The view from my office window is a little different from yours. Most days, it’s a perfect, swirling blue-and-white marble, a sight that never, ever gets old. Other days, it’s a canvas of a billion stars against the blackest black you’ve ever seen. And every 90 minutes, it's a sunrise or a sunset, a brilliant, fiery light show that paints the edge of the planet in impossible colours.
My office? The International Space Station. My job? Commander.
When I tell people what I do, they often get a certain look in their eyes, a mix of awe and a little bit of confusion. They picture a military general, a tough-as-nails leader barking orders. They see me as the person in charge, the final word. And in a way, they're right. I am in charge. But my role as Commander of the ISS is about as far from a traditional command-and-control position as you can get. It’s less about authority and more about responsibility. Less about telling people what to do and more about making sure everyone can do their job safely and effectively. It’s a very different kind of power.
I’m a woman who spent years training to fly aircraft, to understand complex systems, and to solve problems under pressure. But all that training was just a prelude to the most challenging leadership role of my life. For six months, I was the one responsible for a crew of six, a 450-ton space station, and the hundreds of scientific experiments we were running. All of us, a diverse group of people from different countries and cultures, were hurtling around the Earth, a tiny, fragile bubble in the vast, unforgiving vacuum of space.
My first week as Commander was a humbling experience. I quickly realised that the fancy title didn't magically make me an expert on everything. While I was a trained astronaut with a deep understanding of the station’s systems, each of my crewmates was a specialist in their own right—a seasoned engineer, a brilliant scientist, a skilled pilot. My role wasn’t to know more than them. My role was to know how to listen to them. It was about creating an environment where a Russian cosmonaut felt comfortable telling me about a strange noise in a pump, where a Japanese scientist felt empowered to question a procedure, and where an American mission specialist knew their concerns would be heard and addressed.
The job, in its essence, is all about crew management. It’s about being a facilitator, a coach, and sometimes, even a therapist. Living in a space the size of a small house with five other people, with no privacy and no escape, can be a breeding ground for tension. The smallest things can become major annoyances. My responsibility was to be the pulse of the crew, to watch for signs of stress or fatigue, and to step in before a small issue became a big one. It’s about building a sense of community, a shared purpose that transcends language barriers and cultural differences. We ate meals together, we watched movies on a laptop in the evening, and we talked about our families back home. These were not just social activities; they were part of the mission. They were how we maintained our sanity and our cohesion as a team.
Beyond the human element, my responsibilities were vast and varied. I was the primary contact with Mission Control on the ground. Every day, I would have a private conference with the flight director, reporting on the station's health, discussing upcoming tasks, and relaying any issues or questions from the crew. I was the voice of the station, the final authority on decisions made in orbit. This required a level of communication that was precise, clear, and calm, no matter what was happening. When a critical system started to act up, or an unexpected alarm blared, my first call was to Mission Control, and my job was to describe the situation in painstaking detail, while simultaneously leading my crew in the immediate response.
Then there was the constant vigilance required for station health and safety. The ISS is a living organism, a complex machine with hundreds of thousands of parts, all of them critical. My days were a mix of overseeing maintenance schedules, checking power systems, and making sure the life support was functioning perfectly. The air we breathe, the water we drink—it all depends on a network of pumps, filters, and electronics. The buck stops with the Commander. If a critical system failed, I was the one who had to make the call to initiate a contingency plan, knowing that the safety of my entire crew rested on my decision. This isn’t something you can practice in a simulator; it’s a burden you carry with you every single moment.
On top of all that, we were there to do science. Hundreds of scientific experiments, from studying how fire behaves in microgravity to growing crops in space, were a daily part of our lives. My role was to make sure the right crew member was in the right place at the right time, with the right equipment. I had to coordinate with scientists on the ground, sometimes running an experiment three different ways before we got the data they needed. The leadership in space is a unique blend of being a CEO, a chief engineer, and a shift supervisor all rolled into one. You are constantly delegating, managing priorities, and ensuring that the work gets done with the utmost precision.
For me, becoming the Commander of the International Space Station was a profound moment, not just professionally, but personally. It’s a position of immense significance for a woman in space exploration. When I was a little girl, the idea of a woman in command of a starship was science fiction. Today, it’s a reality. But what I came to appreciate most was that in space, gender is irrelevant. There are no preconceived notions or biases to contend with. There’s only your competence, your training, and your ability to work with others. The vacuum of space is an absolute equaliser. Your team doesn’t care about your gender; they care about whether you can solve a problem and whether you have their back when things go wrong.
The leadership style I developed was born out of this environment. It wasn't about being the loudest voice in the room. It was about being the calmest. It was about trust, respect, and a deep understanding of each person’s strengths and weaknesses. It was about giving my crew the autonomy to do their jobs and then stepping in to provide guidance or support when they needed it. On Earth, we often confuse leadership with control. In space, I learned that true leadership is about empowerment. It’s about creating an environment where everyone feels like they have a stake in the mission and a responsibility to each other.
The final days of my command were filled with a mix of pride and a strange sense of weight. I looked out the window one last time, at the Earth below, and I realised that my most important job wasn't just commanding the station. It was about being a caretaker. A caretaker for the crew, for the machine, and for the hope that a diverse group of people from all over the world can work together to achieve something truly extraordinary. That's the real legacy of the Commander's role. It’s a testament to what we can achieve when we leave our differences on the ground and focus on a shared goal, floating as one, far above the world.