Back in the Cro-Magnon Era, when I was a Boy Scout, I was chosen to attend something called Junior Leaders Training Camp. I don't remember learning much about leadership, but I came away knowing how to build a sturdy 20-foot tower out of trees we cut down and lashed together with rope. My clove hitch can still dazzle.
Much more valuable lessons on leadership are available from the many interviews we have conducted with members of the Space & Satellite Hall of Fame and our 20 Under 35 cohorts of future leaders. Leadership is a complicated subject, but they do a remarkable job of capturing the essentials in a few words.
Leadership is also of utmost importance to our industry – because investment and technology may be the fuel for its remarkable advance, but people are the engine. We have set ourselves some truly daunting goals, from filling the sky with satellites to turning earth observation into the biggest Big Data asset of all time and creating the first space economy in history. We will only achieve them by attracting, developing and retaining people who can learn to lead, whether it is a small test and measurement team or an entire company pioneering technologies that were science fiction twenty years ago.
Helping the industry do a better job of attracting, developing and retaining leadership talent is why SSPI exists.
In the Making Leaders videos and podcasts on our site, you can hear veteran and emerging leaders share what they have learned about leadership. Below, I have quoted from interviews with SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell, Surrey Satellite founder Martin Sweeting, Iridium CEO Matt Desch and OneWeb founder Greg Wyler. I also quote future leaders from our 20 Under 35 cohort, including Ryan Carlisle of SpaceX, Daniel Alvarez of Millennium Space and Mike Safyan of Planet. Read the quotes and see if you can figure out who said what. Then check how well you did by clicking on the arrow at the end of each quote.
"Failure is unavoidable and acceptable, but the most important thing to learn is to respond quickly and intelligently to that failure and make sure it doesn't happen again. I have designed hundreds of parts under tight schedule pressure, which means I had lots of opportunities to fail. Bringing people together to understand and respond to them is key, because the price for repeated failures in space and satellite is very high."
Show me who said thisRyan Carlisle Senior Manager, Launch Mechanical Systems, SpaceX 2018 Promise Award Recipient
"Satellites are easy. People are hard. And satellites don't build themselves, so you have to learn how to get the best out of people. At my company, we value not just the contribution my colleagues make, we value their sense of satisfaction. There's a famous quote saying that you can get anything done provided you don't mind who takes the credit. When things go well, you share the credit. When things don't go so well, you have to step up and take responsibility."
Show me who said thisSir Martin Sweeting Executive Chairman, Surrey Space Technology Ltd.
"It's really important to stay positive, especially when you are facing challenges. But it's also about directing people to do the work. If you have a standard process for addressing an issue, when you hit a crisis, it's really important to turn people to that process and start executing. Get people focused on analyzing and fixing as opposed to lamenting. When times are tough, people can lose heart, not in the business but in themselves. That's where staying positive makes the difference."
Show me who said thisGwynne Shotwell President & COO, SpaceX Space & Satellite Hall of Fame Member
"No mission is possible without a team. The health and productivity of the team has to take precedence. That means every decision that's made can't be within some absolute context of right and wrong, it has to be in the context of 'does this help or hurt the productivity of the team.' Early in my career, I was sometimes quick to elevate issues or find the fastest route to overcome an obstacle, but eventually I learned that if it comes at the expense of the team, it's not worth it." Show me who said thisDaniel Alvarez Space Mission Program Manager, Millennium Space Systems 2019 Promise Award Recipient
"To lead, people need to follow you. Power is elusive; it doesn't come with a title. You have to learn very early how to inspire people to do something hard and make them understand its importance and get behind it. Being tall and having a deep voice always helps."
Show me who said thisMatt Desch CEO, Iridium Communications Space & Satellite Hall of Fame Member
"A mentor once gave me three rules: show up, pay attention and don't panic. They sound deceptively simple but implementing them day to day, meeting to meeting, as part of a team and as a leader of that team, that's hard."
Show me who said thisMike Safyan VP of Launch, Planet 2018 Promise Award Recipient
"Be very humble. Because what you did yesterday doesn't matter for what you do tomorrow. Every single day, you have to do it: you have to come up with the idea, driving the idea and encouraging and supporting others to have ideas that go along with that mission. You need to be more interested in the mission than anything else."
Show me who said thisGreg Wyler Founder and Executive Chairman, OneWeb Space & Satellite Hall of Fame Member
