Excellent advice Eckhard. Thanks.
Below is a summary from the introduction to the Command Prep document from the Royal Aeronautical Society:
Be considerate to all who you deal with in your daily operational life, like flight dispatchers, engineers, traffic officers and all the others who are involved with your departure.
Be particularly considerate towards your flight crew. This includes the cabin staff. Bring them all into your decision making process.
Do not let command go to your head. It takes a lot of people to get you into the air with a load of passengers or freight to deliver to your destination of the day. All must be treated as you would expect them to treat you.
If you have any doubts or misgivings, maybe even only feelings of discomfort about a situation or a technical condition, then you should always ask for clarification. A handy aphorism is ‘Pause for Thought' because the bottom line of your command is Safety. Insist that any given explanation is on 'your wavelength', not techno-babble and, where you are departing with 'deferred defects', that both pilots understand all the resulting ramifications and limitations.
Remember that the Minimum Equipment List (MEL) is, at best, a guidance document to be used in the decision making process. It is not to be taken as an excuse to keep going regardless of any misgivings, particularly when operating from the aircraft’s main operational and maintenance base from which aircraft should be dispatched with a clean technical log and no carried forward defects.
You may/will be dealing with enormous weights and trim dimensions and a competent grasp of the fundamentals is essential. So if your dispatch is complicated by icing conditions, late/missing baggage or cargo, catering or special passenger needs, there will be a compelling pressure from outside to get you away. However, for you the Commander, the over-arching 'safety first’ intent must prevail, to keep you where you are until you are satisfied it is safe to go.
You are but one, though very important cog in the operation of an aircraft, on whose shoulders rests the ultimate safety of the flight; so deal with people around you with the respect that their disciplines deserve but gently keep an eye open for potential errors. They are only human. This means that you must cross-check what is offered to you for signature, be it a technical log or the load sheet. Gross error checks must become part of your modus operandi as a fall back to ensure that errors will not kill you, so develop your skills in doing them.
Shy away from turning into a bully, especially if you move to training, instructing and examining.
Maintain a calm, balanced, constructive approach and do the job with neither fear nor favour.
Always stand firm but remain fair.
Remember to take good care of your team, for at the end of the day, you are a team leader that others look to for advice, guidance and their Safety. Let that be your primary thought at all times.
ENJOY your flying and fly PROFESSIONALLY, appreciate your crew and every day of your precious command.