Nils, as Commander of the Patrouille Suisse, you have more than just a surveillance function. What are the signs of good leadership for you?

Transparency and honesty with each other are really the key points, I would say spontaneously. I want to have my ideas coordinated with the team, and this calls for an open communication culture, which we are cultivating. I am also coaching, organizing and helping to relieve the team members of as much work as possible so that they can concentrate more on flying. I just have to take on a slightly different task.

It is important to let go in a team – members should have room for development, they should all contribute their own personality in a special way. We are a team of individuals. That’s why it is important to me that they can develop and participate with their ideas, which are then always discussed with the entire team.

So, you are not the type to run ahead with the flag, leading in a Command & Control style, but you create optimal conditions for the team, so that each individual and the team as a whole can get involved as best as possible and develop its potential?

This is important. I don't want to overload them with too many details. All the time, there are a lot of smaller issues and arrangements and so on that I don’t usually address with them. If I have the feeling that I have to inform the team about something, I often don't even write a long winding email, but simply send a note “for info” with a smiley. Then they can look at it and see: “Oh, there's something there.” They should concentrate on flying, especially the leader. I'll keep as much paperwork away from them as possible.

That sounds like a service attitude towards the team. I think this is impressive, because I am convinced that a service attitude in leadership can make a huge difference – by providing the best possible conditions so that the team is able to perform.

Ultimately, it's about delivering a perfect show at a certain place at a certain time – that's the goal we all have. Whether we succeed in doing so or not depends on various factors, including terrain, weather, etc. They have to perform there, I can only support them in an advisory capacity.

You mentioned that different influences determine the performance – the environment, weather conditions, and so on. This is actually fairly similar to companies, where there are environmental influences, markets and the like. In your point of view, how important are the relationships between each other?

The relationship is of course a very important item for us, because we don't choose people according to the qualifications that are listed on paper. We only select our people by saying who we want on the team. This goes for the pilots and also for the commander: They choose the commander. And that seems to me to be something that is not very widespread in the private industry, that the subordinates choose who their boss should be.

And that is something important, which is also part of the whole structure to make it work. To us, flying competence or know-how as a pilot is not so relevant because we have well-trained people – they know how to fly, they know how to participate in a formation flight. These are all people clearly in the upper third of the Gaussian curve. But we do not only want those who have had the best qualifications at some point, in pilot training or as flight instructor. Individuals who do not fit in with our team will simply not be part of the team.

That’s exciting! This means that the personal and cultural fit with the team comes above the fit in terms of competence?

Yes. They all have specialist expertise, which is why we don't rate it quite that highly.

Competences no longer seem to play the greatest role when employing people. And this now seems to be a different trend in business as well. Read my next blog to find out Nils Hämmerli’s observations on this topic and why it matters for companies.