Launch with Joy
A leadership lesson from outer space (and sung directly — and loudly — into a marshmallow skewer)
The Artemis II mission that wrapped last week had everyone in a chokehold!!
If you spent any amount of time on social media or watching the news over the last two weeks, the story couldn't be avoided.
And we liked it that way.
A NOTABLY POIGNANT MOMENT
When Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch pressed her face to the window of the Orion spacecraft and described a moon that was completely unrecognizable from the one we see on Earth — yes, our moon — mission control in Houston coined a term for what the crew was experiencing: "moon joy."
And I think moon joy is contagious, because the rest of us caught moon joy, too.
It can't be a coincidence that so many people — people who don't typically track NASA missions, people who aren't space nerds, people who had a thousand other things to do (all me) — found themselves absolutely riveted by Artemis II.
We watched the livestreams. We shared the photos and made memes. We teared up a little at four humans floating around outer space in a tin can. We held our breath when the craft made splash-down, and we weren't going to breathe again until those astronauts were on terra firma.
We couldn't get enough. We were enthralled.
We were starved for it.
Not for space, specifically.
But for a joy that doesn't need to be earned first.
LAUNCHING WITH JOY
At a press event after the Orion returned to Earth, another Artemis II astronaut Jeremy Hansen said something that I haven't quite been able to shake.
When asked if being in space had changed his perspective, he said it hadn't. He acknowledged that the purpose of humanity's existence on earth is finding joy and uplifting others — and that this mission only affirmed that.
Seeing the moon up close and personal didn't tell Hansen anything he didn't already know. The mission didn't teach him this lesson.
He went into space already armed with that purpose.
He launched with joy.
Bri Gerzevske
ARE WE JUST WAITING FOR WATERSHED MOMENTS?
I've been thinking about how rarely we do as Hansen says at work.
In my experience, joy is a permission slip signed by leaders after a performance review.
Joy is earned.
Your team hits the quarterly goal? Congratulations, you can have some joy. You earned it.
Your team tanks this quarter? Joy goes back in the cabinet until further notice.
We ration joy like it's a finite resource, doled out in proportion to how well things are going.
But circumstances are unreliable narrators, and a leader who waits for the watershed moment of outcomes isn't doing leadership.
They're just being reactionary.
But what if, instead of being reactive with joy, we were proactive?
What if we launched with joy instead of waiting for the successful splash-down?
If this kind of content resonates with you, I write all about Oddball Leadership every week!
No spam, no corporate jargon. Just real leadership, observed in slightly (or very!) strange ways. 😎😎😎
