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Navigating Turbulence with Confidence
Deciding and Communicating Under Pressure
How do you lead when pressure rises, information is incomplete, and decisions must be made quickly?
Demanding situations reveal how clearly a team communicates, how sound its decisions are, and how effectively its members truly work together. In these moments, leaders need to provide direction, take responsibility, and create an environment in which others can remain capable of action.
The compact program Navigating Turbulence with Confidence combines evidence-based leadership concepts with an exceptional practical experience: In a professional Airbus A320 flight simulator, you will experience directly how you make decisions, communicate, and interact with your team under pressure.
What You Will Gain
Clear Decisions When Information Is Incomplete
Complex situations can rarely be assessed in their entirety. Leaders must nevertheless make decisions, set priorities, and take responsibility.
You will explore models that help you analyze situations systematically, evaluate possible courses of action, and make sound decisions under time pressure.
The program also examines when standardized procedures provide essential safety, when adaptability is required, and how intuition can be combined with structured decision-making.
Effective Communication When Pressure Rises
Communication changes under stress. Information may be shortened, assumptions remain unspoken, and misunderstandings can have serious consequences.
You will train how to communicate clearly, systematically, and appropriately in dynamic situations. You will learn to recognize tension at an early stage, de-escalate difficult interactions, and ensure that essential information is understood throughout the team.
You will also reflect on how hierarchies, individual communication styles, and unspoken expectations influence collaboration.
Teams That Perform Under Pressure
Resilient teams are not created only when a crisis occurs. They are built on trust, clear roles, reliable communication, and psychological safety.
You will examine the characteristics of high reliability and high performance teams and explore the responsibility leaders have for developing them.
The program shows you how to create an environment in which team members take responsibility, raise critical observations, and collaborate constructively even under significant pressure.
What You Will Learn
After completing the program, you will be able to:
- assess complex situations systematically
- remain capable of action under time and decision-making pressure
- apply decision-making models to concrete leadership situations
- communicate clearly and effectively under pressure
- identify tensions and misunderstandings at an early stage
- manage conflicting objectives and hierarchies constructively
- foster trust and psychological safety within teams
- recognize the characteristics of resilient and high-performing teams
- reflect on your own leadership and communication patterns
- apply practical tools to strengthen your personal resilience
Experience Leadership in a Flight Simulator
How do you react when several challenges arise at the same time? Do you consistently follow standardized procedures, or do you rely more strongly on your intuition? Do you automatically take control within a team, or do you deliberately create space for other perspectives?
In a professional Airbus A320 flight simulator, these questions become tangible and observable.
Through realistic scenarios, you will experience how you process information, make decisions, and collaborate with others under pressure. No aviation experience is required. The focus is not on flying skills, but on leadership behavior within a complex system.
The simulator creates a learning environment in which the effects of communication, role allocation, stress, and decision-making become immediately visible.
From Experience to Leadership Development
Your experience in the flight simulator is analyzed through a video-supported debriefing. Together, you will examine which behaviors supported collaboration, where information was lost, and how decisions were reached.
This provides a differentiated view of your own leadership behavior. Reflection and feedback are based not on abstract self-assessments, but on specific situations and observable actions.
The insights gained are then transferred to your professional leadership context. This allows you to identify concrete ways to improve your communication, decision-making, and collaboration with teams.
Psychological Safety as a Leadership Responsibility
High-performing teams need people who can ask questions, express concerns, and point out risks – including when speaking to someone higher in the hierarchy.
Psychological safety does not mean avoiding conflict or reducing expectations. Instead, it creates the conditions in which relevant information can be shared, mistakes can be identified early, and different perspectives can be used productively.
During the program, you will reflect on how your own behavior as a leader influences what is discussed within a team and what remains unspoken. You will learn how to combine clarity and accountability with openness and trust.
Format: Part-time, three-day compact program
Dates: Thursday, November 26 – Saturday, November 28, 2026
Language of instruction: English
Venue: TU Wien and a professional Airbus A320 flight simulator
Participation fee: €3,200
Group size in the simulator: Six to seven participants
Trainers: Capt. Hans Härting
Certificate: Certificate issued by the TU Wien Academy
Registration deadline: October 15, 2026
- Because sound decisions need to be made even when time and information are limited.
- Because effective communication under pressure should not be left to chance.
- Because resilient teams require clear structures, trust, and psychological safety.
- Because you can experience your own leadership behavior directly in an exceptional and realistic learning environment.
- Because sustainable leadership development begins when theoretical knowledge is translated into concrete behavior.
The compact program is designed for leaders who wish to strengthen their decision-making, communication, and team leadership skills in complex and dynamic situations.
It is particularly suited to:
- managing directors and executives
- division, department, and team leaders
- project and program managers
- professionals responsible for complex projects and transformation processes
- leaders working in safety-critical or dynamic environments
- technical experts preparing to take on a leadership role
- decision-makers working under significant time and operational pressure
- professionals who wish to strengthen their personal resilience
The program is relevant across industries and is particularly valuable for technology-oriented, knowledge-intensive, and complex organizations.
The program combines evidence-based leadership concepts with guided reflection and intensive practical experience.
Theoretical input provides the foundations for decision-making, communication, team dynamics, high reliability, and psychological safety. Participants then apply these concepts in realistic scenarios.
Exercises in the professional flight simulator take place in small groups of six to seven participants. A video-supported debriefing enables a detailed analysis of individual and collective behavior.
The focus is on practical transfer: Experiences from the simulator are systematically linked to concrete challenges from the participants’ everyday leadership practice.
Lead Clearly When Every Decision Counts
Leadership under pressure cannot be learned through theory alone. It needs to be experienced, reflected upon, and deliberately developed.
In the compact program Navigating Turbulence with Confidence, you will discover how you actually act in complex situations, how your communication affects others, and what teams need to remain effective under pressure.