Leading High Performance Organisations
Overview
This unit examines what it takes to lead high-performing aviation organisations in complex and safety-critical environments. Students explore how leaders balance commercial performance with reliability, safety, resilience, adaptability, and innovation across areas such as flight deck operations, air traffic control, maintenance, and airline operations. Drawing on organisational behaviour, leadership, human factors, resilience engineering, systems thinking, and high reliability organisations, students consider how effective leaders shape culture, teamwork, systems, and processes to support safe, reliable, and adaptive performance.
Requisites
01-November-2026
31-October-2027
Unit learning outcomes
Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:
- Evaluate high performance in the context of aviation industry organisations
- Analyse competing priorities among efficiency, quality, reliability, safety, resilience, adaptability, and innovation as they apply in aviation contexts
- Critique tensions between reliability and resilience, and between conformance and responsiveness
- Critically compare the application of Normal Accident Theory (NAT), High Reliability Organisations (HRO), Resilience Engineering (RE), and Socio-Technical Systems (STS) as implemented across aviation contexts
- Select and justify appropriate applications of NAT, HRO, RE, or STS across various aviation sectors and organisational areas
- Synthesise principles that promote a high-performing organisational culture while balancing reliability, safety, resilience, adaptability, and innovation
Teaching methods
All Applicable Locations
| Type | Hours per week | Number of weeks | Total (number of hours) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online Learning Activities |
3.00 | 12 weeks | 36 |
| Live Online Class |
1.00 | 12 weeks | 12 |
| Unspecified Activities Independent Learning |
8.50 | 12 weeks | 102 |
| TOTAL | 150 |
Assessment
| Type | Task | Weighting | ULO's |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online Assignment | Individual | 15 - 25% | 1,2,3 |
| Written Assignment | Individual | 35 - 45% | 3,4,6 |
| Written Assignment | Individual | 35 - 45% | 4,5,6 |
Hurdle
To pass this unit and meet all Unit Learning Outcomes to a minimum standard, a student must:
(i) complete all assignments; and
(ii) achieve an aggregate mark of 50% or higher.
Students who do not meet hurdle requirements will receive a maximum of 45% for the unit.
Content
- Defining high performance in aviation organisations
- Control, predictability, reliability: human input as a source of error
- The zero-tolerance debate in safety and the harm it creates
- Resilience, adaptability, innovation: human input as a source of success
- The fundamental dilemma: reliability vs. resilience, and why these clash
- Limitations of current thinking in human factors, technology, and automation
- Managing complexity: Normal Accident Theory and High Reliability Organisation perspectives
- Finding solutions: Resilience Engineering and Socio-Technical Systems approaches to organisational performance
- Selecting appropriate theoretical approaches for different applications
- Organisational design for high performance
- Building the right organisational culture
- Leadership as overcoming obstacles to high performance
Study resources
Reading materials
A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.