Space Leadership

About the Book

Who has ever dreamed of becoming an Astronaut? This book is about the challenging experience of leading an international team of astronauts, most of them scientists, living and working together in a highly confined environment, i.e. the International Space Station (ISS). It explores the kind of knowledge and skills that are required to lead a group of leaders without any kind of formal authority. It also enquires on the kind of team leadership you need to succeed in a multitask mission, that is basically controlled by various institutions based outside the station. The main question raised in this book is: What can leaders in organizations located on earth learn from such a unique, outer-space experience? Preparation for leadership in “space-coping” along with space challenges that the leader has to face and managing the return to earth. The report and reflections of the Russian Space leader, Sergey Ryazanskiy, are presented in three parts: • How do you prepare yourself for such a mission? • How do you cope with the challenges in the space station? • How do you manage your re-entry on earth? In earthly leadership terms, these questions are asking: • How do you prepare yourself for a new leadership assignment or role? • How do you deal with the unknown and the unexpected in your organization? • How do you cope with a re-assignment which is much less exciting and challenging than the one you just completed Each part of the book includes some key learnings and practical leadership guidelines. Even more, the readers can find a comprehensive leadership model developed around this unique space adventure by a team of academics and consultants working closely with Sergey.

About the Author

Sergey Ryazanskiy is a motivation speaker. His lectures focus on leadership, motivation, team building and working in stressful conditions and draw on his wide range of unique experiences which include being selected and trained as an astronaut, living and working in multi-cultural teams on the International Space Station, performing spacewalks and dealing with crises. Sergey graduated from the Moscow State University in 1996 with a major in “Biochemistry”. In 2003, as a result of his research, he was enlisted as a candidate in the Astronauts Corps of Russia. In 2013 during his first space mission he took the Olympic torch of the Sochi Winter Olympics into outer space. In the same year he performed one of the longest outer space missions in the history of the Soviet and Russian astronautics that lasted 8 hours 7 minutes. Sergey is also a public figure and since 2016 he has been Chairman of the Russian movement of schoolchildren. In 2017 during his second mission Sergey became the first scientist in history to be assigned as spaceship commander. He spent a total of 306 days in space and made a total of 4 Space walks. Sergey has already published 2 books in Russian: “Amazing Earth” which compiles best pictures of our planet made from the International Space Station and “How to hammer a nail in space” which answers most of the popular questions about astronautics. Sergey is a frequent lecturer at the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo Pierre Casse is Professor of Leadership at the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo and holds the leadership chair at the Business School (IEDC) of Bled (Slovenia). He was a visiting Professor at the Kellogg School of Management (Chicago) and the IAE of Aix en Provence (France). Former Dean at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership (Germany) as well as Professor at the International Institute of Management (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is a consultant to several multinationals and has published more than 15 books on leadership and negotiation. Andrey Shapenko is Associate Professor and Academic Director of MBA Programme at the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo. His teaching and research is focused on leadership development and organisational behaviour in the context of Russian management culture. Andrey is the certified executive coach and is the author of award-winning teaching cases that are taught at many Russian and international business schools. He is the winner of the prestigious EFMD Case Writing Competition 2016 and a finalist of CEEMAN Case Writing Competition 2017. Andrey’s opinion articles have been published by leading Russian business media (Harvard Business Review, Forbes, RBC, Republic, Inc. and other); and he has been a keynote speaker at multiple conferences in Russia and abroad, including TEDx. Andrey holds an MBA from IMD business school (Switzerland) and a PhD in Economics from Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas (Russia).