Great questions
Monday, December 04, 2006
I was having dinner with a friend the other night. He was talking about his son who is in the military. His son was up for an aircraft commander position and was in the middle of the examination process. He had been tested on the technical stuff and the procedural stuff. Now he was being tested for the leadership. "So, you're flying into a storm area to do a rescue of a boater in distress off the coast. You're down a man and "X" isn't functioning. It's starting to get dark," his examiner asked. "What would you do?"
My friend went on to describe a whole bunch of other scenarios his son was put into and asked about. There were issues of leadership, critical decision-making in time sensitive situations, situations where people's lives were at risk, situations of conflicting priorities. I was very interested to hear about the ways that this young man was asked to think and reflect, then act considering so many possibilities and constituencies.
He passed the exam.
My friend went on to describe a whole bunch of other scenarios his son was put into and asked about. There were issues of leadership, critical decision-making in time sensitive situations, situations where people's lives were at risk, situations of conflicting priorities. I was very interested to hear about the ways that this young man was asked to think and reflect, then act considering so many possibilities and constituencies.
He passed the exam.
