Leading High Performance Organisations
Overview
This unit explores the challenges of leading and managing aviation organizations to a high level of performance, where this is measured not only in commercial terms, but also reliability and safety. It draws on the management disciplines of Organizational Behaviour and Leadership as they apply on the flight deck, in air traffic control, maintenance, and across airline operations, combining this with the research into more aviation specific areas such as Human Factors, Safety, Resilience, Systems Engineering, and High Reliability Organizations. The unit examines how leaders can generate a healthy culture, team working, systems, processes, and controls along all these dimensions.
Requisites
02-November-2025
Learning outcomes
Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:
- Identify high performance in its proper organizational and aviation industry context
- Describe the competing priorities that arise from considerations of efficiency, quality, reliability, safety, resilience, adaptability, and innovation as they apply in an aviation context
- Explain the fundamental dilemma captured in the contrast between reliability and resilience, conformance and responsiveness
- Critically analyse the main features of Normal Accident Theory (NAT), High Reliability Organizations (HRO), Resilience Engineering (RE), and Systems Theory (STS) as implemented across aviation
- Demonstrate which method, NAT, HRO, RE, or STS, is most appropriate for different areas within an organization or type of aviation sector
- Identify the principles that drive a high performing organizational culture for both reliability and resilience, safety and innovation
Teaching methods
Hawthorn
| Type | Hours per week | Number of weeks | Total (number of hours) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online Contact (Phasing out) Online Learning Activities | 4.00 | 12 weeks | 48 |
| Unspecified Learning Activities (Phasing out) Independent Learning | 8.50 | 12 weeks | 102 |
| TOTAL | 150 |
Assessment
| Type | Task | Weighting | ULO's |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assignment 1 | Individual | 25% | 1,2,3,6 |
| Assignment 2 | Individual | 35% | 3,4,6 |
| Assignment 3 | Individual | 40% | 4,5,6 |
Content
- Defining high performance properly in an aviation context
- Striving for control, predictability, reliability - human input as a source of error
- Taking it to extremes, the zero-tolerance debate in safety and the harm it creates
- Resilience, adaptability, innovation - human input as a source of success
- The fundamental dilemma - reliability OR resilience, why these clash. The limitations of current thinking in Human Factors, technology, and automation
- Managing complexity, is it possible? NAT versus HRO approaches
- Finding solutions - RE and STS as the way forward
- Applying the theories appropriately to different aviation sectors
- Organisational design for high performance
- Building the right organisational culture
- Dealing with reality - leadership as overcoming obstacles to high performance
Study resources
Reading materials
A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.