The next time you face adversity in your career—whether it’s a missed promotion, a difficult boss, or a deal that falls through—United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has a simple but effective mantra: “No excuses.”
“Once you learn that, it’s just so transformative to everything in life because then you pivot from feeling bad for yourself, feeling sorry for yourself, to how do I go overcome it?” he said in an Instagram post after a group of summer United interns which lessons have shaped his career and personal life.
It’s a lesson many Gen Z may have already learned the hard way, having entered the workplace amid shifting workplace norms, waves of layoffs, and a particularly tough job market. But Kirby’s advice is less about avoiding adversity than how to respond when it inevitably arrives.
It’s a philosophy the 58-year-old first learned while training as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force Academy—and one that was put to the test most publicly when he became United’s CEO in May 2020, just as the pandemic was bringing the airline industry to a standstill. With U.S. passenger traffic plunging by 60%, United operating revenue fell by 64.5% in 2020 and the company posted a $7.1 billion net loss. Kirby was forced to slash flights, burn millions each quarter in cash, and even take out a $6.8 billion loan using United’s loyalty program as collateral. He also took a 100% salary cut.
“You’re going to encounter challenges in business and in life,” he added as an Instagram caption. “You can spend your time explaining why it happened, or you can spend your time figuring out how to overcome it. I’ve always believed the second approach is better.”
From mowing lawns and selling fireworks to leading a $60 billion airline giant
Kirby grew up in a middle-class family in a farming community outside of Dallas, Texas, and has said he never had a grand career plan but developed an entrepreneurial streak early.
“I was always trying to earn money as a kid by mowing lawns, delivering newspapers, and, once I tried to start a company with a buddy,” Kirby told the East Valley Tribune in 2007. “We sold firecrackers—and we nearly blew ourselves up!”
After graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and operations research, Kirby worked as a budget analyst at the Pentagon and later moved into the airline industry. He joined American West Airlines in 1995 and rose through the ranks, eventually becoming president of U.S. Airways in 2006. Following U.S. Airways’ merger with American Airlines in 2013, Kirby became president of the combined airline. He joined United as president in 2016 and was named CEO in 2020.
Above all, Kirby is a believer that self-confidence will lead you down a pathway toward success.
“I also believe in self-fulfilling prophecies,” he said. “By saying you’re going to do incredible stuff, you make it a whole lot more likely that it’s going to happen.”
An additional core part of Kirby’s leadership strategy has been surrounding himself with people who share his approach to work—and who genuinely care about one another. When he was looking to strengthen United’s pilot-hiring process, Kirby asked his head of flight operations to select a dozen well-liked pilots to help interview candidates.
“I told this group of pilots, ‘Your job is just to assess: Is this interviewee someone I would like to take a four-day trip with? And if you say no, then they’re out. You get a veto vote,’” Kirby said in a recent interview with McKinsey.
“The idea is to pick people who care about others, who you want to hang out with, who you want to be with.”
United has since emerged from the pandemic in a much stronger position. Its market capitalization is now roughly $41 billion, just behind rival Delta, at $60 billion. Fortune reached out to United Airlines for further comment.
The CEOs of Delta and Nvidia agree: don’t shy away from adversity
Kirby isn’t the only business leader who believes adversity can be a catalyst for growth.
Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian has similarly emphasized the role of humility in navigating crises.
“Our motto is to keep climbing, and to always keep growing and keep learning and keep aspiring, and keep focused on where we’re going,” he told The Wall Street Journal, adding that crisis—whether the pandemic or the rise of jet fuel, “can make you stronger or they can make you fall back to the pack.”
“We’ve always tried through learning, through humility to try to take from whatever we’ve encountered [and] become more resilient, become more differentiated, become more distinctive in how we deliver our service.”
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has taken a similarly counterintuitive view of adversity, arguing that having low expectations can actually make someone more resilient.
“People with very high expectations have very low resilience—and unfortunately, resilience matters in success,” Huang said at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business in 2024. “One of my great advantages is that I have very low expectations.”
Huang added, “I don’t know how to teach it to you except for I hope suffering happens to you.”
