Program Overview
This advanced leadership program is tailored for professionals in the aerospace and defense sector, where complexity, precision, and mission-critical decision-making define success. Delivered by an industry veteran with 25+ years of experience, the course helps participants strengthen their leadership mindset, emotional intelligence, and adaptability while navigating high-risk environments and long-cycle programs. It blends personal mastery, strategic thinking, stakeholder influence, and crisis leadership with real-world aerospace examples. Participants will engage in simulations, scenario analysis, and self-assessments to build leadership credibility, accountability, and collaborative excellence across globally distributed, innovation-driven teams.
Features
- Build adaptive leadership capabilities for high-precision, high-stakes environments
- Strengthen emotional mastery, communication clarity, and cross-functional influence
- Lead mission-driven teams through crisis, uncertainty, and complexity
- Align personal leadership with long-term aerospace program goals and organizational vision
Target audiences
- Functional Leaders
- Senior Individual Contributors in Aerospace & Defense
- Program Managers
- Engineering Heads
Curriculum
- 7 Sections
- 32 Lessons
- 2 Days
- Leadership in the Aerospace Industry – Unique Demands5
- 1.1Leadership beyond title: behavior, credibility, and performance
- 1.2Why aerospace leadership = technical + emotional + situational mastery
- 1.3Navigating long lifecycles, safety margins, and geo-political pressures
- 1.4Leading in failure-critical environments: project derailment, regulatory audits
- 1.5Team Mapping: Identify leadership gaps in a simulated aerospace program team
- Building the Inner Core – Self-Awareness, Discipline, and Mental Fortitude4
- 2.1Physical vitality, emotional mastery, goal-setting clarity
- 2.2Managing stress, staying driven in long-cycle and uncertain missions
- 2.3Situational Awareness: Leaders who operate through crises (e.g., launch failures, aviation recalls)
- 2.4SWOT Activity: Personal capability and derailment risk assessment
- Language, Thought, and Behavior – Cognitive Tools for Influence5
- 3.1Mastering tone, clarity, body language, strategic storytelling
- 3.2Emotional control vs. authentic vulnerability
- 3.3Command presence, listening posture, linguistic alignment, framing bias
- 3.4How “wrong words” escalated an avoidable conflict in a mission-critical team
- 3.5Difficult Conversation Role Play: Handle an engineer’s repeated deadline failures
- Vision, Focus, and Milestone Thinking – Leading for Outcomes4
- 4.1Setting big goals, chunking complexity (Eat the Elephant), milestone tracking
- 4.2Focusing energy on controllables vs. distractions
- 4.3Lessons from long-lead aerospace programs (e.g., ISRO’s Chandrayaan, HAL programs)
- 4.4Goal Architecture: Build a high-stakes leadership roadmap using backward planning
- Adaptive Leadership in Complex Environments5
- 5.1Situational agility, reframing, adaptive decision-making
- 5.2Leadership during plant shutdowns, crashes, or geopolitical disruptions
- 5.3VUCA readiness, adaptive mindset, emotional range, cognitive reframing
- 5.4Role of adaptable leadership during the Boeing 737 Max grounding or HAL’s Tejas delivery delays
- 5.5Crisis Drill: Lead a team call after a technical snag halts manufacturing lines globally
- Ownership, Accountability & Performance Culture4
- Social Intelligence & Strategic Networks5
- 7.1Strategic networking across functions and geographies
- 7.2Collaborating with R&D, suppliers, regulators, and academic partners
- 7.3Avoiding leadership isolation
- 7.4Cognitive empathy, leadership amplification, influence without authority
- 7.5Network Influence Map: Identify critical nodes in your network to achieve mission velocity
Instructor
