In organizations as large as ours it is the people that follow the crowd that get promoted. That is dangerous and it enforces the “think inside the box” mentality that we have to overcome.

Personally, the night before deploying for two years of service in the Peace Corps, I wondered about many of these same points regarding the process of enacting change. The potential for what I could achieve with my community was exciting, but also frightening. I wondered how it would change me in the process. I feared my passions would change; namely, that I would return no longer interested in pursuing a career in the space program (clearly, that wasn’t the case). My JPL supervisor at the time left me with words I still recall: “You’ll still be you; you’ll just be you with a greater perspective on life.” She was right.

In the long run, I don’t see how one could not be changed by a process you’re inherently involved in, particularly if you’re genuinely invested in the outcome (by “changed” here, I mean for the better, not changed as in corrupted by egoism secondary to success). It can be difficult to separate what are someone’s personal motivations versus altruistic desires for the greater good, and I don’t have a solution for that. Obviously, we want someone who cares about space to lead the agency, but there is also some benefit in choosing a leader from the periphery in order to get a different perspective, as was the case w/ O’Keefe (and as is the case with Peace Corps Volunteers). In other words, we don’t necessarily need someone who has adored all things astrophysics since age two, but rather someone who’s willing to be an advocate for all of us who did. Thus, while I think it is important for an administrator to have had work experience similar to that of those they lead, they must also be an effective communicator in both internal affairs and with the public, a good listener, organized, approachable, personable, engaging, care about the people who make up the agency as much as the projects, motivated for the right reasons, and of course, willing to lead…and good at it.

These characteristics may be found in someone within NASA, but they don’t have to be. Ed Weiler often poses the question of whether you can teach someone to lead, or whether some people are just natural leaders. Having participated in and worked with several classes of the NASA Academy (advertised as the Agency’s leadership internship), and given that the majority of world leaders are first-born or only children, I tend to believe in the natural leader theory. One can be taught what makes a good leader, but you can’t teach someone to care or to motivate and lead others if they don’t inherently have that drive. Some people just have it, and you know it when you see it.

I don’t know that I necessarily want the next Administrator to have the same type of resume as prior administrators, particularly because as far as the public is concerned, nothing much has happened with NASA since Apollo besides shuttle and ISS. Yes, other factors contributed to this public mindset, but how do we know certain decisions wouldn’t have been made differently had they just been presented with an alternative spin by someone with a more radical thought process, a more passionate advocacy for a particular project, or even a different personality?

Recall that in the original definition of enzymatic catalyst, the reaction theoretically can still happen without the catalyst, or with a poor catalyst—it will just happen slower. Therefore, as Ghandi is so famously quoted as saying, “You must BE the change you wish to see in the world.”