Interview with Decorated Air Force Pilot, Kim "KC" Campbell

I recent­ly sat down with Kim ​“KC” Camp­bell — A‑10 pilot, com­bat vet­er­an, and author of Fly­ing in the Face of Fear.

On April 7^th, 2003, she took a sur­face-to-air mis­sile over Bagh­dad and flew her crip­pled air­craft home on a back­up sys­tem that had worked in com­bat exact­ly once before.

I did­n’t want the war sto­ries. I want­ed to under­stand what fight­er pilots know about mak­ing deci­sions when every sig­nal in your ner­vous sys­tem is telling you to freeze — and why the ones who keep win­ning have trained them­selves to act anyway.

Her con­cept of spa­tial dis­ori­en­ta­tion — lit­er­al­ly not know­ing which way is up — became a cor­ner­stone of The 4 Forces of Growth. It’s the best frame­work I’ve found for describ­ing what hap­pens to CEOs the moment growth gets hard: they lose their bear­ings exact­ly when the next deci­sion will make or break everything.

This was one of the most direct, use­ful con­ver­sa­tions I’ve had on what it actu­al­ly takes to lead under pres­sure. I think you’ll get a lot out of it.

Here are some poignant moments cap­tured in clips:

Or watch the full inter­view here:

Along­side this inter­view with Kim ​“KC” Camp­bell, I’ve put togeth­er oth­er arti­cles that dig deep­er into the themes that stood out to me the dis­ci­pline that keeps lead­ers ori­ent­ed when the pres­sure spikes, the moments where good judg­ment gets hijacked by noise, and the deci­sion-mak­ing habits that sep­a­rate lead­ers who thrive under fire from those who freeze. Kim’s sto­ry is extra­or­di­nary, and these com­pan­ion pieces are designed to help you con­nect what she learned in the cock­pit to what’s hap­pen­ing in your busi­ness right now.

Addi­tion­al Resources Relat­ed to Kim’s Story:

• What a Fight­er Pilot Taught Me About Lead­ing Under Pressure