Managing a flight department is a task equally as challenging as any confronted by other executives within a company. It involves dealing with talented people, each of whom might have his or her own thoughts about how best to run the show. The dollar investment in equipment is large, and the responsibility is significantly larger. By providing safe, secure and efficient transportation of a firm’s most important assets–its employees–the flight department as a whole is a key component in achieving a company’s strategic and tactical objectives. No question about it: flight department managers have a big job.
Accomplishing that job successfully requires teamwork. Being a one-person dynamo is not the best way to run any operation, least of all something as sophisticated and important as a company’s flight department. Creating a team, and leading it, is the best approach. Teams, not individuals, win ball games. Many times we see losing teams richly staffed by individual superstars who fail to act as a coordinated unit. Everyone on a winning team is a winner, but there are no winners on a losing team. The role of the successful flight department manager is to create and lead a winning team. Even the individual who is a company’s only pilot needs to think about the many people who either directly or indirectly participate in the successful completion of his or her flight.
