Power dynamics

I was reminded of this in a recent Reddit post from a student pilot who asked what to do about a situation at her flight school. Her CFI had asked her on a date. She turned him down. End of story? Of course not.

Now it’s awkward between them, and that awkwardness is having an impact on her training progress. She’d love to switch instructors, but her flight school is struggling with its current load of students and there aren’t too many options. She might end up having to leave the flight school.

The flight student was wondering whether she should report this CFI to his manager. (She should, but that’s another discussion for another time.)

But while the thread was raging as to whether she should or should not, it occurred to me that that’s beside the point. The flight school needs to step on this kind of behavior as part of its duty to educate new flight instructors about what is and what’s not acceptable in a professional workplace setting.

Here are three key considerations outlined in an article from Monster.com.

Does the relationship pose a conflict of interest with either party’s fiduciary duty as a professional? In other words, if you put your personal feelings before your business relationship, will it introduce a conflict of interest between those feelings and your duty to the company’s success?

Is there a power differential where the dating could be considered a coercive, quid-pro-quo relationship? Here is the crux of the problem with the student pilot and the CFI. The student is the client—but the flight instructor holds the power cards because he is literally keeping her safe while she is training with him. “Differences in status or income can put you or the other person in a bad position, and make it difficult to execute business decisions without undue influence,” the article says.

Will the dating relationship reflect poorly upon the company or any associated stakeholder groups? You know this: Aviation is a small community. If it gets out that your flight school’s CFIs are hitting on clients—and it will—that will absolutely reflect poorly upon your business. Not only will you lose potential clients, but also potential flight instructor new hires at a time when flight instructor staffing is critical. They won’t want to work for you.

This policy has to go both ways—in other words, clients should not be trying to date their instructors while the student-instructor relationship is ongoing. You need to protect your flight instructors too.

I’ve confined this discussion to flight instructor-client relationships. You also have to take into consideration how you want to handle workplace dating among your flight instructors. That’s a much broader discussion that has to take into account your state’s employment laws.

Consider this just another in a long list of things a new CFI—who may be fresh out of college—needs to have spelled out for him or her. It’ll save you and your flight instructors headaches and heartaches down the road.