Lee de Winton, Chair, Forum on Western Sydney Airport presented at our event recently. The topic for this event was ‘Leadership in a Complex Environment’.
Lee spoke about her personal journey managing crisis and situations and people throughout her career within the military.
Whilst in the military, Lee served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan in Management Air Traffic Control and Aviation Safety related roles, leading not only an entire Base in Afghanistan but whilst in Iraq, commencement of the establishment of a new airspace and civilian aviation structure. Roles where strategic, multinational stakeholder engagement was essential to develop and implement significant changes and ensure correct change-management to embed the new strategies into each organisation.
Key learnings
- Always ensure physical and psychological safety. You are living where you are working. Staff/officers need time out. Recognise morale, military team/unit, mental health affects performance
- Calm and precision in a crisis. Efficient training and skills enable the reproduction of high standards/practises even under pressure
- Prepare your team to be questioned over and over again. Especially when safety incident occur. This will allow them to speak on the subject confidently even long after the actual event
- You need to work with what you have, good leaders will accept that and bring the best out in people. You don’t always inherit an experienced team. You need to learn to trust team members
- Take responsibility for our actions and learn from mistakes
- Ensure camaraderie and true sense of team. United front
- Clear succinct communication at all times – there are many sources of truth and information across any organization, work with it and make decisions. Don’t avoid tough conversations, it’s the only way to make things better.
- Keep messaging simple
- Goal setting early and planning is imperative.
- Expect the unexpected
- Engage stakeholders earlier on connect, repeat message over and over
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