Culture and
Leadership
Development
at the NASA Kennedy Space Center
NASA brings operational leaders together to win business, strengthen team trust, and improve performance
Our Custom Approaches
“Stewart Leadership does an exceptional job in preparing leaders for the next step and in building a senior leadership team! If you need a team, they can build it. If you have a team, they can take it to the top!”
Challenge
Seven major commercial corporations joined together to create a winning proposal for all space shuttle operations work at the Kennedy Space Center. However, once they won the contract they realized they needed to bring all seven organizations and NASA together to build commitment and loyalty to the shuttle operations project as a whole rather than individual company priorities. They also understood the need to raise the overall leadership capabilities of these 860 leaders to ensure mission success.
Perfect “100” award fee score
Hundreds of millions saved per launch
Solution
Stewart Leadership conducted a study across Kennedy Space Center (KSC) of the current leadership and team performance needs to determine the type of training and development to be administered. This study was done via interviews across many levels of leadership from various representatives of the contractors and NASA officials, along with data analysis from previous assessments of KSC. It was determined that the best method to address the two objectives was to design and deliver a series of five-day courses that consisted of 2-4 people from each of the seven contractors and from NASA. The curriculum was designed from the results of the 360-degree assessments that each participant completed.
During the course, a variety of modules were given to the class of 24-27 people emphasizing team leadership, team performance, and individual leadership training using 21 leadership dimensions, now known as Stewart Leadership’s LEAD NOW! Model. Due to the unique, team focus of the course, the participants left the experience as genuine business partners. KSC management reported remarkable results from the courses and there was a waiting list to take it. Various follow-up sessions were held to support and reinforce previous classes. The program received the highest evaluations in the history of KSC. To cover all of the new leaders as they came to KSC, this program continued for six years.
Results
NASA awarded the seven corporations an award fee score of a perfect “100” for their performance, where the average award fee score had averaged in the mid-seventies. This was a huge milestone, and the Director told Stewart Leadership that they had made a huge impact by uniting the formerly divided leadership team and by raising the entire team’s leadership capabilities. These changes were attributed to impacting a reduction in costs to half–saving NASA hundreds of millions of dollars per launch.
