Trust Your Wings: A Leadership Lesson at 150 Feet

Thirty seconds earlier, I had been on solid ground.

Now I was cresting the treetops—about 150 feet up, moving at 60 miles per hour, climbing toward 5,000 feet. And then it landed with clarity: I was truly on my own. No instructor in the back seat. No one to take the controls. Just me.

It wasn’t my first solo flight, but it was the first time the full weight of responsibility cut through my concentration. I had been focused, in flow, doing what I had been trained to do—until my body reacted before my thinking mind could catch up. A surge of adrenaline. A flash of doubt. A brief urge to reach out on the radio and ask for reassurance.

But I already knew what I would be told.

Fly the glider.
Do what you’ve been trained to do.

So I did.

I slowed my breathing—box breathing, steady and deliberate. I recommitted to the task at hand. I focused on formation flying on tow, letting attention return to what was real and immediate rather than what might go wrong. As my focus sharpened, calm followed.

At release altitude, I trimmed the glider forward and turned into the wind. I leveled the wings and took three deep breaths with my hands off the stick, cooling them in the vent air. The glider continued on—steady, smooth, content to fly.

That was the moment I felt it: trust.

Not just trust in the wings, but trust in myself.

This is a moment every leader encounters at some point—the solitude of responsibility. The realization that no one else can fly this mission for you. The instant commitment of takeoff, where you are fully in, and there is no clean way back to the runway.

In leadership, as in flight, preparation only carries you so far. There comes a moment when guidance, mentoring, and reassurance fall away, and what remains is your capacity to stay present and act from what you’ve built.

Your training.
Your focus.
Your ability to regulate yourself under pressure.
Your process.
Your judgment.

And ultimately, your trust in yourself.

Many leaders I work with are highly capable, thoughtful, and well-prepared. What unsettles them is not a lack of skill, but the quiet moment when they realize the responsibility is now theirs alone. New roles, visible decisions, irreversible commitments—these experiences can trigger the same physiological responses I felt in that glider: adrenaline, doubt, a desire to hand the controls back to someone else.

Coaching, at its best, doesn’t remove that moment. It helps leaders meet it.

The work is not about eliminating uncertainty or becoming fearless. It’s about learning how to return to focus when doubt arises, how to regulate the nervous system under pressure, and how to trust what you’ve already built—so that when the moment comes, you don’t freeze or overreach.

You fly.

This is the work I do with leaders: helping them build trust in their own wings, long before they’re needed. So when responsibility becomes solitary, they are ready—not just to stay aloft, but to lead with steadiness, presence, and confidence.