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Leadership Unlocked
Top Gun Pilots and Entrepreneurs Share This Skill
Insights shared by fast-jet pilots on how entrepreneurs can make better decisions (faster)
When I grew up, I dreamed of being a fast-jet pilot. So, when I went to a career fair at high school, I went straight to the Royal Air Force to apply to join. Unfortunately for me, due to my age at that instance, they told me to come back in a couple of years. Slightly deflated, I wandered over to the Army stand. The enthusiastic Captain manning the stand bombarded me with leaflets and opportunities. Hence, in one of those small but life-changing quirks of fate (or providence), I ended up in the army, not the air force. However, I still ended up being taught some of the pilot’s decision-making processes; as we shall see shortly.
Since leaving full-time military service I have worked in, and with, start-ups as well as being a creative and entrepreneur in my own right. And what I see is that there are some surprising similarities between the decision-making of fast-jet pilots and savvy entrepreneurs. As well as being highly driven and comfortable with risk, both must make a string of rapid choices as they manoeuvre in rapidly changing circumstances.
So, you may be at the helm of a computer rather than at the controls of a fighter jet, but I will share some lessons that will help you get ahead of the competition and set you up for better, quicker, decisions.
Be a Maverick
My love of fast jets did not die with my change of career direction. It lived on in another passion: movies. I might not have become a pilot, but I still loved films about flying. And which movie comes to mind first when you hear the words “fast jet pilot?” Probably the original Top Gun movie with Tom Cruise.
So, while we wait for the endlessly delayed Top Gun sequel (Top Gun: Maverick) to be released, how about some lessons from the real Top Gun school. Yes, it really exists!
If you have seen the first Top Gun (1986), you will remember the crazy (and cool) manoeuvre that Maverick (Tom Cruise) pulls off. He is trying to shake an enemy MiG plane that is tailing him. Maverick can’t outrun it so he does the…
