Tough Leadership Decisions

The recent unfortunate circumstances at Newark’s Liberty Airport this past week were a bit frightening. So many things could’ve gone deadly wrong.  We wonder how it exactly got this bad when in 2024 alone, 49 million passengers were served by Newark’s air operations. Their mayor Ras Baraka was also in the news because he was detained on May 13th at a newly built ICE Detention center.

These are interesting times indeed, but even so, there are valuable lessons to learn from the unfortunate turn of events at Newark. A quick recap, Newark’s Liberty International Airport had the highest number of flight cancellations on May, 14th, 2025. A sharp decrease in workers and outages plague the airport. Onsite there were a mere three air traffic controllers when 14 is the standard. Blackouts in communications between the air traffic controllers and the in air pilots could have been catastrophic.

All of this chaos may sound sudden, but it’s not. It is just the compounding effect of not addressing issues across the FAA for years and years.  Though good news is on the horizon, there are more practical and proactive ways to handle aging infrastructure, budget constraints, and overall safety. Here are a couple of key takeaways we can incorporate into our risk management tough leadership style that can help us avoid a turbulent landing by way of Newark’s Liberty International’s recent woes.

Firstly, in business there will be ambiguous situations you must navigate. When problems such as delays, cancellations, or operational inefficiencies emerge, as leaders, we must act quickly and decisively and consider all the people that may be impacted..

We should never wait for a crisis to worsen. Acknowledge issues early, and communicate, take visible steps to mitigate them. If you lose the trust of the people you lead, you will not be a Leader for long. 

Quality over quantity. Reducing the number of flights was a strategic decision to improve service reliability, even if it meant temporarily scaling back. Whether you lead a company,a department or a team, Sometimes less is more, and it’s one way to do things better. Know when to reduce workloads or scale back operations to maintain quality, avoid burnout, and preserve long-term value, and the company’s brand.

The FAA and airline companies are working together on solutions, recognizing shared responsibility which is the way to go. Effective leadership involves partnering with stakeholders—employees, partners, regulators—early and often. Collaboration over confrontation gets results.

Many pundits have called out the aging systems as a contributing factor of the delays experienced at Liberty. Addressing infrastructure now avoids compounded problems later. In business, systems require continuous investment. Leaders should prioritize infrastructure and tools that support future scalability.

Leaders must own problems, communicate clearly, and show accountability. Silence or spin damages credibility. The decisions made should be based on data or the facts as we like to say. Strong leadership means making hard decisions. Weighing short-term sacrifices against long-term benefits is key. Leaders must be okay w/ upsetting the applecart like scaling back flights at Liberty. It takes courage to act in favor of what is best even if it is unpopular.

When things go wrong everyone is pointing the finger at someone else. When things go right everyone wants to take the credit for it. Strong memorable Leaders will find themselves on both sides of the fence. Every decision is not going to be popular, but they are necessary. The great thing is history has a way of remembering the successful outcomes. With every decision make sure you are on the right side of history.