What Flying Apache Helicopters Taught Her About Leadership & Grit | Shannon Huffman Polson

Welcome to the Legacy All-Stars Podcast. We feature inspirational stories from people who dedicate themselves to helping others. Here is your host, Alan Pavlosky.

All right, welcome everybody. Welcome back to the Legacy All-Stars Podcast. I'm Alan Pavlosky, and today I am truly honored to welcome someone whose life story is a masterclass in courage, resilience, and the power of leading with purpose. Our guest today made history as one of the first women to fly the Apache attack helicopter in the United States Army. Let that sink in for a minute. In an era where the doors to that world were barely cracked open, she didn't wait for an invitation. She earned her way in, flew the toughest conditions imaginable, and came out on the other side with hard-won wisdom she now shares with leaders and organizations around the world. After military service, she carried the same relentless spirit into the corporate world, leading at the intersection of business resilience and human potential. She is the author of The Grit Factor, a research-backed, story-driven guide for anyone who needs to find the courage to push forward when the path is uncertain. She is also the founder of the Grit Institute, a leadership development platform designed to help executives, rising leaders, and teams build the mindset and the skills to lead with clarity, confidence, and impact. Her work has been featured on the Today Show, in the Financial Times, Forbes, Newsweek, and Harvard Business Review's IdeaCast. She has partnered with the industry giants like Microsoft, IBM, Verizon, and Intuit. Beyond the stages and boardrooms, she is a dedicated community builder, having founded a public library and a local fellowship in her community. Because for Shannon, leadership has never been just about the corner office. It's been about much, much more. Today, we're going to explore what grit really means, how extraordinary leaders develop it, and what it looks like when an organization truly commits to leading with purpose. This is a conversation I know will stay with you long after it ends. I'm pleased to introduce Shannon Huffman Poulsen. Welcome to the show.

Thanks, Alan. It's wonderful to be with you. Thanks so much.

Well, I've been dying to get into this conversation. You became one of the first women to fly the Apache helicopter in the US Army. What did that experience teach you about earning your place in spaces that weren't originally designed for you?

Yeah, and it's been— it's hard to imagine at this point in 2026 that that was something that we had to grapple with within my lifetime. But I graduated college in 1993, and I had been an ROTC cadet at Duke University. I had really enjoyed ROTC, and it was really a wonderful opportunity to have the opportunity to serve. And that was something that I had wanted to do, something that I believed in, was serving something bigger than myself. And so, the opportunity then to go into the aviation field, and then at that point is right when they lifted the combat exclusion clause for attack helicopters. And suddenly, women were allowed to fly everything that was in the inventory, as it is today, which is also as it should be.

Mm-hmm.

But, you know, it's a long road. And it was a long road before I got there. And it's been a long road since as well. And I think along the way, you learn that it's about— it's It's about the good people that you know along the way, for sure. And there is good and bad along those journeys. It's about making sure that you exceed the standard. And when you exceed the standard, there's very little for people to say, even if they continue to try to do it. And it's about realizing that in the process of that, you're making a difference, not just with the mission itself, but also with opening that door to other people so that they can take the same steps if that's what they're called to do.

Yeah, I love that as a mantra. Just the idea that making a difference comes at the forefront of your capacity is really, really powerful. Very impressive.

And you don't always know it at the time, right? That's not why I did it. That's not why I went into that field. It's something that you realize a little bit along the way because somebody mentions it here or there. And even at that point, I remember thinking, well, that's not why I'm here to do that. I'm here to do the mission. That's it. And that's the right way to go about it, I think, is to just be there to do the mission and do it the best that it can be done. And it turns out there are things that can make that harder than they need to be. But it's important just to continue to work through it. And I think it's really in retrospect you realize, with lots of opportunities now to talk to people, that it really does help to be another story that can pave the way for other people.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, most of us encounter adversity, but you faced it at an extraordinary level. What's the difference between people who develop grit through hardship and those who get consumed by it?

What a great question. And no one's ever quite phrased it that way before. I think there's a couple of ways that people can be consumed by it. So I think that's maybe something to start with. And that is both for good and for bad, right? people that get into doing things just because it requires grit, and that may be working through something for them. I don't think that's ultimately a sustainable operating mode, and nor will it open the door to meaning and purpose in life. It may be something, though, that someone needs to do because of something that they've faced. But I do know that there are people that can get consumed by that, by just the identity of being gritty. And I think that is limited utility after a point.

Yeah.

There are also people who can be overcome by it, right? Overcome by idea that they have to keep pushing through and think that they can't. So those 2 different ways are ways that people may be consumed by this idea of grit. I think building grit as you go along, there's an overlapping Venn diagram with resilience, right? Grit and resilience are not the same thing, but they are absolutely related and they're absolutely connected.

Yeah.

I always like to correct people that grit is not just about getting through, right? It is about that for sure. It's about something bigger than that though as well. And that's what we get into in The Grit Factor is this grit triad, which is a much more holistic way of looking at what grit really can be. But I think as you develop grit through challenge, you realize a few things, one of which is that it's not a sustainable operating mode. So you're not supposed to be figuring out how to be gritty and then doing it all the time. Grit is a— it's a tool. It's a way of addressing a challenge. And then it's something that you'll need to be able to rest and do all of those things that take care of yourself so that you can call on it again when it's needed. And that's a pretty important—

That makes total sense. Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful.

Yeah.

You've spent a great deal of time studying what makes leaders resilient. What did your research reveal that genuinely surprised you?

So The Grit Factor, the book The Grit Factor, outlines what I call now the grit triad. And the first part of that is really is what I come back to in every different direction that I end up taking my research. I come back to this same foundation of grit and resilience. And I don't know if this was a surprise necessarily. I was surprised to connect it as directly as it certainly does, and then I'll bring up a second point, so 2 points. That foundation that I come back to again and again is about owning your own story, which requires work, right? It's not just—

Mm-hmm.

—you know, this is what happened and this is who I am. It's a lot, lot more nuanced and intuitive than that. And I guide people through that work at the Grit Institute and through our courses there. So owning your own story and then connecting to your core purpose. And your core purpose is going deeper than why. We've all heard about starting with why. I like to talk about going deeper than why. And when you can do that work, that foundation piece of the grit triad is the foundation and the base of grit and resilience. So it might seem like this internal work is kind of touchy-feely. It's rock-hard stuff, right? It's the real stuff. It's hard work. And it is the internal work we have to do before we can lead others and help them lead themselves. But I'd say the second point that I'd bring up is the thing that surprised me the most as I was not just looking at my own experience, and in fact, I would say I fail more than I succeed in this surprising point, but the senior leaders who continued on in the military for decades or who had worked elsewhere for decades. The piece that came out that I was not expecting to be its own chapter was the art and the science of active listening. And that listening itself— and, Alan, you're great at this. You do this so brilliantly on this podcast—

Thank you.

—and how you cue things up and how you make sure that people tell their stories. But that art and that science of active listening is not something that is innate to a lot of us who are really execution-oriented. It's something that can be developed. It's something that can be practiced and trained. And it's a critical part of leadership. Leadership in particular. And I would say that by extension, also grit and resilience.

Yeah. I want to get a little bit more granular about the grit factor and what it means and why it matters now.

Yeah.

The word grit is used a lot these days, sometimes in a shallow way, sometimes in more deep ways. How do you define it? And what does authentic grit actually look like in practice?

Yeah, I'm constantly pushing back or hearing criticisms of grit. It's like, well, it's not just about grit. Or we just talk about grit, but it's so much more than that. I'm like, grit is not a simple thing. I don't think of it as a simple thing at all. When I have defined grit, I think of it as a dogged determination in the face of difficult circumstances.

Mm-hmm.

So there is a doggedness about it. And that isn't a sexy definition. It's a continuing on, right? It's continuing to make your way through. Now, there's different ways to make your way through. There is just kind of a grit in your teeth and pushing. And there's a time for that. There's a time and a place for that. But again, it's a lot more nuanced and complex. And so when I think about what authentic grit really looks like, it is more of that marriage of grit and resilience, starting with that deep internal work, doing that really hard— that hard work of owning our own stories and connecting to core purpose. That's that internal work. Very few people do that work. And it's work that we have to do again and again and again. Once we do that work, and only once we do that work, are we ready to lead others or ready to lead an endeavor. And at that point, we go from the commit phase of the grit factor into the learn phase. And that learn phase of that grit triad, that learn phase is about building your team knowing that none of us do this alone, that grit is the most effective in community, that you also, if you have a team, that you're there to support your team, that it's about that community that comes together to do the work that is really critically important. None of us are meant to operate in a silo. None of us are meant to be purely individualistic, even though our culture might tell us that. So once we've done that work around our team and we continue to do that work and develop those systems, then we go into ensuring that we are training and practicing Practicing active listening. And then we go into the mindset of grit and resilience. And, you know, in some ways, I have the mindset as the end of that learn vector, but I also have it surrounding the entire grit triad because you really have to approach this with the right mindset. And when I talk about mindset, I think about the growth mindset, yes, the stress mindset also, the mindset of grounded optimism. And then there's also a purpose mindset and a team mindset. So there's multiple dimensions of mindset that are are really critical to our success. And then ultimately, we get to launch. And launch is about being willing to be audacious enough to be ourselves, which is really hard in certain circumstances. It was certainly something I did not feel I could do within the military context. So audacious. You have to also be willing to be adaptable, and adaptable to changing circumstances and all of those things. And so those are the types of things where we go commit, learn, and launch, right? That's that much more nuanced approach to this idea of grit and resilience that are really married together to form what is the grit factor.

Yeah, wow. That's a mouthful. There's a lot there. And one of the things that resonated with me so much kind of reminded me of my 30-plus years in sports working with athletes. And in the athletic terms, grit might be described as having some dog in you, right? Where you're just tough enough to get through and to affect the rest of your team members. And I think when you talked about grit being more community-oriented and bringing the rest of the team with you, I mean, that really resonates with me because the teams that typically win championships are the ones that have somebody or multiple people with some dog in them, right?

For sure. And we just all watched the World Cup, right? And that certainly comes out in so many ways. I'm far from an expert on it, but I really enjoyed it. And it really did come out. It was wonderful to see that aspect of the community as a part of it.

Absolutely. Your work reaches Fortune 500 companies, executive teams, and rising leaders. What does an organization that's challenging or experiencing Well, that's a great question.

That's pretty unique to the company and where it is that the challenges are. And at the same time, the approach that we take is similar regardless of where it is. But what the company looks like will vary. I think the places that I have seen a lot of challenge in particular, it's interesting, the companies that are experiencing huge layoffs, That's a really challenging thing. And that is certainly ubiquitous right now, certainly within the tech industry especially.

Mm-hmm.

It's not just the layoffs. It's also the instability, the constant reorganizations that happen within those companies as well that can be super destabilizing. And that's a hard place to have a culture of grit and resilience because you don't have that community aspect in the same way when you're constantly reorging. If you're laying people off and not taking care of them when you do it— I mean, there are ways to do things, of course. But if it's a constant sort of a churn, that becomes an extraordinarily difficult thing. So that's one place. I would say another place are— and this is maybe even more challenging, and people don't think that it would be because the bottom line is looking really good. But whenever a company acquires another company or merges with another— so mergers and acquisitions, right?

Mm-hmm.

Or is experiencing extreme growth in some other way, those are really challenging times for companies. And they're challenging in part because, I mean, in some ways, it comes back again to the team piece, right? the culture is different among these different pieces, or it's difficult to grow the culture as well as to grow the organization. And so all of a sudden, that team piece of that kind of that foundation of the learn part of the grit triad becomes very difficult because they haven't thought through ways to grow the culture and grow the community along with the company. Or if you're merging, you have 2 very different ideas and different concepts and different cultures coming together. So those are some of the big places that people really wrestle. And I would say that when that happens— and this is happening Everywhere with consolidations and the challenges with the economy. We come back again and again. We come back to that foundational piece, right? What is our story? Well, now we have a new story. How are we going to tell that story? How does that story connect to our past? How does that connect to our future? How does that connect to the mission? What does this really mean for our purpose, and how do we connect our people to that purpose? And so, we come back to the same tools. What it looks like inside really depends on— I mean, it depends on the industry. It depends on the vertical that they're working in as well. Depends on the company. But I do see in both contraction and expansion really significant challenge. And that's a lot of the time the clients that call me in to do a keynote or call me in to do a training or something like that. So that's where we have to really spend some thoughtful and considered and focused time on building back their teams in a way that their teams can come together and make the mission happen.

Yeah, you know, it strikes me, you mentioned it, we're living through extraordinary turbulence right now, economic, technological, societal.

Yeah.

What separates the leaders and organizations that will come out stronger from those that won't?

Well, you know, a lot of the aspects of the grit triad are parts of it, right? So are you grounded? Are you grounded in that commit phase, in your story and your purpose? Are you 100% committed to your team? And I would say, when people ask me what makes a great leader, a great leader, I think, does 3 things. Well, they do a lot of things, but 3 things are non-negotiable. Number one is that their team comes first, right? Not the technology, not the meeting with the boss, not the potential merger. merger and the way that they can prop up their resume. What comes first is taking care of their people, full stop. That's non-negotiable. And I don't think there's a great leader that exists or will exist, no matter what the technology is, by the way, no matter what happens with AI, no matter what happens coming down the road, it is always going to be about people first. Once you take care of your people, they take care of the mission. So that's number one. Number 2 is communication. And communication is so critically important. And so many of us think that if we send a quick text or an email, that's communicating. But that's not how We work face-to-face. We work when we know that people care about us and we care about them and together we care about the mission. And so communication happens usually much more frequently with a good leader than it does with somebody who is not as strong. You have to say things many more times in many more ways than you think you have to say them. And you have to find ways to ask questions and listen and then respond, right? So there's lots of pieces to that communication riddle that are critical. And I think that's a really good point. Critical for a strong leader. And then, of course, the last thing— and maybe I should have started with this— is, of course, having that vision, right? Having that vision and bringing people along with them to that vision for the future, even if that vision is uncertain, even if that vision was going to change because of technology or because of changing circumstances. So vision, communication, and team— those are what leaders have always had to have. And this is what they have to have today. There are some basics that aren't changing. And I do worry— and I see this again and again— that people are distracted by the bright, shiny objects, right? And partly, sometimes it's— their leadership team that's asking them, like, hey, you've got to integrate AI by, you know, by the end of the quarter. And maybe that's important as well. But you cannot lose sight of those 3 important attributes of a leader if that's, in fact, your role and what you've been called to do.

Yeah, for sure. Let's talk about how you help leaders, particularly those who have achieved a great deal of success. How do you help them reconnect with a deeper sense of purpose when the metrics no longer feel like enough?

It's so important. And I'm so glad you're asking that, Alan, because there is a point— I think there is a time when we're young when it's enough to have the adrenaline of what it is that needs to get done, right? If you're like you and you're like me and you're 29 or you're 35 and someone says, go take that hill, you're going to take that hill and you're going to figure out how to do it. And then there's a point where life becomes more nuanced and complex. And you have a family and you have community and you have other parts of your life. And you start to say, why really am I doing this? And why really am I spending time away from home? And so that is such an important place. And I would say in my life maybe and in yours right now, we're at ages where that is— those are the questions that you are asking. And the people that are now in C-suite or partner-level roles at very large companies are asking those questions. And with the turnover that we're seeing, it's pretty important that we do this work to say, let's come back, back down to the commit phase, right? Whether it's a company or an individual, we come back down to that commit phase. How can we recommit? Let's look at our story. How do we understand our story differently now? How can we still understand our story in a way that connects to what it is that we're doing in a meaningful way, a really meaningful way? How do we think about legacy, right? How does that story now include the concept of legacy? Of course, part of your podcast name as well, right?

Yeah.

How is legacy a part of what it is that we're doing? And then how does that connect down to a core purpose? And when I talk about core purpose with people, and we do that work through— I teach this at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. And I also do this training online. with people as well. When we get down to talking about core purpose, we're looking at values-based things, right? Values that are going to be individual to every single person. So we have to get down to a level of core purpose that is agnostic of the job and agnostic of the position. And it's only when we do that that we can connect to the values that really make us who we are and how we're supposed to show up, show up in and contribute to the world. So that's the deep work that we do in Leading with Purpose, both as Part of a short workshop that I do at Leadership and Strategic Impact at the Tuck School at Dartmouth, as well as online with cohorts as well.

Wow.

Yeah.

You know, beyond the professional work, though, you've invested in your community in deep and meaningful ways. I've read about some of the things you've done. And you and I have had a previous discussion about this. You founded a library and a local fellowship. What drives the impulse to give back at the community level?

Yeah, I was brought up— I think it was fortunate that my parents, both of them, taught us really that our role in the world is serve. And it's part of my faith tradition. It's part of my Christian faith. It's part of what was modeled to me by my parents and modeled by their parents before them. And I remember at times, you know, growing up and making food at our church for people who didn't have enough. And I remember coming home from college and going with my dad to deliver food from the church on Christmas Eve before we went to our own family dinner. And I remember actually at one point when we were delivering food on Christmas Eve— I'm from Anchorage, Alaska, so it's snowy and icy and we're driving to these, you know, far-out places. And several of the places looked like they didn't actually need what we were delivering. And I said to my dad, I said, you know, why are we taking our Christmas Eve and driving out to these places where, you know, maybe it's a bunch of kids in their 20s that are perfectly capable of having their own jobs? And I think I was feeling a little snarky at the time. And my dad said, you know, there was a time that I drove food out to a young woman who was in an apartment that had almost nothing, and she had 3 children in that apartment. It was very clear somebody had walked out on her, and she would not have called unless it was the, you know, the only thing that she could have done. And he said, if there is one person that we help that is like that, that needs that help, then all of this is worth it. You know, they really brought us up to understand that our work was to contribute to the world, that that's what we're put here to do, is to make the world a better place. And if we are given the privilege of being able to pay our own bills and have a roof over our own heads. And our work is to help people who are struggling with those same things. And so, again, part of my faith tradition, part of my family upbringing, but I do feel very passionately about that. And it's something we're working to instill in our 2 teenagers as well.

Yeah. Well, you stole my thunder on the legacy question.

No, no, no, I want to hear your thoughts on it as well.

Well, I mean, I mean, you and I have had this discussion before, but you've broken barriers, you've written books, built institutions. What does legacy mean to you personally? And how do you think about building yours with intention to expand upon what you've already told me?

Yeah, I actually just very recently, like truly extremely recently, struggling with the idea of legacy and wondering if it's a bit too bombastic, a little bit too presumptuous. I don't know. I don't know. I think what I would hope is that in the places where I have had a chance to work or to be present, that I've left things better than I found them.

Yeah.

And, um, and I don't know that I can hope for much more than that, you know. I think I would like to continue to work towards being a better person and being a better mom and being better at the work that I do. I continue to write and, you know, research and write. I continue to do a lot of creative work, continue to work with businesses and companies. And if can make a difference in the lives of the people that I'm working with and the companies that I'm working with, in the lives of the people around me, in a way that, you know, makes them smile or gives them a little bit of inspiration, I think that's a pretty good legacy. And outside of that, in terms of the work on the library, which was a huge, incredible project in our community, I'm grateful for the chance to have done something that helps to bring community together. So, again, going back to those values things, what are our values personally? And then how do we live those into the world? I think as long as it makes the world a better place, I think that's what I'm hoping for.

Yeah. I mean, and speaking about helping other people find their purpose, you host the Facing the Wind podcast. What kind of conversations are you exploring that feel most urgent to you right now?

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I started out and we're on a brief pause on that podcast at the moment, but I started out interviewing other leaders that were similar to the leaders that I interviewed for The Grit Factor, which, of course, is not just my own story, but there's dozens of other leaders in the vanguards of their fields that are part of that book and part of those stories. And they shared their stories with incredible candor and incredible humility and the learnings as well that they took from experiences that were— some of which are hard to imagine. So I do hope your listeners will pick up The Grit Factor. But the podcast is expanding on that and really continuing to bring in additional leaders in that same vein. Now, I started out with women and military as the focus and have certainly expanded beyond that as well. So there are tech leaders. now. I also interview men, whether we're looking at the nonprofit world or the corporate world or the military, really looking now a little bit more at purpose and at how it is that we are meant to give our best selves. And I think that is really a slight shift in focus. All of those efforts require grit and resilience, right? And it is all, I think, again, these overlapping Venn diagrams. So nothing is But some of my new work is looking at ancient wisdom, that's bringing ancient wisdom into modern life.

Hmm.

And so some of the next season will include looking more into how do we become better people, better versions of ourselves, the people that we're meant to be, so that we can contribute our best selves with grit and resilience to push through the hard times by drawing on this ancient wisdom. And I think sometimes we're always looking for the new thing. I think we have everything we need, actually, and we just actually need to tap into it. Yeah. There's nothing new, really. It's all been done before. There isn't. And, there's so much ancient wisdom that we've really neglected in so many ways. And, I hope we can recover some of that as we move forward. And, as the world becomes just, I mean, exponentially more technological, I think one of our greatest challenges right now is to remain human and to be the best that humanity can be in this world. And, you're doing that with your forest preschool in the Bay Area, I know. And, that That's what libraries are about. That's what churches are about. That's what wisdom is about. That's what reading real books is about and creative endeavors and these kinds of conversations. So how do we stay fully human? And there's a 2nd century thinker named Irenaeus who'd say fully alive. The glory of God is the human being fully alive. I want us to be fully alive, not to cede any parts of our lives to the tools that we're using.

Beautifully stated. Love it. Well, Shannon, we come to the end of the show. It went by in a flash. So I think we might have to do a revisit on this at some point to Kind of get some of the other things that we didn't discuss. But what you've shared today is going to stay with me because you don't just talk about grit, you embody it. From the cockpit of an Apache to the stages of some of the most influential organizations, your life is proof that leading with purpose isn't just a philosophy, it's a practice built one courageous decision at a time. To our listeners, Shannon talked about this. Pick up The Grit Factor, explore the grit Follow Shannon across her platforms. We will share all that information in the show notes, so definitely we'll help you get there. The tools and insights that she shares have the power to generally change the way you lead and the way you live. I'm Alan Pavlosky. This has been another episode of Legacy All-Stars, where we celebrate people who are using their success, their stories, and their service to make the world a better place. See you next week.