The Art of Hovering
By Dr. Trish Holliday
Helicopter Leadership: Learning and Using the Art of H.O.V.E.R.ing
Imagine the following scene. It is 5:00 p.m. on a Friday. You are in your car, and you are leaving the city to go home. As you pull onto one of the major arteries leading out of the city, you come to a complete stop. As you look to your right and left, all you see are more passengers in cars, also stopped. You look in front of you and all you see are the taillights of cars, and behind you see the headlights of cars. Nothing but cars as far as the eye can see. You have no idea where or what the problem is up ahead, nor how far back the line of traffic stretches.
Now imagine another scene. It is the same time as the previous scene, except now instead of being in a car stuck in the traffic, you are in a helicopter several hundred feet above the scene. From this vantage point you see things differently. You can see what is causing the problem, and how far back the impact of the problem extends. You can also see potential routes that will enable you to avoid the traffic jam.
Two very different views of the same scene. This is similar to what often happens to leaders in organizations. Leaders can become overly involved in the day-to-day processes of the organization, a very micro-approach to leadership. The problem with such a micro-approach to leadership is that it does not allow leaders to serve the organization as a visionary, capable of setting the direction for the future. This approach can limit a leader’s view of potential problems, hinder the ability to see the impact of problems and challenges, and blind them to possible solutions.
Leaders need to learn the art and skill of hovering. This skill enables leaders to interpret and apply information from both internal and external sources related to the operation of the organization to make contributions to the strategic plan. Hovering provides insight needed to correctly align the strategic plan to the organization’s needs; ensuring that the measures, information, and improvement systems complement each other across processes and business units, and to achieve the goals of the organization.
Hovering is a systemic way of looking at the organization. This systemic view understands that a system is a group of interacting, interrelated and interdependent components that form a complex and unified whole. Such thinking incorporates the idea that all parts of the system must be present for the system to carry out its purpose, with no one part being primary. Each part of the system has a purpose within the larger whole, and there is an optimal way to arrange a system’s parts to better carry out the purpose of the system.
Think of the parts of a clock. The face, arm, wheels and mainspring must all work together and are dependent on each other in order for the clock to keep accurate time. No one part is more important than the other, and it is the sum of the parts that make a clock a true clock.
As a leader, mastering the art of hovering provides many benefits, captured in the acronym H.O.V.E.R. By hovering and looking at the organization systemically, leaders are able to see the organization as a holistic entity, and see how all the parts fit together. Hovering enables a leader to think of opportunities that can be strategically implemented to further the mission and goals of the organization. Hovering allows one to consider the vision of the organization, and how leaders support that vision through the various roles and responsibilities one has in the organization. Hovering helps a leader see how the organization’s vision directs how the system is to work. Hovering helps leaders to see how the organization should evolve in order to meet the challenges of the future, and be successful in carrying out its mission and goals. This answers the question “How should the organization change, or evolve, to become more efficient and effective in carrying out the mission?” And hovering provides a view that enables leaders to respond to the challenges the organization faces, and to know how to respond to those changes.
Effective leadership requires that one learn the art of hovering. By doing so the leader is able to not get overly immersed in a micro-view of the organization, and instead by able to examine the organization systemically, and have a clearer vision for the future.