To identify the true leader of a workplace, I ask people to picture the worst possible thing that could happen to them in their work environment; Lose a sum of money. Lose a great client. Not follow a procedure correctly. A death occurring on site...the worst thing imaginable.
Next I ask, ‘who is the first person you would think of running to for help?’
The person they feel could help them functionally and emotionally is, in most instances, the leader. This may not necessarily be ‘the boss’, who they may feel inclined to go to for ‘top cover’.
A leader is a person who guides and inspires, irrespective of rank or title, for example, Sir Bob Geldof, founder of the Live Aid movement. Leadership is not just an important rank or title such as military commander or CEO. Leadership is in example, such as a great mother or father, or a teacher, whose children or pupils aspire to be like and follow.
It is a mistake to view rank or a title as the mark of leadership. A true leader has willing followers, not just employees, subjects, or staff.
And in all these cases, effective and inspiring leadership centres around trust.
So how can this kind of leadership - trust gaining - be taught?
Trust is built through competency, congruency, and compassion. This post will focus on competency, and explain a training model used by the military to train pilots and airborne mission commanders:
The ‘Jump-Seat-Model’ JSM
The JSM is where the junior aviation trainee will first sit in what is known as ‘the jump seat’, a seat in the aircraft between the two qualified pilots. Here they will simply OBSERVE qualified pilots to learn the tasks involved in flight. There is no expectation of them to do anything as part of the crew, other than to learn and absorb the information.
STAGE 1 - Learning the job or task.
Try giving your junior leaders simple tasks within the larger group to build their confidence. Some may find it daunting to take control of a task due to lack of ability, fear of failure or embarrassment, but if you contract a task that is well within their competence level, and increase the level over time, they will grow in confidence. Try this with your team to build individual competence and to show fellow team members the competency improvement of team members.
On the next flight, the trainee will then sit in the co-pilot seat and be told what functions to undertake by a qualified pilot who is now sitting in the jump seat to observe and guide the trainee in the co-pilot seat.
As the trainee’s skill is increased, tasks are increased, until the trainee is in charge and responsible for certain aspects of the flight.
STAGE 2 - The junior leader displays to their the team they are consistently hitting the level of competency of a particular task.
In the JSM, the next step would be for the pilots to sit back and monitor that the initial tasks given to the trainee, are continued and not dropped at the expense of new tasks.
As the trainee’s experience increases, all the initial tasks now mastered, the trainee can now move to a fully un-monitored role in the majority of aspects of the co-pilot seat.
Once co-pilot is mastered, they can then progress to the Captains seat.
As Captain, the JSM model comes full circle, where the Captain will now be one of the pilots involved in training a new trainee sitting in the jump seat. The JSM has the now-fully-qualified pilot entering into training and discussion with the newest trainee and passing on knowledge and empathy.
This is the ‘closing of the loop’. The trainee has become the trainer. They too naturally replicate the leadership skills that have become inherent in them.
STAGE 3 - At this point, the team member will have shown they can do the job and do it consistently and can be involved to train new team.
If you develop your team members using the Jump-Seat Model, you will equip them to become competent, natural leaders who gain the trust of others, inspire people to follow them and who will be able to replicate their experience and go on and train new leaders.