Leadership Lessons from the Cockpit
Faking it vs Persistence
Published Guide updated 2 min 48 sec
Learning to fly means tracking height, power, speed, trim, flap, attitude, traffic and the tower at once. Sharon says “fake it till you make it” is the wrong method for a skill that has to become muscle memory. Persistence, repetition and patience are what make it click.
Executive Summary
Key Takeaways
- Some skills punish performed confidence.
- Repetition is how a new skill leaves conscious effort.
- Rehearsing the circuit, or the equivalent in your own work, is part of the practice.
- The tipping point comes after many repetitions, not after one confident attempt.
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Edited Transcript
Flying is hard, and landing is harder. Sharon lists what has to be tracked at once: height, power, speed, the trim wheel, the flap setting, nose attitude, the horizon, other aircraft, and what the tower is saying while she is talking. It is easy, in the middle of that, to decide you are not good at it and never will be.
She allows that “fake it till you make it” is useful in some parts of life. Learning a new skill is the opposite case. If you want to be genuinely good, the skill has to become muscle memory. She walks circuits on the ground in the morning, flying them in her head, because the sooner she does not have to think about each step, the sooner it clicks. Performing confidence in the cockpit would be a recipe for a bad outcome.
The same rule applies to a sport, a tool, a new technology, or a system at work. Be patient and do it again until it is in the body. Nobody gets fit from one visit to the gym. After enough repetitions there is a tipping point, and what was effort becomes intuitive. If you actually want to learn it, keep going.
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