Helicopter Supervisors
Greetings from the press room at NBAA. It is the third day of the show, and it has been an exciting one. And talk about big — NBAA announced that as of yesterday, the two-day attendance total was 32,104. That beats last year’s three day total by almost 11 percent, and surpasses the previous record attendance of 31,665 for the 1998 show.
There was plenty of buzz on the show floor and at the press conferences. I am excited about the expanded show coverage AMTonline.com has been able to provide thanks to our online editor-in-chief Tom Smith and the interactive team of AMTonline.com. They have done a great job covering the news from the show. If you weren’t able to attend the show, be sure to browse the special show coverage on our website.
Yesterday, Mary Matalin and James Carville entertained a room full of NBAA attendees speaking about this year’s mid-term election and what it means for the country. I was looking forward to listening to these polar opposites speak, and they didn’t let me down. Carville threw a jab at his wife telling the crowd “You’ve heard of helicopter moms — the ones that hover over their kids all the time? Well, Mary is an adhesive mom — she sticks right to them all the time.”
It got me thinking about management types. Unfortunately there are helicopter supervisors in aviation, and even some adhesive ones. You probably know of a few such people. Some would call them micro-managers. They are the ones that have to be involved in everything. By micro-managing, helicopter supervisors give employees the message that they don’t trust them.
Helicopter supervisors are an obstacle to production. Their excessive meddling can lead to decreased morale on the shop floor. All the time spent hovering over employees takes time away from what the supervisor should really be doing — leading.
Helicopter supervisors should back off. Whether they hover due to insecurity or the need to control, they should learn to lead the team, not hover all around them. By doing that, they can build a cohesive team that is armed with the tools they need to succeed.
So, do you know any helicopter supervisors?
Thanks for reading. I should probably to go back to the show floor now before my publisher starts hovering over me.
Joe Escobar
Thanks for the generic slam of Supervisors. Isn’t it the responsibility of the Supervisor to ensure the product coming out of his shop is a good one? Yes I hate micro managers also, but you paint the entire management group with a negative brush.
Jim,
I did not slam all managers, only those that could be seen as overbearing, micro-managing “helicopter supervisors.” Yes, ensuring that the end product coming out of the shop is top-notch is an important role of a supervisor. But if a supervisor spends his or her time micro-managing and not delegating properly or trusting his employees to make the decisions they should be making, the productivity and morale of the shop declines.
And ensuring optimum productivity is another important role of the supervisor.
Thanks for your feedback!
Joe Escobar
Hi Jim,
I’ve worked in the industry long enough to know that there are some supervisors who are fully capable of uplifting the morale of the guys who work for them and still maintain good product quality, but those are very few. Your article on “Helicopter Supervisors” has the name of our present leadman written all over it. It is often said that anyone can be a manager but it take a special person to be an effective leader and that fact is lived out before us everyday. What’s difficult to understand is how a person can complain about his boss being a micro-managing, meddling, insecure, control freak and when he himself is promoted to supervisor, only a few months later, becomes instantly inflicted with with the worst case of amnesia I’ve ever seen and becomes the same guy he used to hate. Joe, I have never met or spoken to you and yet every word you used to describe the “Helicopter Supervisor” was dead on with what we are experiencing. This leads me to believe that such supervisors are not random. Our hope is that he realizes that employee morale is important before some really good technicians walk out the door.