Breakthrough: What Cabin Crew Can Teach You About Leadership, Teamwork and Customer Contact

With a friendly, engaging and authentic voice, Thomas Gelmi shares insights that will make a difference for any business owner, or leader. Being part of a cabin crew is a crucible for customer service and Thomas shares the humor, the mess and the messages of his experience in a very fun way.

Knowing Thomas as a trusted business coach I read his book “Breakthrough" with special interest.On the management and leadership development market there are many great resources available, that is why I was curious to see whether he is sharing an approach or concept that is less well known among leadership experts.What I really like about this book is the practical approach. I am constantly looking for inspirational resources I can share with leaders without providing extensive context. If I would mention one thing from the book that illustrates its simplicity this could be the following sentence describing the relationship between leaders and employees: “Respectful and appreciative interaction as well as open, transparent communication are absolutely essential if both parties want to benefit from each other.” It tells a lot with only a few words and definitely helps us coaches and consultants starting some important conversations.

Thomas Gelmi has distilled and perfectly blended the leadership lessons gained from nearly a decade as a highly successful executive coach with his customer and team focused work as Maître de Cabine leading flight crews for Swissair. His refreshing and attention grabbing writing style will appeal to any leader who has ever flown for business. If you are looking to take your leadership to a higher level or if you are looking to become a more "coachlike" leader, this work provides a wealth of practical and immediately applicable experiments, and proven techniques.

I grabbed on my last work trip and I LOVED it. I especially liked the applicable models about self-awareness and the lovely analogy of pre-check-in and the entire streamline of the experience of air staff leadership and experiencing breakthroughs in life and business. The several icebergs -simple illustration and effective analogies are effective. A must-read.