The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is considering raising the mandatory pilot retirement age from 65 to 67. Why? Well, if you have flown recently you may have noticed the plethora of canceled flights which the airlines have said is due in part by not having enough pilots to fly the planes.

The two years of an advanced age limit would eliminate the forced retirement of over 14,000 pilots over the next four years according to Senator Lindsey Graham, (R) South Carolina, who is sponsoring legislation raising the mandatory retirement age. Interestingly, the Airline Pilots Association (ALPA), the pilot’s union, has said it is opposed to any attempts to increase the retirement age, stating “doing so would only increase costs for airlines and introduce unnecessary risks to passengers and crew alike.”

Age should not be used as a barrier to future success. Skills are learned over time as we surely know in our meat and poultry industry and such skills are foundational to learning valuable leadership lessons. Just like the airline industry, our industry’s finest future hours will involve meat and poultry professional’s leadership steeped in a career of experiences and unbowed by an arbitrary age limit.

As an example, you may remember the January 2009, “Miracle on the Hudson” when the pilot of U S Air flight 1549 guided a crippled and doomed airbus to a successful ditching in New York’s Hudson river enabling all passengers and crew to escape unharmed. The pilot, Chesley Sullenberger (Sully) born Jan. 23, 1951, said at the time: "One way of looking at this might be that for 42 years, I've been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education and training. And on Jan. 15, 2009, the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal.”

For comparison purposes, I did some limited research on the ages of the leaders of some of the largest and successful US meat and poultry companies. The ten companies that I looked at had CEOs or Presidents ranging in age from a low of 45 (Smithfield) to a high of 72 (Wayne Farms/Continental Grain/Cargill née Sanderson Farms) with an average of 58.7, which is about the same age as Sully when he averted a potential disaster. BTW none of those companies had a female in the top position, but that’s another story and one on which I have opined in past blogs.

In my view, precursors to future success are the learned leadership skills that can be applied to a new challenges and imparted to today’s aspiring dragon slayers, if they will listen. As Sully suggests, leadership cannot be truly taught but must be practiced and nurtured over the years to be successfully learned.

Old tricks for new dogs? Maybe if the old dogs are not so steeped in the past they cannot translate past success methods into today’s lingo. It’s kind of like that old codger trying to dance the funky chicken when everyone else is bouncing to a rap rendition. He/She thinks they are topical, mouthing the words, playing an air guitar while “dancing.” The old codgers think they’re right in tune with today, but they aren’t. Successful leaders, however, do learn both the “funky chicken” and rap and use both to teach the up and comers. So, I ask you, how are your dancing skills?

As further evidence that experience is the crucible for learning leadership are the studies that have shown the average age of entrepreneurs successfully starting and building new companies is 45 not 22 ala Jobs, Zuckerberg or Bezos. (Sources: Forbes, “Does Age Matter For Entrepreneurial Success?” 4-16-2015 & Harvard Business Review, “Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder is 45,” July 11, 2018) To me, this suggests that successful managers who are a bit “longer in the tooth” have spent the time to learn success skills tempered by their failures.

Our meat and poultry industry has changed and will change further and faster in the coming years. These changes will be in part led by the successful and “older” leaders willing to teach newcomers. Potentially stifling those who are poised to impart such leadership skills are mandatory retirement ages. Does your company have such policies that could dampen the collective leadership wisdom gained from the learning crucible?

How old is too old?

Join for free* to continue reading.