Leadership, Safety, and the "Human Envelope"

We talk a lot about “the envelope”. That hard line on a sheet of graph paper where an aircraft’s design limit ends and danger begins. Having flown in over 50 different aircraft that ranged from the raw intensity of an F-15 to the hightech complexity of the Joint Strike Fighter, I’ve come to realize that the most critical envelope we have to manage isn’t made of aluminum or carbon fiber. It’s flesh and bones. We need to think about how we lead while making hard decisions and managing the deluge of data, which challenges us to make good decisions.

My approach to leadership was shaped on the ground, working with the Army as a Forward Air Controller, where I witnessed leadership under a continuing crisis. It wasn’t enhanced in seminars or through mindless online HR classes; it was further honed in the crucible of a flight test control room and in the cockpit. In that environment, I quickly learned that leadership isn’t about barking orders. It’s about managing the Signal to Noise ratio–reducing the noise and increasing the signal so that my message was received loud and clear.

As a pilot, I’ve learned that “Knock it off” is the best tool for clarity. A “Knock It Off” culture empowers anyone, from a new engineer to an experienced pilot, to stop a process or mission if something feels wrong. Effective leaders foster this culture by ensuring those who speak up are thanked, not penalized. If your team fears speaking up, you’re merely awaiting disaster, not leading the mission. The “Knock it off” call is the best way to cut through the noise and get to the clear signal, quickly.

Flight tests inherently involve tension: we must push boundaries to collect data yet safely return the jet and pilot. This tension breeds risk, exacerbated by scheduling, budget, and human limits. Safety isn’t merely the absence of risk; test pilots actively confront and systematically mitigate risk to an acceptable level. This was a constant challenge, especially during the Joint Strike Fighter test program I led two decades ago. Although advances in data management and system controls have improved since then, the challenge of risk mitigation persists.

Retrospectively critiquing past testing, like the Joint Strike Fighter program, with the idea that new AI can simply cut costs and improve efficiency is flawed. AI’s true value isn’t cost-cutting or accelerating schedules but providing superior tools to manage and process the immense data available, enabling better, split-second decisions when problems arise. Our biggest hurdle is surviving the data deluge. The roles of test pilot and engineer are shifting; we must move from “operators” to “mission managers” leading test teams, often remotely, mirroring corporate leaders managing distant teams.

Likewise, as the aircraft we test or the systems we use get “smarter” and more autonomous, the flight test team’s role is shifting. We’re not just evaluating performance and handling qualities; we’re testing systems driven by complex argentic AI and whether we can actually trust the algorithm. It means pilots and engineers now have to speak “AI” as fluently as they speak aerodynamics.

New tech should support, not replace, human decisionmakers in aviation and leadership. Its purpose is to clear crisis “noise,” allowing humans to focus on high-level decisions. Future flight testing must validate trust between human and machine; if the pilot or team doesn’t understand the “why” of a decision, the technology or leadership has failed. This underscores the need for a “knock it off” culture: empower people to call “stop” immediately. It’s always better to explain a precautionary stoppage afterward than to deal with the consequences of a preventable mishap. If you’re looking to lead in my field (or any field), my advice is simple: Create a culture that breeds a team willing to make that knock it off call, even if it turns out to be the wrong call.

Aviation has a brutal way of humbling anyone who thinks they’ve seen it all. The second you stop asking “Why?” is the second you become a liability. When you neglect to say knock it off when you should, you become a statistic. Focus on “attribution over retribution.” When a flight or a plan goes wrong—and it will—look at what happened, not who messed up. Just as the most advanced aircraft rely on clear communication between the pilots and the machine, a high-performing team is limited only by the quality of communication among its members and leadership.