Leadership lessons from Southwest Airline's emergency landing

In this week's post I look in depth at the social media conversations that took place after last week's Southwest Airlines incident, when debris from an engine malfunction broke a cabin window and caused the plane to depressurize.

Twitter can sometimes blow up for all the wrong reasons, but this time I was impressed by the awareness it raised. In particular, last week Twitter provided two valuable leadership takeaways for me.

Make the message more engaging

Twitter users quickly noticed that most of the passengers had their masks on wrong even though the safety announcement at the beginning of each flight clearly states to cover your nose and mouth with the mask. What went wrong?

Wearing your mask incorrectly could have actually been fatal for these passengers as the cabin depressurised at 30,000 ft. and instantaneously limited the availability of oxygen. In fact, according to AirSpaceMag.com passengers and crew of a flight would have much less than five minutes of useful consciousness without the masks.

It is clear that safety policies and procedures are in place in Southwest and other airlines and that flight attendants do their job in terms of delivering the safety announcement at the start of the flight. But something is wrong if one of the most important parts of that message - how to use the mask - is not being followed.

So the question Twitter users asked is a valid one, why weren't passengers using their masks correctly?

Was the message not engaging enough? Too routine? Did flight attendants ensure passengers were watching and listening?

In this regard, after the incident a CNN report calls flight attendant's pre-flight announcements to a "robotic mantra that nobody pays attention to". From experience, I would agree. Imagine a classroom where a teacher delivers a lesson to a room full of students who are looking out the window, resting with their eyes closed, or listening to music on their devices. That pretty much resembles airplanes these days while the safety announcement is being made.

But who is at fault? Can airlines deliver the message in a more effective way?

Some airlines are in fact trying.

Qatar Airlines for example uses the Barcelona soccer team and Messi to deliver it's safety message in a creative way.

Virgin America's safety message resembles an episode of High School Musical.

American Airlines also modernised their safety message last year, even though they received criticism recently for basically ripping off Air France's creative prop-based stylised approach but without the bilingualism.

I will admit I have a harder time looking away when these videos come on, than when a flight attendant is demonstrating, but videos are still not the same as hands-on practice and experience.

I remember when we took a cruise a couple years ago that before we set sail, everyone on board reported to the deck together for the mandatory muster drill where we put on lifejackets. Is there a way to have sample masks without delaying take off or presenting hygiene issues?

So while Twitter did acknowledge passenger's roles in taking their own safety seriously the louder message was that airlines can still do more.

Did design oversight put passengers at risk?

The other significant suggestion from Twitter was to change the design and make them more intuitive to use.

During a crisis like this, even simple instructions are hard to remember. If the mask that dropped down had the shape of every other mask we buy and use for the same purpose, like humidifiers for example, it would make using it correctly more intuitive.

Hindsight is 20/20 thought, and do the airlines see this advice that same way? While it is a great and logical idea, are airlines prepared to make the investment and change all the masks? I think they should, as this incident proves it could save lives. You won't find a more authentic research experiment.

My leadership take aways

Firstly, it is one thing to simply tell someone something and be done with your responsibility, and another thing to ensure they are engaging with your message and that they actually do understand or develop the appropriate skills. Secondly, an innovators mindset is an important part of life in the 21st Century. The world is continuously evolving, and at an arguably quicker pace each day. We often fall into complacency about things we see every day. In order to keep up, we have to develop the ability to reflect, analyse and keep asking how we can do things better, especially as leaders, and especially if it means others could benefit from our creativity, collaboration, problems-solving and ingenuity.

A few final thoughts

After learning more about the cabin pressure in order to write this post, I think that the safety message could spend a little more time educating passengers about what depressurisation is and the science behind it, such as that insufficient oxygen levels could result in hypoxia. Educating passengers, not just entertaining them, would give passengers some valuable new vocabulary to Google and help them take the announcement more seriously.

I also think flight attendants should help passengers take the message more seriously by being more insistent that passengers stop doing other things during the message. I know this is hard, but so is teaching. Add a set scripted message like "Your attention please, this is important information for your own safety. If something happens to the plane following the instructions may save your life". Then walk around and make in compliant passengers feel guilty, especially if the message is being delivered during video.

To the passengers who took out their cell phone and videotaped the incident, the world thinks you are crazy... but the world should also thank you for documenting and allowing us all to learn these valuable lessons from you. Taking selfies at a moment like this, wow, brave. I would have had my head in my lap in brace position praying for my life. You definitely took documenting learning to another level that's for sure.

Unfortunately, this story doesn't have a completely happy ending as one passenger, Jennifer Riordan, did not survive. However, I recommend you still take a look at the heroic layer of this story which involved the well trained professionals in the air who brought SouthWest's crippled airplane down safely.

Hats off to the pilot Tammy Jo Shults and the rest of her crew who demonstrated skill at their craft and excellence in leadership, in particular by remaining incredibly calm in the face of absolute crisis. Inspirational.