In the context of Zaleznik’s article (Zaleznik, 1977), Captain Sullenberger is a manager, not a leader. The perception of Sullenberger as a leader seems to lie largely in the mystique of the landing of Flight 1549, and seems to answer Zaleznik’s question of “Is this mystique of leadership merely a holdover from our collective childhood of dependency and our longing for good and heroic parents?” (Zaleznik, 1977). With this question in mind, it is easy to see why he would be regarded as a leader by many people. My conclusion is that he is an effective manager who had a great moment of public leadership. The sole leadership moment recounted by Sullenberger in this interview was his announcement to the passengers and crew to “Brace for impact”
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Even in his leadership moment of the “brace for impact” announcement, he was still a manager. The entire story of the landing of Flight 1549 was a story of management, not leadership. Managers establish goals out of necessity, and their instinct for survival dominates their need for risk (Zaleznik, 1997). In the case of avoiding crashing a plane into a densely populated area, the application of these concepts needs no further clarification. The entire story is one of enabling processes, which is how managers tend to view their work (Zaleznik, 1997). The success of the operation was due to Sullenberger’s enabling of processes, specifically working with people and the delegation of tasks to subordinates, the protocol for transfer of control with the first officer and the cabin crew. This was a manager’s action, not a leadership one. The oversight and continuation of the evacuation checklist after the landing speaks to management as well, in that it was a specific set of tasks to …show more content…
To relate it to a personal story, I can go back to my days training customer service representatives, a role assumed in order to keep enough adequately trained co-workers and avoid excessive overtime rather than a genuine desire to do the job. When given a set of three new hires simultaneously, I had to figure out how to effectively get three distinct personality types on board with a common goal. This is not easy to do when everyone has their own agenda. After a month of trying to train people to execute tasks a specific way and being met with the answer “but I like doing it the other way”, I had to think in a different context. After once again asking a trainee to demonstrate doing certain tasks my way, I decided to ask why things need to be done that certain way, I received a perfectly logical answer in the context of the operations of the business. It was at this point I decided to ask her if she ever heard anyone criticize my work the way they criticized theirs. When she said “no”, I responded that the real goal accomplished with doing things my way was “not having to hear any of that”, things clicked. In another week, the trainee worked well enough to be left unsupervised. It became the new training mantra, “We do it like this because we don’t want to hear it.” Managers are concerned with the performance of tasks and survival, but leaders make emotional pleas to
Even in his leadership moment of the “brace for impact” announcement, he was still a manager. The entire story of the landing of Flight 1549 was a story of management, not leadership. Managers establish goals out of necessity, and their instinct for survival dominates their need for risk (Zaleznik, 1997). In the case of avoiding crashing a plane into a densely populated area, the application of these concepts needs no further clarification. The entire story is one of enabling processes, which is how managers tend to view their work (Zaleznik, 1997). The success of the operation was due to Sullenberger’s enabling of processes, specifically working with people and the delegation of tasks to subordinates, the protocol for transfer of control with the first officer and the cabin crew. This was a manager’s action, not a leadership one. The oversight and continuation of the evacuation checklist after the landing speaks to management as well, in that it was a specific set of tasks to …show more content…
To relate it to a personal story, I can go back to my days training customer service representatives, a role assumed in order to keep enough adequately trained co-workers and avoid excessive overtime rather than a genuine desire to do the job. When given a set of three new hires simultaneously, I had to figure out how to effectively get three distinct personality types on board with a common goal. This is not easy to do when everyone has their own agenda. After a month of trying to train people to execute tasks a specific way and being met with the answer “but I like doing it the other way”, I had to think in a different context. After once again asking a trainee to demonstrate doing certain tasks my way, I decided to ask why things need to be done that certain way, I received a perfectly logical answer in the context of the operations of the business. It was at this point I decided to ask her if she ever heard anyone criticize my work the way they criticized theirs. When she said “no”, I responded that the real goal accomplished with doing things my way was “not having to hear any of that”, things clicked. In another week, the trainee worked well enough to be left unsupervised. It became the new training mantra, “We do it like this because we don’t want to hear it.” Managers are concerned with the performance of tasks and survival, but leaders make emotional pleas to