Career Coaching the “Take This Job and Shove It” Flight Attendant

How do you career coach someone who’s suddenly riding tabloid fame for walking off the job—and doing so in spectacular “take this job and shove it” fashion?

Steven Slater’s workplace meltdown might have gone unnoticed had it happened in a cubicle in a remote office park. Instead, Slater, a JetBlue flight attendant who says he was pushed to the breaking point by a rude passenger, let loose a profane farewell on an aircraft PA system, grabbed two beers from a beverage cart and jumped from the plane by deploying an emergency exit chute.

One blogger called Slater the greatest airline cult hero since D.B. Cooper.

A writer in New York magazine sympathized with Slater’s frustration, saying “it’s amazing you don’t read stories like this more frequently. You’d assume that, just as passengers periodically go berserk, so would flight attendants…prediction: This guy becomes some sort of folk hero.”

So how do you coach a client who works, essentially, a customer service gig, who’s suddenly become a “folk hero” for telling off his customers?

“I think good can come from any experience,” said Stephen Ross, a leadership coach in San Diego. “This is going to be a restarting point for Mr. Slater and that can be a great thing.”

Slater has suggested his true love is flying, and he’d like to return to his old job. At the same time, he’s reportedly hired a publicist who says “there’s a lot of stuff that’s coming in through e-mail, phones, faxes, camels, every which way you can. Books, endorsements, hosting reality shows, speaking engagements, personal appearances.”

According to one report, Slater’s been offered a job as the host of a reality show that would feature other disgruntled workers quitting their jobs in extravagant ways.

“This experience is going to demand that he take stock and evaluate what he has learned, what he is passionate about and how to use the events that have transpired to take the next step,” said Ross. “It’s sure to be a bumpy ride but those tend to be the most powerful for growth.”

Like Ross, executive coach Elene Cafasso says the first priority for a coach working with a client like Steven Slater—with his initial fifteen minutes of fame still in full effect—is not to weigh book deals, but to process how he ended up in the media spotlight in the first place.

“Well, it’s a pretty safe assumption that this guy did not get this angry over just one incident. My bet is that this was just the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Cafasso, whose coaching company, Enerpace, is based in Chicago. “(Slater) probably needs to be heard and get his side of the story out fully so he can move forward. I’d also coach him to name the values of his that were trampled on by the passenger’s behavior. For someone to get that furious, some core values of his must have been really disrespected.”

Cafasso says once those issues have been sorted, she’d coach Slater through the process that’s already underway in the media: Is he a hero? A criminal? A little bit of both?

“In coaching, we define perspective as a “way of being” in a situation,” said Cafasso. “Here he could be the victim, a poster-child, a super hero, an unemployed person or many other choices. Each perspective has its own gifts and costs. I’d invite him to choose the one that was most powerful for him at this time.”

That process would involve brainstorming Slater’s next steps. Does he want to embrace the spotlight and build on it? Or find a way to gracefully withdraw and return to the job he’s professed to love?

Since the episode on flight 1052, JetBlue’s been clear with its employees that deploying an escape chute is as dangerous as firing a handgun. Slater’s job as a flight attendant is anything but secure, and he may face criminal charges.

Australian coach Robert Watson says Slater—flush with attention and talk show invitations—might need a bit of reality check coaching with regard to his career as a flight attendant.

“I would begin by stating that he will never return to a customer-facing role—his behavior was ‘inexcusable and severe’—so I would explore options for him to be moved elsewhere,” said Watson. “In fact, if he (had) an excellent record, I would probably consider moving him into a ground-based training role,” if Slater’s airline experience was solid enough to justify a transition to training.

“In other words, I wouldn’t coach him back into his steward role, I would train him into another role where he could continue to be a valued employee,” said Watson. “The ‘coach’ in me would ensure that his transition into this new role was smooth and that his self-esteem was maintained (as far as is possible).”

Finding that silver lining in Slater’s turbulent skies could come in many forms, with the help of a good coach—one who honors the roots of the meltdown and then evaluates the opportunity in the aftermath.

“Could the flight attendant leverage this in a good way? I believe the answer is definitely yes. And it’s going to be a big challenge for him,” said Stephen Ross. “I’d use the metaphor of a forest fire. Devastating when it first occurs but necessary to the regeneration process and the ecosystem. People experience this too—although not usually (in a fashion) as dramatic and public as Mr. Slater did. Without knowing him personally, nor ever having a direct conversation with him, I would suspect he is at a major crossroads that needs some decisionmaking, resolution and action. It showed up in a stressful environment versus pro-actively directed by him.”

Cafasso says his most important step in the right direction would be taking any step that serves his ultimate goals. “We’d talk through how to create what he wants. What does he need in terms of support, resources, people, training, etc.? What does he already have? What are the first 3 steps? Or perhaps, what’s just one baby step that can get him in action? I believe in using the laws of physics – namely, a body in motion stays in motion! And a baby step counts!”