whether we are in charge of a team of two or a team of hundreds, to take a look at Tucker, leaders that we feature in the pages of D.O.M. magazine, and even people outside of the aviation industry for inspiration and ideas on how we can be better leaders.