Leadership Lessons from Flight 1549: Sullenberger is More than a Pilot

Today our world celebrates the successful ditch of US Airways 1549, and appropriately lauds her crew and their Captain, Chesley Sullenberger, as heroic.  But Sullenberger showed more than brilliance as a pilot in the emergency landing, double checking the cabin for survivors, issuing clear, calm guidance to frazzled passengers, and speaking to investigators and the media with quiet humility.  He showed character.  As we celebrate, it’s also important that we reflect on the development that produces such leaders of character.

The media was quick to cite Sullenberger’s skill training as a glider pilot and his honor in receiving the Outstanding Cadet in Airmanship award at the Air Force Academy, but there is an incredibly important back story here that leader developers can’t afford to miss.  The Air Force Academy runs a course each summer where second year cadets are taught to solo gliders and to make several freefall parachute jumps on their own, with instruction by upper class cadets.  The course, Airmanship 490, is not a mere military skills training course, but  instead derives from the character development program at the academy (after all, teaching pilots to parachute as a skill seems akin to teaching race car drivers to change flat tires).  The link between dangerous training and the development of leaders of character is at the core of in extremis leadership, and they “get it” at Air Force.

Likewise, the sport parachute team at West Point is viewed as a leader development lab, rather than merely an adventure sports team.  In the six years from 1999 to 2005, the tiny team (only 12 parachutists per class) produced four of the Academy’s pinnacle cadet commanders—the class First Captain—as well as two Rhode Scholars and much of the Corps senior leadership.

Captain Sullenberger mastered the outward focus that allowed him to make tough decisions about landing the aircraft, without getting emotionally balled up with the almost unimaginable responsibility attached to his passengers and other crew members.  Such outward focus and self-confidence is honed in people who are put in dangerous contexts—land the glider, pull the ripcord, or inherit the Earth.  His selfless concern for others is likewise derived from hyper focus on the environment, an environment which of course includes passengers and other followers.

The Air Force Academy is picking apart this miracle of development with good behavioral science.  Professors Steve Samuels and Craig Foster do psychological research on the airmanship course, showing which facets of that course produce statistically significant and lasting gains in psychological self-efficacy (confidence in the ability to handle tasks).  Their work, and the work of others, has convinced the prestigious academic journals Military Psychology and The Leadership Quarterly to produce special issues on leading in dangerous contexts.

The best in our Army “get it,” too.  When I was the artillery coordinator for the 101^st Airborne Division in the mid 90s, the operations and training officer (G3) for the division insisted that I help redesign a benign rifle range so that machine gun fire and artillery shells would land danger-close to infantrymen who would be advancing and firing their weapons among each other as well.  I’m ashamed to admit that I was less than energetic at completing this task; I viewed the procedures required for the range as reasonable for actual combat but perhaps a bit aggressive for peacetime training, and I was concerned about accidents.  The G3 insisted that the value of the range was not merely weapons training, but the immense pressure on the weapons crews and the very real danger that would be faced by the assaulting soldiers.  He was firm that with reasonable safeguards the range would significantly improve the tactical ability of the troops and the combat leadership of their commanders, and he wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.  Thanks to his tenacity, the vision eventually came true.  Range 52 was a great success and subsequently trained thousands of competent, confident, courageous infantrymen.  The G3, as the patient but inflexible architect, demonstrated the moral courage to put his own career at calculated risk to produce the finest infantry soldiers possible. This prescient leader was then-Lieutenant Colonel David Petraeus.  His highly successful “surge” strategy in Iraq was, of course, risky as well, and on a grander scale.

Sully demonstrated those hallmarks of the in extremis leader—extraordinary competence, outward focus, selfless concern for followers—by greasing an Airbus 320 onto a couple hundred feet of Hudson River and shepherding his passengers to safety.  In the process, he showed as much about his character as a leader as he did about his tremendous skill as a pilot.