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My guest for Episode #218 of the My Favorite Mistake podcast is Colonel Kim “KC” Campbell, who served in the Air Force for 24 years as a fighter pilot and senior military leader.
KC has flown 1,800 hours in the A-10 Warthog, including more than 100 combat missions protecting troops on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
KC is now a keynote speaker and bestselling author. Her new book, Flying in the Face of Fear: A Fighter Pilot's Lessons on Leading with Courage is now available!
KC is a distinguished graduate of the Air Force Academy and has a Master of Arts in International Security Studies and am MBA from the University of London.
In 2003, Colonel Campbell was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for Heroism after successfully recovering her battle-damaged airplane after an intense close air support mission in Baghdad. She has served in roles including Squadron Commander, Operations Group Commander and, most recently, KC served as the Director for the Center for Character and Leadership Development at the United States Air Force Academy.
In this episode, KC shares her favorite mistake story about a time her visor fogged up when flying an A-10 Warthog in a training mission. What did she learn from this mistake, including how to let mistakes go — to put them aside and debrief at the right time?
She also discusses almost being shot down over Baghdad — would it have been a mistake to eject? Was it almost a mistake not to?
As she says on her website:
“But how can we improve if we don’t learn from our mistakes?”
Questions and Topics:
- Learning to stay calm under stress? — learned over time??
- Kids and sports —- Lenny Walls – Ep 51
- Learning to stay calm under stress? — learned over time??
- Distinguished Flying Cross for Heroism
- Almost being shot down over Baghdad?
- Debriefing, learning, and moving forward?
- Planning for contingencies is a way of preventing mistakes…
- Mistake of ejecting too soon vs. too late?
- Is this critiqued? For learning?
- How many women when you became a fighter pilot?
- Lessons for women navigating male-dominated environments?
- Debriefing from mistakes as fighter pilots and learning — what’s that culture??? Learning and overcoming them…
- Question from your video — “Vulnerability isn’t about weakness… it’s about being open to uncertainty” – help your team be willing to be more innovative… try new things…
Scroll down to find:
- Video version of the episode
- Quotes
- How to subscribe
- Full transcript
Find KC on social media:
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!["[To learn from mistakes]... you've got to have trust. You've got to have that environment where people feel safe to do that. And to me, that is a hundred percent on the leader. It is the leader's role to create that environment of trust and then build that within their team." - KC Campbell](https://www.markgraban.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/My-Favorite-Mistake-Kim-KC-Campbell-Quote-3.jpg)
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Automated Transcript (Likely Contains Mistakes)
Mark Graban (0s):
Episode 218, Colonel Kim “KC” “Campbell.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (5s):
Well, I think what's interesting is when you read the bio, what's not in there is all the Mistakes and Failures and challenges that I've had along the way.
Mark Graban (17s):
I'm Mark Graban. This is My Favorite, Mistake In. this podcast, you'll hear business leaders and other really interesting people talking about their favorite mistakes because we all make mistakes. But what matters is learning from our mistakes instead of repeating them over and over again. So, this is the place for honest reflection and conversation, personal growth and professional success. Visit our website at MyFavoriteMistakePodcast.com. For information about Kim, her book, and more look in the show notes or go to markgraban.Com/mistake218. Well, hi everybody, Welcome to My Favorite Mistake. I'm Mark Graban. Our guest Today is Colonel Kim “KC”
Mark Graban (60s):
Campbell. She Served in the US Air Force for 24 years as a fighter pilot and senior military leader. KC has flown 1800 hours in the A 10 war pg, including more than 100 combat missions, protecting troops on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan. She's now a keynote speaker and bestselling author. Her new book is titled, Flying In the Face of Fear: A Fighter Pilot's Lessons On Leading With Courage. It's available now. So before I tell you a little bit more, thank you for being here. KC How, are you?
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (1m 31s):
I'm great. Thank you so much for having me.
Mark Graban (1m 34s):
It's real exciting to have you here. It's an honor to have you here, and I'll tell everybody I'm, I'm the, from a distinguished record, I feel like I'm reading just parts of the bio. You can check out her full bio in the linked page in the show notes. But KC is a distinguished graduate of the Air Force Academy. She has a Master's of Arts and International Security Studies and an M B A from the University of London. In 2003, Colonel Campbell was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism after successfully recovering her battle damaged airplane in an intense post air support mission in Baghdad. She served in roles including squadron Commander, Operations Group Commander, and most recently, KC has served as a director for the Center for Character and Leadership Development at the United States Air Force Academy.
Mark Graban (2m 25s):
So thank you for your service and, and again, thank you, thank you for being here with us today.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (2m 31s):
Absolutely. I'm glad to be here.
Mark Graban (2m 33s):
So KC is is okay for these purposes, right?
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (2m 38s):
Absolutely, yes, it is.
Mark Graban (2m 40s):
So it's Kim in the bio, Colonel Campbell, but okay. We'll go, we'll go with KC here. you know, before we get into the favorite mistake story, it might be a, a mistake for people to assume that KC stands simply for Kim Campbell, right?
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (2m 52s):
Yes. Well, that's usually the easy, the easy answer. The quick answer. But every fighter pilot gets a call sign. It is a, a bit of a rite of passage, and it happens after we become combat mission ready, meaning that we are cleared to deploy to combat after a couple months in our first squadron. And for me, I, I got my call sign. It's an interesting experience because you're not actually in the room when they tell stories about you and come up with ideas for your call sign. Yeah. But I remember walking back into the room and to cheers from everyone because KC actually stands for Killer Chick. So that is my call sign shortened to KC. Much easier to say that
Mark Graban (3m 34s):
So I, imagine you, you were okay with this call sign. Some people end up with a call sign that they don't really care for. Is that right?
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (3m 42s):
No, I think this one was pretty good. I mean, it was fitting, I was the only female fighter pilot in my squadron. Wow. And so it was a, a fitting tribute, I think from the, from the pilots in my squadron.
Mark Graban (3m 52s):
Yeah. Yeah. So, but there, there's a lot I want to talk to you about today from, from your service and, and your book and what you're teaching and helping people with about leadership. But first, as, as we always do here, once we get nicknames out of the way and call sign backstories behind us with the, the different things that you've done. I'm really curious to know what is your, what's your favorite mistake?
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (4m 16s):
Yeah. Well, I think what's interesting is when you read the bio, what's not in there is all the Mistakes and Failures and challenges that I've had along the way. But I think back to my early days of pilot training, and I think probably one of my favorite, I guess, Mistakes, right? It's such an interesting concept because it's super painful and, and hard to go through. But I, I do realize that I came out better on the other side, and this was at the end of pilot training. We are evaluated on, on every ride, but we have some specific rides that are called check rides, which are like big time evaluators in the back seat.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (4m 57s):
You get graded, it all goes into your overall performance. And this was my final ride in the program. And up to this point, I had done reasonably well. I was excited about the end getting near. And this ride is a formation ride, meaning we take off in really tight formation, and then we're supposed to stay in this formation all the way through the ride. We do maneuvers and we know that we're in the right position because we can see the other airplane and there's identifiable features that we're supposed to see. Supposed to about, I would say, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes into our work, I started to get the visor on my helmet fogged up, and I was really struggling to see, this was probably because I was nervous and breathing so hard that my visor was fogging up.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (5m 44s):
But it became uncomfortable to look at this other airplane very close to me when I couldn't see all those features. And I knew I wasn't flying well. I was very sloppy. And I finally told my evaluator, who sits in the back seat and said, look, I kind of explained what happened. And he was like, no problem. Like, I've got the airplane. He took control of the airplane, moved away, told me to clean my visor visor, and then get back in So, I quickly did what I could to clean the visor, got back into formation. And instead of like really staying focused on what I was doing, I was thinking about the past 30 seconds, the past minute about all the Mistakes that I had made, the sloppiness that I had flown.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (6m 24s):
And I wasn't focused on what I was doing, which meant that I continued to make Mistakes. I was not flying well. And it turns out this was probably the worst that I had ever flown, the worst that I had ever performed on a ride, because I couldn't let it go. I knew I had made Mistakes, I knew I hadn't done well, and I just let it snowball. And it just got worse and worse and worse. Eventually landed, came back in and got the, the stern conversation from my instructor, the evaluator who said, Kim, you're a good pilot, but that was a terrible ride. Mm. Yeah. And he, he told me, he said, you're gonna face challenges in your life, and you are going to have to learn to let those Mistakes go and focus on the next 30 seconds, not the 30 seconds behind you.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (7m 7s):
Wow. Tough lesson, but definitely my my favorite one.
Mark Graban (7m 11s):
Yeah. Do you, wow, that's a great story. And I mean, thinking back to for one, like, you know, a visor fogging up, like, I mean, it seems like I, this, I mean, it sounds like that's more of a, a design mistake than a pilot mistake here. It seemed like there would be times when a pilot would be breathing heavily.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (7m 33s):
Yeah. Who knows. I mean, in the end, like even if it's an external factor, like I still have to be able to deal with it, right? Because we do face in life external pressures and things that are on us, and, you know, whatever gets thrown your way in that moment, you need to be able to react and deal with it appropriately. And I would say that my initial reaction of like, I tried to deal with it, I tried, and then it just got uncomfortable. I think that reaction was okay. It was just everything that came next that I would say is really the mistake and error.
Mark Graban (8m 6s):
Yeah. So, I do wanna explore that more. And I'm not gonna be too fixated on the visor thing, I swear, but is that something that would happen then occasionally in certain conditions or certain breathing? Or is that kind of a, a surprise, one-off challenge that was thrown at you
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (8m 20s):
There? I would say it has occurred very few times throughout my career, and there's ways that you can kind of angle air and, you know, and it in general, like if you can remain calm when you're faced with stress, which is what we try to get pilots to do, then that reaction isn't so frequent. But for student pilots, I would say sometimes we, we get a little bit more worked up than probably the, the more experienced pilots.
Mark Graban (8m 47s):
Okay. So, I will retract my statement or question about design mistake. I knew that was too harsh, but, so now back to though these lessons learned of, gosh, easier said than done, you know, learning to let things go, or at least put, put it aside until the time for debrief with after action review is the appropriate term. I mean, cuz I imagine if there's a mistake made, you don't want to forget about it forever, but Oh,
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (9m 16s):
No, no. I mean, how,
Mark Graban (9m 17s):
How do you, how do you put it aside long enough until it's the right time?
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (9m 22s):
Yeah. And, and for us, you know, we, in that moment, I kind of gotta put it aside and, and realize that, you know what, I made Mistakes in the past, but I'm gonna focus on what's ahead. And then in the debrief, so after the flight, when we have that time to deconstruct and talk about it, now we kind of drill down into, all right, what happened? you know, what happened on that mission? Let's talk about it. Let's identify the root cause of what happened, the lessons learned, and what we're gonna do differently the next time. So that, you know, the same thing doesn't repeat itself. I think what I have struggled with, and I will say not just on this ride and throughout my career and and quite honestly even today, is, you know, I don't like make to make Mistakes it, it's
Mark Graban (10m 3s):
Hard. No, we, we don't, but,
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (10m 5s):
But I know it's a reality, right? Yeah. It's going to happen. And so, you know, make the mistake, learn from it. Sometimes it's a quick learning. Sometimes we can actually, you know, have the time to deconstruct and talk about it, but then don't do it again. Don't keep beating yourself up over it. And that's what I did. I was just constantly thinking about it and, oh, I flew so poorly and I'm sure I'm gonna get bad, a bad grade on this ride. And it's just, I kept beating myself up in the moment when I just needed to let it go for now and focus on the step, you know, the steps in front of me and what's coming in front of me. But it, you know, it is easier said than done. We're, we're pretty hard on ourselves. And so trying to, you know, learn the lesson, don't do it again, and then move on.
Mark Graban (10m 47s):
Right. Right. And your, this is a, this is a timely reminder. You're giving me, I've made some Mistakes earlier today where my goodness, the stuff I do is not the stakes that you dealt with as, as a pilot, but that, you know, if, if if the, the stakes of me making a certain mistake means like, ugh, I need to go back and I wasted 90 minutes of my life, now I need to go back and repeat. Like, I, I'm still being hard on myself. It's not distracting. Well, I'm thinking about it now. I'm trying not to let it distract me from Right.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (11m 20s):
I
Mark Graban (11m 20s):
Other things I need to do here today.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (11m 21s):
Yeah. And it's thing, I mean, these are things that I talked to my kids about. I mean, you see it in sports, right? With the kids. Like my, my kids can oftentimes beat themselves up about that one error that they made on the field, and they lose sight of all the great things that they did. I think this is a, a thing we face in our normal everyday lives, you know, we could give a perfect presentation minus, you know, one little slip up or something said wrong, or maybe I didn't answer that question. Sowell, and what do we focus on? The one thing that we didn't do well or the one person in, in the audience that's giving us the angry look, you know, where everybody else is smiling and nodding. I think sometimes we just overfocus on the Mistakes or overfocus on the negative, and it takes time away from what we're doing.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (12m 4s):
I mean, I do believe that Mistakes are important and we do have to at some point address them, but then we, then we've gotta like go acknowledge that we've learned it and then we move on. I've learned the lesson, I'm not doing it again, and now I'm gonna move on.
Mark Graban (12m 20s):
I think that does help us put things behind us, right? When we take some sort of action and we feel pretty confident. I've learned it's not gonna happen next timem. Like, you, you can feel good about that, even if, and I think that can even maybe outweigh feeling bad about the mistake.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (12m 35s):
I mean, absolutely. I'm quite honestly looking back, right? I am so thankful that that happened very early in my career as a pilot because the number of times throughout my career that I was faced with difficult situations where I knew maybe something didn't go quite right or I, I did something wrong, and, you know, I'm still flying, or I'm still in the moment, I'm still leading my team, whatever it is, you know, now I've been able to, I'm better equipped to just acknowledge it, recognize that I can't stay and wallow in that moment, right. I've got to continue to move forward and then I will come back and address it.
Mark Graban (13m 12s):
Yeah. You, you mentioned kids in sports and I'm, I'm reminded a guest of mine from episode 51 of the podcast series, Lenny Walls, who played in the N F L for a number of seasons as a cornerback. And I remember him talking about, you know, again, lower stakes environment here, but if you make a mistake on one play, you, you've gotta put it outta your mind because now 30 seconds later, the ball's gonna be snapped again. Yeah. Putting it on hold until they're at the sideline during halftime, during practice the next week to do that. That sort of, that cycle of debrief, review, learning, applying it to the future.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (13m 53s):
You know, my, I have a 10 year old who is a goalkeeper, and I asked him, I said, what, how do you feel when the ball goes in the net when you didn't save it? And, and how do you deal with that? And he said, well, mom, I mean, this is a 10 year old. And he says, I think about it, and I'm a little bit mad and I think about it until the ball is kicked off again, and then I don't think about it anymore. And I'm like, man, you're 10 years old and you figured this out. And then after the game we'll talk about each goal and talk about what he thinks he did well, and then what he thinks he need to work, what to work on for the next time. But the fact that he can let it go by the time that ball is kicked off, like, I wish I could do that sometimes.
Mark Graban (14m 36s):
Yeah, no, that's something we can all try to get better at. And you know, you talk about learning to let Mistakes go, and that's something we can all work on. One other thing I wanted to come back to, you talked about the need to learn to stay calm under stress. Like how, how, how much of that can be taught? Was it practiced? How much of that is, let's say, inherent in the selection of fighter pilots?
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (14m 59s):
I think it's learned over time. I think, you know, I I, this was, you know, during pilot training, you know, and still very young, very few hours. And I realized I didn't deal with that situation very well. you know, as I got more experience, more time in the airplane, right? The more confident we become, we become more confident. And so it's sometimes a little bit easier than we've seen it before. We've, we've been in that difficult situation that we kind of know about it in the past. And so for me, that's helped me the more practice, the more preparation that I put in, I feel more calm because I can recall those moments from history of things, you know, ways that maybe I didn't do it as well, and I just, it's just a constant reminder to me.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (15m 43s):
Like, stay calm, take a deep breath. We talk about something in the airplane when we're air refueling. So getting gas while airborne going, eh, 200 miles per hour,
Mark Graban (15m 54s):
That's, that's unbelievable that, that's
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (15m 57s):
Possible. And we all just, it's this natural reaction, like as you get closer to the boom, which is the piece that comes out from the other airplane to fill your airplane up with gas, like, it's like all of a sudden this tense, like all the young pilots will tense up. And I remember my, one of my instructors just saying calmly, he didn't know I would like, I didn't say anything, but he knew, right? He knew from experience and he just calmly sat over the radio, wiggle your fingers and toes. And it was that reminder for me to just relax, like, just relax and So I think over time these little nuggets have built up so that in those moments when I, all of a sudden I start feeling like tense and nervous or worried about something, I, it's a reminder to take that deep breath, wiggle my fingers and toes, just relax for a second.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (16m 41s):
Like, you have the skills, you have the training, you've put in the work, you can deal with this.
Mark Graban (16m 48s):
And that's something, I mean, boy, how often do you end up reminding leaders of that same idea, that same practice, if they're feeling stressed in their work? Yeah. Again, you know, lower stakes, but important things as executives at the company
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (17m 3s):
Of course. Yeah. And I mean, I think of the times where I have led teams, you know, outside of the flying world and, you know, our lives on the line. Not always, sometimes livelihoods are, but they're still critical and, and difficult situations. And we shouldn't shouldn't sell that short. I mean, we've, we're faced with stress in a moment, and sometimes the best thing we can do is just take that deep breath, remain calm, kind of take a minute and just, you know, before we jump in and take action. Which, you know, sometimes if you act too quickly, you can make the wrong choice. you know, you can do the wrong thing. I've been there and done it and haven't been proud of it, you know, and, and have learned from it. But I think we all can face those moments in our personal life and our professional life.
Mark Graban (17m 46s):
Yeah. And I can think of situations where I've made a mistake and my rush to try to fix it ended up making it worse. Yeah. Sometimes with technology that happens to,
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (17m 56s):
Oh, absolutely. I, I, I can think back very specifically to situations where, you know, sometimes you rush to judgment or rush to make a decision and you know, you can, you can make it worse, you know, you can compound the problem versus just taking a minute to kind of think through it. And, you know, there's, if you are under pressure and have to make a difficult decision, that's one thing. But a lot of the times, even though we put that pressure on ourselves, like we can actually take a step back. Can we take five minutes to think about it? Can we take a day? Can we take two weeks? you know, whatever it is. We don't wanna be paralyzed in the decision making process, but sometimes gathering that information and getting different perspectives helps us to make the me best possible decision in that given situation.
Mark Graban (18m 45s):
Yeah. I, I wanted to ask you about from your Air Force career, when, when, when you were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism, if, if people go and you know, search about you, they will find, you know, the story of, as I mentioned, briefly in, in, in the intro almost being shot down over Baghdad. Is that, is that a fair way of describing
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (19m 8s):
That is a fair way of describing it?
Mark Graban (19m 11s):
Can, can you, can you tell us, you know, tell us that story and maybe talk about after action review learning Yeah. And, and, and, and, and moving forward from that?
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (19m 22s):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that for me was one of the most challenging times in my life. I feel like all the hard things, all the Mistakes, all the things that I had done in my life, really led me to that moment to be able to take action. We were over downtown Baghdad supporting our troops on the ground, as we do in the A 10, which is a close air support platform. And unfortunately on this day, the weather was terrible, So, we were taking a little bit more risks to be able to get below the weather to support our ground troops had made a decision, we would only do two passes, kind of climb up, reassess. And as I was coming off target from my last pass is when I just felt and heard a loud explosion at the back of the airplane.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (20m 6s):
And I knew immediately I was hit. There was no doubt in my mind there was this bright red orange fireball, the jet nosed over. I remember looking down at Baghdad below and just instinctively pulled back on my control stick. And unfortunately nothing happened. I mean, I was at this point completely out of control. I looked down at my ejection handles very quickly, thinking that was not what I wanted, and really fell back on my training of trying to analyze a situation, figure out what's going on. I realized very quickly that all the hydraulics were out of my airplane, which is what allows us to normally fly the airplane. And at this point, I had a decision to make. I was either gonna have to eject, which did not sound good, or I could try to, to get the jet into our emergency backup system, which is what I ended up doing, was able to kind of flip the switch, get the jet back climbing again and, and get my way up and away and out of Baghdad.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (20m 58s):
And, you know, that was kind of the initial first sense of relief of like, I might actually survive this and then had to fly 300 miles more back to our home base and, and now make another decision about do I land or do I try to just get the jet back to friendly territory and eject. And based on this emergency backup system, landing isn't something that we had trained for, but I had an hour to fly. It felt very good about flying the airplane and thankfully got the airplane back on the ground safely. But really life defining moment in many ways, I think. Yeah. Yeah, I've had 20 years to reflect. I mean, this was April 7th, 2003. And I think, you know, looking back, trying to assess why was I successful in that moment of over Baghdad, like, just how did, how did I maintain anoth enough sense of calm, don't get me wrong, because I listened to my voice and I was terrified in that moment, but enough sense of calm to take action, and then also to have the confidence to kind of make a decision about how I was gonna execute a landing in the airplane.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (22m 1s):
And I really think it came down to the preparation, the practice and the planning for contingencies along the way. I mean, I was very prepared for that mission. We prepare, because we study all of our aircraft systems. We talk about enemy threat systems. Like I had all the data, I had the knowledge, I, I knew it would happen if my systems failed. And then we kind of take it that next step, which is practicing, which in the aviation community, we talk about chair flying, which is really just visualization. We think about, we talk through the critical steps as if we're in the cockpit, and it's, it's just a visualization technique that helps us for those stressful moments.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (22m 41s):
And then we plan for contingency So. we don't just kind of practice and think through what happens when everything goes right. We also take the time to walk through, all right, if this doesn't go well, what are those worst case scenarios? And then what are we gonna do? We had done all of that. And I think that's one of the reasons where I feel like even when everything was going wrong, even under stress and under pressure, and while facing fear, I was able to make a decision, feel confident in that decision and, and really, you know, it was all because of all the hard things that I had done leading up to that moment. Yeah.
Mark Graban (23m 14s):
And you touch on, you know, this idea of planning for contingencies. I mean, I think that's something that's very helpful in business or in healthcare settings. Having that plan, I mean, it's a way of preventing Mistakes.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (23m 27s):
It is because you take the time to talk through it together. And I think that's the most important thing because I think in a lot of settings, you're working together as a team. Something doesn't go right, what do you do? It can be as simple as having a quick team huddle before you do the next thing. you know, just a quick team huddle. Let's talk through the things. Let's talk about most likely scenarios, most dangerous scenarios. The other thing that I find really helpful when we plan for contingencies is that we, some, sometimes we get so involved in our own plan and our own world that we think everything's gonna go just fine, and we kind of lose sight of some of those things that could go wrong. And So, I like to bring in an external team to ask the tough questions to maybe be, we call it a red team, to be a little bit of the devil's advocate and talk about our plan.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (24m 16s):
Just somebody that maybe isn't so close to the plan that will give you that different perspective. I, I think that planning for contingencies thing, I I do it in my everyday life because I find sometimes my mind can get so balled up and thinking about, oh, what if that happens? What if that happens? And if I just take a few minutes to go, all right, let's say it does happen, what am I gonna do? And then I'm like, all right, I feel a little bit better, and I then I can let it go. Or at least not think about it all the time.
Mark Graban (24m 43s):
Yeah, I mean, it seems like that would have, you know, this, this idea of this red team bringing in an outside perspective to challenge things or, you know, have an outside perspective. It seems like that would really help entrepreneurs, that would help organizations that are thinking about some big initiative because, you know, there's that, there's that risk maybe of, you know, group think or just, you know, people not being willing to challenge. Like maybe there's something we feel like we have a good plan to admit. It might not be perfect, and to even invite scrutiny is not the right word, but a different perspective can Yeah. you know, probably head off an error that, you know, you know, people say, whoa, nobody saw that coming, but somebody might have.
Mark Graban (25m 31s):
Yeah. And speaks to the importance of creating a safe environment where people can speak up if, if their manager, their CEO, is about to make a decision that they think is absolutely gonna succeed. If someone else has a different perspective, hopefully they feel safe sharing that perspective and the they're listened to.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (25m 50s):
Yeah. I, I think you, I mean, you really hit it there because I think when I look at the teams that I have been on, whether aviation or just, you know, teams that are doing other things outside of this aviation world, like, the one thing that I think really connects a team together is trust. And having that trust where you feel safe to provide feedback without the blame or shame where we don't feel like we're gonna be judged or punished for saying, Hey, I, I made a mistake, like I didn't do this. Well, you know, do we have that safe environment where people are willing to make those Mistakes and share them? Because to me, that's that next step, right? You can debrief, you can talk about your Mistakes with your small group, but can you even have the courage to now share it more broadly so that the rest of the team can learn from it?
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (26m 39s):
And that is a really hard thing to do, but I think we have the ability to learn from others' Mistakes when they can, you know, step up, acknowledge it, talk to us about the mistake, tell us what they learned from it. I mean, this is the whole point of your podcast, but like, then we share it with others so that others can learn too. I mean that, but you've gotta have trust. You've gotta have that environment where people feel safe to do that. And to me, that is a hundred percent on the leader. It is the leader's role to create that environment of trust and then build that within their team.
Mark Graban (27m 10s):
Yes. Yes. That's very well said. And, and, and just telling people they should feel safe speaking up usually isn't enough. Like leaders really need to make sure they're responding the right way, a constructive way. When someone does test the waters and said, you told me it was safe to challenge you. No, I'm gonna challenge you. What happens next?
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (27m 32s):
Yeah. I, I think leaders have to set the example. I think part of it is sometimes as leaders, we have to acknowledge our own Mistakes and, and share that with people and let people know like, Hey, I made the wrong decision here. We're gonna go back and re-look at this and I want your input. It's things like, you know, when, when those Mistakes do happen, sometimes we, you know, we get a little worked up and we gotta remember like, Hey, if this is a safe space, we listen to the mistake, we acknowledge it, and then we, we do what we said we were gonna do, which is we're gonna learn from it. I mean, and I, granted, I will acknowledge there are varying levels of Mistakes, right? Is it delinquent? Is it, you know, there are varying levels here, but it is about setting the example, not just at the very top, but I think this is with all the subordinate levels of leadership within the organization, because sometimes the leader at the top can be saying it all day long, but if the, the mid-level or lower level supervisors are, you know, squashing it right there, or punishing or, you know, blaming, then we've kind of lost it.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (28m 31s):
The opportunity to learn from those. Right,
Mark Graban (28m 33s):
Right. I I have to ask one other question, though. You brought up your decision of do you pull the eject handle or not? And yeah, again, like it, it's, it's, it's, I can't even imagine being in a situation like that. Like people make decisions, like, should I, should I eject myself from this job? Or should I stay and try to make it better? And some people, I've had people on the podcast who say, I should have quit that job earlier. Some people say, eh, I probably, it was a mistake to quit for, for whatever reason. Right. So now in this, in this life or death situation here, like d does the decision one way or another, did that get critiqued?
Mark Graban (29m 20s):
If it was a mistake of ejecting too early or when it wasn't quote unquote necessary? I, does that get critiqued in a way that focuses on learning? I mean, like, ejecting too late could be a deadly mistake on that side. Can can you tell us more about that?
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (29m 36s):
Yeah, you know, flying back on the way home, I, I wasn't by myself. I had a flight lead, my wingman right was with me. And we talked a lot about it. And, you know, I, I knew this was coming because I, I understood this emergency backup system that I was in, that there was gonna be a decision to be made about landing or ejecting from the airplane. And I remember at one point, my flight lead said, all right, KC, you need to think about if you're gonna lay on this airplane or if you were gonna jump out. And I was like, Ugh. you know, I knew it was coming, I just, I kind of wanted to ignore it for a little bit longer. And then he said, the decision is yours. He said, you're flying a single seat fighter, it's your decision, but whatever you decide, I will back you up.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (30m 16s):
Which was really, I mean, like empowering. And that the fact that he had that much confidence in me, it, that also gave me confidence in myself. But I, you know, I really felt confident in my training and preparation. We talked through the pros and cons. We, you know, we really had, we had time to talk about the consequences, the risks, and, and also for me to just get a sense of how the airplane is flying and really get a, you know, a feel for it. So it really came down to this almost gut decision of like, neither choice was great. I didn't really like either option, and I just went with kind of what felt right based on, you know, I say what felt right, like in my gut, but also just based on how, you know, I flew the airplane for an hour, got to see how it was flying.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (31m 2s):
I still felt like I could change my mind at the last second based on the technology of our ejection seat. But it was one of those decisions, you know, I was still nervous about the decision I had made, but I also felt confident, if that makes sense. I mean, it was just a bit of like tough decision. I mean, I, I'm hoping I'm making the right one. And, you know, after the fact, after all was said and done, I really did a lot of thinking about my decision making process. I have since shared that we have something called Crew resource Management or Cockpit Resource Management, where we talk about kind of those things. So it's been shared across our community just to help people understand, I'm sure there are people that, that think that I should have ejected and not attempted to land the airplane.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (31m 47s):
I mean, I, I landed it successfully, but there were still a few people that said it wasn't worth the risk. And, and I, I get that, that's fine. They can have that opinion. I, I might have said that before I got in the airplane, but once I was in the airplane and went through everything and got a feel for how it was flying, I, I just, I made a, a different choice. And, you know, we tried to share the lessons and, and talk about it. I learned the lessons from the pilots who came before me and who sadly did not survive trying to land in the airplane, but I learned the lessons. I did it based on what I had learned from them based on learning from their Mistakes. So, yeah, I think I, I think we really tried to pull a lot of the lessons learned from this.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (32m 27s):
I think it's gonna be dependent on every situation, but really, again, trying to analyze the thought process. Yeah, the decision making was what was most important.
Mark Graban (32m 38s):
So again, we are joined today. Our guest is Kim KC Campbell. Her book is Flying in the Face of Fear of Fighter Pilot's, lessons on Leading with Courage. Wanna ask a couple other questions before we wrap up here? You mentioned being the only woman in your squadron. Do I remember that right? Yes. And I, I, I did look up the first US Air Force fighter pilot, I believe was 1993. So there was, when, when, when, I mean there was a very small number of you, how, how many were you across the Air Force women?
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (33m 11s):
Yeah, when I started pilot training, I think there were roughly 35 female fighter pilots out of about 3,500. So there were women that came before me. you know, I'm, I'm thankful that they kinda laid the groundwork. There were still very few of us. So I was the only female fighter pilot in my squadron. you know, I, I personally put a lot of pressure on myself because I didn't wanna make Mistakes, I didn't wanna fail. I felt like if I did that, I would ruin it for the women that followed me. It was just a lot of pressure I put on myself. But what I realized is that any new person, any new wingman on, on a, in a fight or squadron, any new person in a team or organization is gonna be judged in some way. Right? People are kind, curious and watching to see how, what you do, how you respond, how you act.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (33m 55s):
And really, for me, I just focused on being fully credible and capable in the airplane, and realized that once I did, did that, that, you know, the pilots in my squadron didn't care. They didn't care at all. They just cared that I was credible and capable.
Mark Graban (34m 7s):
Yeah. So are there lessons that you share with women in the private sector who are navigating male dominated environments? If they're the only on their executive team or, you know, it's what, what, what lessons or advice do you to share with leaders today?
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (34m 25s):
I think, you know, number one is credibility. you know, be good at what you do, put in the work, have a good attitude. But I also think, and this is sometimes easier said, said than done, but try, you know, make sure you're still authentic and true to who you are as a person and not lose your identity in this. And I think that I, that was harder for me. It was something that I struggled with, but I realized that I was happier. I was more, you know, content in my role and when I was authentic and true to who I was. And that really came through when I took on leadership roles and, and being a mom and a wife and a fighter pilot, and doing all of these things and recognizing that it was okay to let people see me for all of those things.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (35m 8s):
So, I think that's one. I also say, you know, find your wingman right? Find your tribe. Find people in on your team that will support you, that will have your back. you know, these pilots in my squadron, and I looked at them as my brothers, you know, they would do anything for me and I would do anything for them. But finding that, and it may not be within your team, right? if you can't find it within your team, sometimes we have to look elsewhere for mentors or coaches or support groups or networks, whatever that is. But to have somebody that you can trust and share things with, and, you know, if it's not in your family or your personal network, the ability to reach out, because it is hard to be the one or the only. I mean, I, I put a lot of pressure on myself and, and thankfully I had people around me that supported me and believed in me, So, I, think, you know, those are some of the big things.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (35m 55s):
Quite honestly, I think it's probably advice that I would give to men and women, you know, in whatever career field they're doing.
Mark Graban (36m 2s):
Sure, sure. Well, I will put a link to KC's website in the show notes. I hope people will go check that out and learn more, you know, speaking clips and learn more about the book and all. But I, as I had posted on LinkedIn, you know, I, I wanted to have you on the podcast, and then I saw on your website, oh, she's absolutely the right guest here, where it says on your website, how can we improve if we don't learn from our Mistakes, So, I, think you've, you know, driven home some really outstanding points and lessons about that here today. But I was gonna ask you maybe as a final question here. There was a video on the website where you think about leaders and, and what they, what they need to do.
Mark Graban (36m 43s):
I thought this, this really stood out. I'm just, I'm gonna quote you and ask you to, you know, kind of share more thoughts on this, that vulnerability isn't about weakness, it's about being open to uncertainty. And I thought that was a really insightful way of saying that. So tell, tell us a little bit more about, you know, if you try to talk to leaders about vulnerability, you might get, is is that where someone scowls up at you from the audience you mentioned earlier? Yeah,
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (37m 7s):
You know, I think sometimes we hear the wor word vulnerability and we think about weakness. We think about like, you know, a negative connotation. And you know, what I've realized is, you know, vulnerability is about being o open to uncertainty and risk. It is about, you know, having the courage to ask your team for ideas. Vulnerability is about admitting that you don't have all the answers and seeking input. Vulnerability is admitting Mistakes and being willing to learn from them. It is admitting Mistakes and allowing others to learn from them as well. So vulnerability is a strength. I find that the ability to be vulnerable in our leadership role, it's hard.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (37m 51s):
It's uncomfortable, but it is absolutely not a weakness. It has been a strength. It has allowed me to connect with my team in a way that I didn't realize was even possible. And I say that telling you that it still makes me uncomfortable. It is hard for me to do, to kind of put things out there and, and to be open. But I've realized that is what has helped me create trust. It is what helped me create connections with my team. And it creates this environment now where now people are willing, they, you know, they've seen you be vulnerable. They're willing to kind of open up themselves, provide new, innovative, creative ideas, or, you know, to admit Mistakes or to talk about things in the, the team or organization that maybe isn't going as well as you thought they were.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (38m 33s):
That only comes about because you've created this environment of trust. So, yeah, I, I believe in it. I've, I've seen it happen real time with, you know, working with both small and large teams. It is absolutely a way to connect and build trust.
Mark Graban (38m 52s):
Yeah. And, and, and that word vulnerability. I mean, I've, I've spent more time thinking about that word in the last year, learning more about Psychological safety and, and Tim Clark, who's been a guest on the podcast here, his book, the Four Stages of Psychological Safety, I'll throw that out there as a recommendation for everybody. Sorry to do that in front of another author and Oh
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (39m 12s):
No, it's a great book.
Mark Graban (39m 15s):
But he, he emphasizes that, yeah, vulnerability, if you go to the dictionary, it just means, you know, actions that would create exposure to risk or harm you flying the eight time war hog was a vulnerable act because there was physically exposure to risk or harm, especially in combat. And that is definitely not weakness.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (39m 38s):
Yeah, that's a, I mean, that's a great, great way of looking at it. I think it's just, it's about putting ourselves out there. It's about, you know, you, it requires courage to be vulnerable. It's, it requires courage to step up and do those hard things, but there is payoff and benefits and strength on the other side.
Mark Graban (39m 55s):
And like you said earlier, it starts with leaders. And when leaders can create the conditions where there's less risk of harm for speaking up, for admitting Mistakes, for challenging your leader, then we're gonna be better off for it. Easier said than done.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (40m 14s):
Absolutely. Yeah. Easier said than done sometimes. But, you know, you create that environment where people are willing to share Mistakes to share the lessons learned to, you know, so that we can all do it better. you know, we talk about sharing Mistakes, which lifts others, and once you've done that, now your team can excel because you've created an environment where we're all learning from each other, supporting each other. Yeah. It could be a competitive environment, but we're still supporting each other and learning from each other, because then the team itself excels. Yeah.
Mark Graban (40m 44s):
Well, KC, thank you so much. Our, our guest, again has been Colonel Kim “KC” Campbell. Her book is Flying in the Face of Fear: A Fighter Pilot's Lessons on Leading with Courage. Thank you so much for the conversation and you know, the deep dive on Mistakes and learning from Mistakes and your experiences and, and what you're helping leaders with today. Really, really appreciate it.
Kimberly “KC” Campbell (41m 7s):
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Mark Graban (41m 10s):
Well, thanks again to KC for being a fantastic guest today. To learn more about her Look, for links in the show notes or go to markGraban.com/mistake218. As always, I want to thank you for listening. I hope this podcast inspires you to reflect on your own Mistakes, how you can learn from them or turn them into a positive. I've had listeners tell me they started being more open and honest about Mistakes in their work, and they're trying to create a workplace culture where it's safe to speak up about problems, because that leads to more improvement and better business results. if you have feedback or a story to share, you can email me MyFavoriteMistakepodcast@gmail.com. And again, our website is MyFavoriteMistakepodcast.com.