The Challenge of Self-Taught Pilots

Recent­ly, I talked with a CEO who, after build­ing a real­ly good com­pa­ny over decades, felt stuck about how to get to the next lev­el of growth. 

As he described the chal­lenges and tur­moil, I used this air­plane anal­o­gy to help him under­stand where he was: 

In many ways, founder CEOs are like self-taught pilots who have the desire and deter­mi­na­tion to learn how to fly. They start small and put the time and effort into learn­ing local­ly. They expand their ter­ri­to­ry and may fly nation­al­ly or inter­na­tion­al­ly, acquir­ing big­ger planes to go faster and high­er. They often run into intense storms. Despite a few bumps and pos­si­bly crash­es, they keep going until they get bet­ter and bet­ter. But it comes at a cost.

The CEO start­ed to smile and nod, say­ing that’s exact­ly how he felt. Although he con­tin­ued to learn and take cours­es — and he found his work thrilling and reward­ing — tur­bu­lent times were incred­i­bly stress­ful. And much of his team felt the same.

And, he was relieved to hear he’s not the only one up against this challenge. 

Flight Train­ing

The real­i­ty is that no mat­ter how much for­mal edu­ca­tion some­one has, there is very lit­tle train­ing on how to be an effec­tive CEO.

And that’s where my firm comes in. We spe­cial­ize in giv­ing self-taught, founder CEOs, or mem­bers of a fam­i­ly busi­ness, real-life flight train­ing to help them become expert pilots.

Three Major Skills

Effec­tive CEOs or senior lead­ers in busi­ness need the skills to:

• • Devel­op a real­ly good crew – a high­ly effec­tive team of A‑players
  • Estab­lish com­pe­tent air traf­fic con­trol – tools to clar­i­fy the right strat­e­gy to win and grow in the market
  • Read accu­rate instru­ments – data about direc­tion and per­for­mance, and if they are track­ing to their intend­ed destination.

A Con­tin­u­al Learn­ing Curve

At the end of our con­ver­sa­tion, he under­stood that he’s on the same learn­ing curve as every oth­er CEO to mas­ter skills like an amaz­ing pilot.

And that mas­tery is a life­long learn­ing expe­ri­ence to con­tin­u­al­ly improve his capa­bil­i­ty to build a big­ger and bet­ter business.

The Chal­lenge

To be an effec­tive CEO or leader, which spe­cif­ic skill do you need to become more masterful?

• To build incred­i­bly capa­ble teams
• To devel­op and imple­ment a clear and impact­ful strat­e­gy or
• To know the num­bers that help you to make smarter deci­sions, faster?

If you’d like to improve your pilot train­ing, call us. We’re here to help. And stay tuned for our upcom­ing book The 4 Forces of Growth that will take a deep dive into the mas­tery of CEO flight. 

Oth­er Blogs

• Knowl­edge is Pow­er. Does Your Learn­ing Match Your Aspirations?
• Learn to Love the Lessons
• True Pro­fes­sion­als Learn Like Amateurs

Old­er Podcasts

• The Most Impor­tant Num­ber that CEOs Rarely Measure
• Nine Books Every CEO Must Read