Recently there was some discussion about leadership/followership skills.
I am writing to to update you about a FAA project that Dr. Maureen
Pettitt and myself were working on to identify trainable L/F skills used
in CRM and to develop training guidelines and curriculum for skills
development.
Identification of L/F skills and development of a model was done
utilizing subject matter experts and focus groups. They represented
line captains and first officers from a number of major and regional air
carriers. Six skills common to both leaders and followers were
identified (envisioning, modeling, receptiveness, influence,
adaptability, and initiative) in the context of the operational
environment. It is the implementation of the skills by leaders and
followers that is different, not the skills themselves. For example,
the manner in which a captain influences a first officer is considerably
different than the manner a first officer chooses to influence a captain
-- yet both influence.
The model was then validated on over 1,000 legs of flight during the
course of safety line-audits at two major air carriers. The LOS/LINE
checklist, developed by NASA/UT, and appended with six behavioral
markers for the L/F skills was used by the trained observers.
The results of the validation study were presented at the recent OSU
Symposium on Aviation Psychology. There was a high correlation between
some of the skills and over-all crew effectiveness. For example, when
observed in the captain, there was a .81 correlation between adapability
and over-all crew effectiveness. The lowest correlation with crew
effectiveness was initiative (.30), when observed in the first officer.
The FAA Office of Human Factors is currently reproducing the training
guidelines. The guidelines is background information for those
developing training programs. Individuals interested in obtaining a
copy should write to:
FAA
AAR-100, Office of the Chief Scientist for Human Factors
800 Independence Ave SW
Wash DC 20591
Individuals interested in obtaining a copy of the paper presented at OSU
should email me at, dunlap_at_wmich.edu with their mailing address.
Susan Mangold (Battelle) and myself will begin development of a
curriculum for L/F skills development soon.
Joe Dunlap
Director, School of Aviation Sciences
Western Michigan University