Challenging Authority in Aviation Safety

Richard Rierson: Dose of Leadership Richard Rierson has over 30 years of real-world, practical leadership experience as a United States Marine Corps officer, professional aviator, and corporate executive. His philosophy is that our leadership challenges should be met with the lifelong dedication and pursuit of becoming composed, confident, consistent, courageous, and compassionate. In addition to being a sought after speaker, coach, and consultant, he is the host of the Dose of Leadership podcast. He's also a commercial airline pilot, currently flying as a first officer on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. In this conversation, Richard and I explore how professional aviation emerged from the accidents of the 1970’s to improve challenging authority inside the cockpit. We discuss the principles of crew resource management (CRM) and how more structure and intention between crew members vastly reduced the number of aviation accidents. We examine what leaders can do to use similar principles to support appropriately challenging authority inside their organizations. Key Points Almost every accident is a chain of events. The key is to have self awareness in the chain and to interrupt it. Making the invitation to challenge before the work begins makes it far more likely that another party will speak up when they see something. Pilots use green, yellow, and red as simple and immediate indicator to others in the cockpit how much stress they are holding. Three steps are use to pilots to escalate challenging a more senior pilot: ask a question, make a suggestion, take control i.e. “my aircraft.” Resources Mentioned Sully with Tom Hanks The Crash of Flight 401, and the Lessons for Your Company by Dave Yarin The Evolution of Airline Crew Resource Management by Jean Dennis Marcellin Related Episodes The Way to Turn Followers Into Leaders, with David Marquet (episode 241) How to Deal with Opponents and Adversaries, with Peter Block (episode 328) How to Talk to People Who Have Power, with Jordan Harbinger (episode 343) How to Use Power Responsibly, with Vanessa Bohns (episode 551) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic.