Delta Air Lines
has tried to stress the balance between being humble and being a leader.
To gain further
insights on that, the carrier went straight to seven-time world champion Tom
Brady for its latest video episode of ‘Gaining Altitude.’
Brady sat down for
a conversation with Delta CEO Ed Bastian and said the following.
ON LOOKING FORWARD: "You are given this experience, and you pay it forward to the next generation."
ON PLAYING FOR NEW
ENGLAND AND BOSTON: "When they adopt you here, it means a lot because they don’t
allow people in."
ON HIS ORIGINS OF
WORKING WITH DELTA: "We flew Delta for all those years. We chartered Delta. We
loved Delta and we loved the Delta experience."
ON HIS CHILDREN
AND WHERE LIFE HAS TAKEN HIM NOW: "To me, my greatest joy is being a parent. …
We all have our journey from where we started and where we ultimately want to
get to. That journey wasn’t easy and it was so much better that it wasn’t easy.
For me, it was about a lot of perseverance, a lot of discipline and a lot of
support … Nothing in life is linear. There’s going to be a lot of segues and a
lot of different paths. … My life is richer not because of the championships,
but because of the friends. … I’ve never met a finer group of men than the guys
I got to play with."
ON LEADERSHIP: "You
can’t be a leader and mail it in. You gotta put in the work. … If YOU don’t get
the job done right – like we talk about safety being the first priority. You
have people that are endlessly going to check the planes, the maintenance
people, the pilots, they’re trying to make it a world-class experience but
there’s an accountability. No one can just check the box. … If you want every
flight to go right, you have to treat it like it’s the one and only."
ON HIS MANTRA FOR
HIMSELF AND HIS TEAMMATES: "Do your job."
ON MAKING WORK A
REFUGE: "Hopefully in all our workplaces there is a place where you go that you
feel insulated from the rest of the world."
ON WORKING WITH
DELTA: "There have been so many incredible experiences. … The one thing that I
see is the incredible amount of pride and ownership that people take in the
company. They all feel like they are part of the team. … This organization that
I was a part of -- I see that in Delta. … Delta solve problems better than
anybody else."
ON THE BIGGEST
LESSONS LEARNED SO FAR FROM THE DELTA TEAM: "Communication. It’s consistent, it’s
current, it’s in the moment. It’s one thing to have 53 players on the field and
another 50 in the front office and coaching staff and it’s quite another to
have 95,000 to 100,000 people on the team. … If you bring low energy and low
enthusiasm to your role, it’s very hard to inspire people. And it doesn’t
matter whether you’re the CEO or your handling luggage you’ve got to do it in
the best possible way, because everybody has a huge role to fill."
You can watch the full
interview
here.
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