Last month we all said goodbye to a truly great American hero; Neil Armstrong, who achieved “living legend” status for being the first human being to ever set foot on the moon.  Although Neil Armstrong gets credit for the first footprints on the Moon, his feat was the result of the efforts of tens of thousands of individuals that contributed time, energy and resources to the effort. The ability to accomplish this event launched thousands [...]

When I was a kid, my family faithfully watched the sitcom The Jeffersons.  The show (which spawned from All in the Family) explored much of what was happening culturally at the intersection of race relations in the United States.  We loved to watch the antics of the crazy character, George Jefferson, played by actor Sherman Hemsley. On July 24, 2012, Hemsley died of complications related to lung cancer. His death brought back a flood of [...]

Recently, CAAL was asked to address the Connecticut SBIR and Global Trade conference on the subjects of leadership and innovation. In the process of preparing our remarks I reviewed the 2012 IBM CEO Survey. Titled “Leading Through Connections”, IBM identifies a number of business imperatives that are upper most of CEOs’ business concerns (IBM, 2012). Prominently on the list are: connections, engagement, collaboration, analytical competencies, partnerships, and tolerance for change. All of these subjects are [...]

“Why the specific focus on aviation and aerospace leadership?”  Behind this often asked question lurks (or seems to) a notion the leadership is, well, simply leadership.  So why emphasize aviation and aerospace leadership when some suggest the practice of leadership is essentially the same for all disciplines/professions? These are really good questions, and are at the heart of our Center for Aviation and Aerospace Leadership (CAAL).   The response is somewhat complex (multi-part).  First, being a [...]

Guest writer USAF Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Robert Kelley Most articles about leadership start with principles, actions and activities that take a group or organization somewhere.  For me leadership begins with me! Who am I? What is my identity? When I was a student at The National War College; Princeton Professor Merion Levy lectured there and said something I have never forgotten – “The ultimate aggression is to know thyself.”  I have struggled with this statement [...]

Many people comment on the lack of leadership abilities in most managers, complaining that many managers do not set good examples, do not empower employees to play a role in decision-making, do not listen to those that work for them, and do not give their employees credit when credit is due. I searched for some statistics to determine how typical this experience is. Do most employees think their managers are less than effective? As I [...]

Many may consider this heresy, but there appears to be a slow, but growing, trend towards open sourcing in the U.S. aerospace industry. For those charged with developing new systems for the military, this may appear to be extraordinarily unwise, impractical, and not something the U.S. Department of Defense should do. Similarly, for those developing state-of-the art systems for commercial use, questions immediately arise about the ownership and protection of key intellectual property (IP) rights. [...]

Most people know that, in college, a major refers to an array of courses that have been developed over time to meet the needs of a particular discipline.  But when one considers what it means to be best-in-class in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), the answer is not necessarily so clear. In 1958, the National Defense Education Act authorized the Department of Defense (DOD) to “increase the flow of talent into science and engineering, [...]

Anyone who has read Walter Isaacson‘s biography of Steve Jobs has to be taken aback by his portrayal of the personality of the late Apple founder. Certainly there is much to dislike when it comes to the way Jobs treated his associates and subordinates, not to mention his professional rivals. He was at times domineering, arrogant, crass and demeaning… and yet, after reading the book and monitoring the phenomenal performance of Apple products and the [...]

Goldman Sachs was in the news recently as an employee resigned via the New York Times op-ed page. The resigning employee indicated the trajectory of the corporate culture at Goldman Sachs had resulted in a toxic and destructive environment. According to this employee, the firm is certainly at the forefront of establishing how work will be performed in the organization, what will be valued by the organization and the market values corporate culture as demonstrated [...]