Every Leader Needs To Hear The True Story Of Captain Charlie Plumb
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You probably have no idea who Captain Charlie Plumb is. But his story serves an extremely powerful lesson in leadership. Charlie grew up as a farm kid from Kansas and like many kids at the time he day-dreamed about airplanes but never thought he would have the opportunity to fly one. The United States Navy turned that around.
After Charlie graduated from the Naval Academy and completed his flight training, he reported to the Miramar Naval Air Station which is based in San Diego. It’s there where he was among the first pilots to fly in The Navy Fighter Weapons School, currently known as “TOP GUN.”
The following year Plumb’s squadron known as the Aardvarks were stationed on the Aircraft Carrier USS Kitty Hawk with Fighter Squadron 114. They were given the opportunity to fly the Navy’s coolest and hottest new airplane, the F-4 Phantom Jet.
Captain Plumb flew 74 successful missions over North Vietnam but on his 75th mission, just 5 days before the end of his tour, disaster struck. He was shot down over Hanoi where he taken prisoner and tortured. He spent 2,103 days in North Vietnamese Prisoner War Camps where his first cell was 8 ft x 8 ft.
Eventually he was rescued and flew a few more years before retiring. This is where something really interesting happened that he never forgot…and neither will you.
One day he and his wife were sitting at a restaurant and a man from another table came over and said, “You’re Plumb!” You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”
“How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb.
“I packed your parachute,” the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!”
Plumb assured him, “It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”
That night plumb couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking about that man. Plumb says, “I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat, a bib in the back and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said ‘Good morning, how are you?’ or anything, because, you see, I was a fighter pilot, and he was just a sailor.”
As a leader you should be asking yourself, “who is packing my parachute?”
Remember that everyone on your team helps contribute to the overall objectives and goals, regardless of how small those contributions might seem or feel. Sometimes this might feel like “invisible work,” but when something goes wrong, that work ends up saving the day.
Just like a pilot who has to trust that their parachute was packed correctly, you too must foster an environment of trust and psychological safety amongst your team. This means not just trusting those around you but making sure that members on your team feel same to come forward with ideas, challenges, mistakes, and opportunities.
The more senior you become inside of your organization the more tendency there is to distance yourself from the ground floor…that is, the employees who are actually doing the day-to-day aspects of work.
Never forget who helped you get to where you are. Trust the people you work with. And acknowledge and value the contributions of your team.
Who is packing your parachute?
If you’re a Chief Human Resources or Chief People Officer, then you can request to join a brand new community I put together called Future Of Work Leaders which focuses on the future of work and employee experience. Join leaders from Tractor Supply, Johnson & Johnson, Lego, Dow, Northrop Grumman and many others. We come together virtually each month and once a year in-person to tackle big themes that go beyond traditional HR.
