What They Don't Tell You About Leadership | Mandy Hickson RAF Top Gun Pilot Interview

Most business leaders only get taught how to lead after they've been promoted. Mandy Hickson learned it the opposite way round, and it might explain why the military still builds better leaders than most companies do.

Mandy broke through as one of the first women flying fast jets for the RAF, at a time when women weren't permitted in the cockpit at all. She flew combat missions over Iraq, dodged a live missile mid-air, and was mid-Atlantic refuelling a jet when 9/11 shut down an entire continent. She's since built a 15-year speaking career and has addressed more than 100,000 schoolchildren.

On this episode of the ActionCOACH podcast, Mandy explains why the military never makes a lateral hire, and what that forces them to get right about growing leaders from the ground up.

What You'll Learn:

- Control The Controllables: The mantra that carried Mandy through 9/11, diverted mid-Atlantic, and how focusing only on what's within your control frees up capacity to make decisions under pressure.

- Why Nobody Gets A Lateral Hire In The Military: The armed forces train leaders from day one instead of recruiting them ready-made, with real implications for retention and performance.

- The DODAR Decision Model: The five-step framework fighter pilots use to make life-or-death calls in seconds - diagnose, options, decide, assign, review - and how it applies to a business crisis.

- Real Psychological Safety: Why a junior team member needs to feel safe enough to say "I'm stopping" mid-mission, and how that culture gets built before the pressure hits.

- Resilience Is Built Through Failure: Mandy breaks down the catch-22 of wanting resilient people while punishing failure, and why military debriefing turns mistakes into growth.

- Find Your Dot Dot Dot: The exercise Mandy uses to identify exactly what's stopping you from taking the next opportunity, in business or in life.

- The Power Of Not Yet: The two-word reframe that changed how Mandy approached writing her book, and how it can shift your brain out of "I can't."

Action Steps:

If You Haven't Started: Write down your "dot dot dot" - the thing stopping you from taking your next opportunity - and identify one action that removes it this week.

If You're Already Leading A Team: Stop defaulting to lateral hires. Build a leadership path for people before they're promoted. Use DODAR in your next crisis meeting by asking what the problem actually is before deciding what to do.

For Everyone: Define your North Star, then test new opportunities against it before you say yes.

Whether you're building a business, leading a team, or finding the courage to take your next opportunity, Mandy's story proves the timing you're waiting for arrives, as long as you've done the work first. Subscribe for weekly conversations that help you grow your business.

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