#265: Leadership lessons from 35,000 feet

The unwritten, but widely known, middle seat courtesy

Traveling over 2 million miles in the air gives me credibility on travel courtesy. However, it doesn’t give me the right to be an ass about it.

Here is the short story, I lost it when the guy on the aisle threw an elbow into my wife’s ribs while she was sitting in the middle seat. In my defense, she won’t fly on the window side, so although I offered to switch, this was her choice.

Before take-off, the passenger on the aisle was mansplaying. We all know the term, throwing open the legs and taking every inch of space that wasn’t his. My first reaction was to ask him to give my wife the armrest and a bit more room. For those who don’t travel, the middle seat passenger gets both armrests. It is an unwritten rule and one that must be adhered to salvage any decency. But unfortunately, he ignored my suggestion and went spread eagle, causing my wife to jump. And so did I. I came dangerously close to getting tossed off the plane, but the flight attendant solved the problem by moving the ******* to a different seat.

Leadership lesson learned

Why is this in a business blog? Because we run into people trying to protect their territory everywhere. We all have aggressive team members that we can’t lose our cool over. But we also need to know how to handle these situations as leaders. Moving the person to another aisle seat, not knowing who was in the wrong, just fixing the problem first was a good leadership example. The goal of that flight attendant was to get the plane moving on time and to get us all to the destination.

This story’s moral is not to jeopardize the goal if it isn’t necessary. Separate the problems and deal with the truth later. It only becomes an issue when one of these folks does it repeatedly.

Many of you may say that the ends do not justify the means. I know several of my previous clients that want to deal with every small insurgency as they happen. If you, as a leader, deal with every issue with discipline, it may damage your reputation. If you see every problem as a nail, with you being the hammer, that wears thin on a team. The flight attendant could have thrown both of us off the plane. They would have had to hold up the entire flight to get our luggage out, and there would have been a mutiny by the rest of the passengers.

Pick your battles

Too often, we are met with battles to win, lose, or draw. Unfortunately, leadership may sacrifice a hill to win the war. That is what the flight attendant did in this situation. Each of us can be a leader at any given point in time. When you are faced with decisions like this, keep in mind what the vision and goal of the team is. Weigh the pros and cons of your decision, and act decisively.

Personal Lessons?

The offender learned what middle seat courtesy is.

What did I learn?

I will take the middle seat from now on when traveling with my wife.

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