Developing Effective Leadership Skills
By Capt. Bill Couette, ALPA Vice President–Administration/Secretary
One of ALPA’s most important annual events is its Leadership Training Conference, which gives your newly elected local council officers an opportunity to learn about their roles and responsibilities as well as the many resources and services our Association offers. This training is provided just prior to March 1 of each year, when the latest round of local council reps takes office. We prepare these leaders to effectively represent their members before airline management, the Association, and the traveling public. The duties they perform are extensive and critical to the success of our union.
Your pilot reps must have a fundamental understanding of how to manage your council’s paperwork and budget, be able to represent members at disciplinary hearings, have a working knowledge of your pilot group’s contract, and play a role in contract negotiations and enforcement. They need to be able to conduct meetings, understand the laws and regulations that govern labor unions, and know how to access ALPA’s many resources that are available to help them achieve their goals.
At this year’s conference, attendees learned that it’s important to routinely communicate what’s happening with their pilot group to keep members educated and informed. And they learned that being a pilot leader means representing members at all times.
For many of these frontline leaders, their duties don’t stop at the local level. Council and seniority block status reps are also members of their respective master executive councils, overseeing activities at their pilot groups. In addition, status reps serve as members of ALPA’s Board of Directors, the union’s highest governing body, which makes ALPA-wide policy decisions and conducts strategic planning to set a course for the Association and to advance the piloting profession.
We make sure that during the four days of training your pilot reps have a chance to network with their peers. As a former local council officer, I remember my first Leadership Training Conference and how important it was to make these contacts. Having conversations and bouncing ideas off a fellow officer, who may have previous experience with an issue a pilot rep is confronting, is an excellent learning opportunity and can prove to be a tremendous resource.
The nuts and bolts of the job and networking opportunities are important components of the training, but ALPA takes local council officer preparation one step further. As the event’s name suggests, the primary skill we focus on is leadership. As pilot reps and leaders, we must be able to inspire and motivate fellow members to actively participate in our union. And accomplishing this task is no small feat.
The Association’s leaders must persuade ALPA pilots to take ownership of and play an active role in our union. In one of the segments I present, I talk about how member ideas work their way through the Association to become policy. Our system of representative democracy encourages our more than 61,000 members to openly share their thoughts and communicate their ideas, but this system only works if pilots participate.
Throughout the training, we emphasize the importance of constructive discussion and consensus building as essential tools for decision-making, and the need for open, two-way communication. We talk about what it means to be an effective ALPA leader and conducting the Association’s business with honor, integrity, and full disclosure, and to strive to be what I call a “pilot statesman.”
A local council rep holds an important position within ALPA. Whether talking with pilots in a crew room or management in a conference room, these elected leaders are the face of our union, and it’s crucial that they be fully prepared for whatever they may encounter. The Leadership Training Conference is one of the many resources that ALPA provides to give pilots the foundation they need to best represent their fellow pilots and the Association.
Congratulations to the Class of 2019. I know that with the knowledge these local council reps have gained, they’re ready to successfully represent ALPA members and the Association.
