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The value and investment in technical training is not up for debate in aviation. We plan for it, budget for it and protect it because safety regulations demand it. That discipline is ingrained, and it should be.
Professional growth, however, does not always receive the same structure, budget or focus. In many business aviation organizations, people-focused training relies on good intentions and limited time rather than formal planning.
Under the pressure of daily operations, strategic people efforts—leadership development, hiring practices, cultural health and succession planning—can slip into reaction mode.
Often, it takes a meaningful event to bring those priorities into sharper focus - a resignation, a retirement, a medical leave or a new aircraft delivery that suddenly moves up.
That is typically when the questions surface. Do we have the right people in the right roles? Who is ready to step up if someone leaves? Are team members prepared to lead, or are we simply filling vacancies?
After a decade working alongside Part 91 organizations, certain people-related patterns have emerged:
• Leadership responsibilities are expanding faster than leadership capability.
• Expectations around work and culture are evolving.
• Replacing experience often takes longer and costs more than anticipated.
These realities do not reflect a lack of care. More often, they reflect how easily people strategy can be pushed aside by deadlines and competing demands.
Viewed through a risk-management lens, people decisions take on new weight. Leadership depth, engagement, succession readiness and the ability to surface concerns shape how resilient an operation truly is, long before those factors show up in metrics or incidents.
The three workforce risks that follow highlight where aviation teams may be most exposed in 2026 and where a more deliberate focus on people can strengthen readiness, resilience and safety.
What keeps talent engaged now
For years, compensation tended to rank first when bizav candidates were asked what mattered most. Schedule predictability, location and professional growth were often secondary considerations.
In 2026 and the years to come, that order is changing.
In a majority of our recruiting conversations today, people place greater emphasis on predictable schedules, work-life balance and where they live. Many also want the opportunity to grow into roles with more responsibility, including leadership.
Pay still matters, but it may no longer be the primary driver of long-term engagement. Candidates are increasingly clear that compensation alone does not offset chronic stress, poor communication or cultures where concerns are dismissed or ignored.
There is far less tolerance for unhealthy environments. In discussions about workplace culture, I often ask whether people would stay in a toxic environment for more money. The answer is almost always no.
This shift in priorities reflects lived experience more and the needs of younger generations. Unpredictability, unclear expectations and sustained strain take a toll, even in well-compensated roles.
Gallup research reinforces this pattern. Declines in employee engagement across industries are tied less to pay dissatisfaction and more to clarity, communication and feeling valued. Organizations that rely primarily on compensation may struggle to address what actually sustains commitment.
In a tighter employee market, experienced professionals often have more options and greater leverage. Decisions increasingly factor in schedule stability, long-term sustainability and quality of life alongside compensation—a dynamic becoming more visible as airline hiring accelerates heading into 2026.
An underdeveloped leadership bench
In bizav, the path to leadership is often about tenure and technical credibility. The most experienced pilot or technician often moves into management. What has changed is the scope of what leadership now requires.
Middle managers may be expected to lead people, manage schedules and budgets and influence team culture, often while still carrying significant technical responsibilities. Senior leaders must operate at a broader enterprise level, navigating corporate relationships, representing aviation across the organization, demonstrating strong financial acumen, and aligning strategy with overall business priorities to drive sustainable results.
Those expectations often expand without matching preparation, authority or support.
The risk is rarely a lack of talent. More often, leadership capability remains concentrated in too few individuals, while others are asked to lead without sufficient exposure, mentorship or development.
Many professionals never receive structured opportunities to build people-focused skills beyond flying or maintaining an aircraft. Communication, feedback, conflict management and trust-building tend to develop through experience and practice, not promotion alone. These are also the first areas deferred when budgets tighten or unplanned trips disrupt schedules.
When leadership development is inconsistent, informal leaders often fill the gaps. Succession planning becomes reactive. Leaders exit before vital relationship are established and context and influence are fully transferred.
Over time, thin leadership benches increase fragility. Transitions become disruptive. Decisions slow. Trust erodes quietly, weakening continuity and resilience without obvious warning signs.
The safety risk you don't see on a dashboard
Many flight departments look strong on paper. Training is current, procedures are followed and flights run smoothly. From the outside, the operation appears safe and well managed.
Culture, however, is shaped less by what is documented and more by what people experience day to day.
Over time, employees form quiet conclusions about whether their input is welcome, whether concerns are acted on and whether speaking up carries risk. Those judgments influence engagement, trust and how openly people share information, especially under pressure.
In environments where clarity is limited or communication feels one-directional, silence and assumption can begin to replace dialogue. Someone raises a concern and feels dismissed. Another waits for a better moment that never comes. Gradually, feedback shifts out of formal channels, even as commitment to the work remains strong.
This is not a lack of professionalism or care. More often, it is self-protection.
Psychological safety sits at the center of this dynamic. When people feel respected and safe asking questions, challenging assumptions or admitting uncertainty, teams learn and adapt together. When that safety erodes, judgment becomes individualized rather than shared.
As schedules tighten and operational pressure persists, trust can be harder to build and easier to lose. Leaders may believe alignment exists because nothing is being raised, when in reality caution has replaced candor.
An operation can be accident-free and still carry risk from a people perspective.
When experienced professionals stop speaking up, learning slows. Insight becomes siloed. Early signals such as fatigue, friction, confusion or concern may never reach the surface. Over time, that quiet absence of dialogue can narrow safety margins in ways no checklist or dashboard is designed to detect.
No system is designed to catch this kind of erosion early. And yet its impact can be profound.
I've often said, "If you think of safety as a stew, culture is the broth in which the solid ingredients simmer. If the broth is rancid, the stew will be spoiled."
What leaders and middle managers can do now
Across all three risks, one conclusion stands out: people strategy is a leading indicator of operational and safety risk.
Forward-looking aviation teams are beginning to reassess long-held assumptions about leadership readiness, hiring criteria and development timing. That often includes separating technical excellence from leadership capability and developing people earlier rather than reactively.
Modernizing hiring and development practices does not mean lowering standards. It means applying them more precisely. Skills-based experience, judgment and the ability to operate across functions matter alongside credentials.
If you plan to promote from within, starting earlier can reduce transition risk. If leaders are expected to carry broader responsibility, intentional preparation supports better outcomes. If retention is a priority, roles and environments may need to reflect how professionals actually live and work.
In aviation, safety remains the top priority. That makes workforce decisions—hiring, leadership development, cultural focus and succession planning—not just staffing choices, but risk-management decisions.
Organizations that apply the same discipline to people strategy as they do to training, fleet planning and compliance are better positioned to protect safety margins, manage transitions and sustain performance in 2026 and beyond.