Capt. Scott Kelly: Tips on Becoming a Fearless Leader

Capt. Scott Kelly truly has the ultimate resume. You can’t imagine anyone topping what he has accomplished anytime soon — a record-setting amount of time spent in space, the single longest mission of an American astronaut and commander of the International Space Station, commander of space shuttles Discovery and Expedition. He also served in U.S. Navy as an aviator and test pilot, earning the rank of captain. It was in the Navy where he did what most pilots say is the most dangerous of flying tasks — landing a speeding fighter jet on the deck of an aircraft carrier bobbing in the ocean.

Kelly’s time spent in the military, as well as with NASA, have shaped an inspiring yet humble American leader. By his own admission he was an unmotivated student who confronted his shortcomings, launching an amazing life and career. He is undoubtedly one of the country’s most fearless leaders, putting to test man’s ability to spend extended periods in space and endure long periods of isolation from other humans.

Capt. Scott Kelly

Channel Futures had an opportunity to interview Capt. Kelly to discuss his views on leadership, being fearless, taking risks and other insight that will help channel leaders become better at what they do. He plans to share a life’s worth of lessons during his keynote at the next Channel Partners Conference & Expo and MSP Summit, May 1-4, at the Venetian Resort Las Vegas. We will run additional excerpts from our interview in the coming weeks. Since the theme of the May event is “Elevate: Your Time to Shine,” we thought Kelly would have the perfect message to complement the topic. If you are interested in seeing Capt. Kelly along with meeting peers and technology providers, register here today.

Channel Futures: During your record-breaking year in space, you had time to reflect on your leadership skills as well as your evolution as a leader. What did you learn that might help others who are established leaders or up-and-comers? 

Capt. Scott Kelly: I’ve had a lot of leadership opportunities starting from when I was in high school as the captain of the swim team and as a fighter pilot, but it wasn’t until I got to NASA that I really had the opportunity to practice leadership in a much more serious way as commander of the space shuttle, then later on three different occasions on the international space station. But I never really gave leadership much thought. As I was doing it, it’s not something I thought about. How am I going to lead this group? How do I make decisions? It wasn’t until I left NASA that I really had the opportunity to reflect on it. Leadership, and how we operate and make decisions, is somewhat situationally dependent.  

Sometimes you’re in space and there’s a fire. That’s the time for the commander to be the dictator. You know, you can’t run outside and call the fire department. You have to deal with the problem. You have to deal with it right now. And that’s the time for an authoritarian style of leader. But that’s very, very rare that that’s happened. As a matter of fact, in my experience, I never really had to do that in space, even though we did have a little fire at one point in a science experiment. As you can imagine, fire in space is bad. 

You know, often I would recognize that some people I was flying with are  more of an expert on something than I was, and I would defer to them. “Hey you, you decide. You tell us what to do, you make the decision. You’re the expert.” You know, sometimes we would vote on things. 

Certainly, as the commander of the crew, I would get people’s opinions and try to make the right decision. Leadership, though, is about …