Author’s Note: I am a trekkie. But after watching William Shatner, famously known as the legendary Captain James T. Kirk from Star Trek, become the oldest person to journey to space, it got me to thinking about what we can learn from the sci-fi show. Going a bit deeper, I thought about what the show could teach CLOs about their work today.

As a result, my article series entitled What Star Trek Can Teach CLOs was ideated. Part I of the series focuses on Captain Kirk himself. Part II focuses on Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Part III focuses on Captain Benjamin Sisko from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Part IV, this piece, focuses on Captain Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager. Subsequent articles will focus on different captains from the famed show. I hope you find useful information from my analysis.

Learning Captain Janeway

A New Captain. A New Galaxy to Explore

I’ve always had a special connection with Star Trek: Voyager for three very important reasons.

1. It was the last Star Trek spin-off series my dad and I would watch together as he passed away a few years later.
2. It started on my 12^th birthday – January 16, 1995.
3. The show introduced me to Captain Kathryn Janeway – the first female actor to lead a Star Trek spinoff and open my eyes to female leadership.

Unlike Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9), Star Trek: Voyager returned viewers to the tried-and-true roots of Star Trek – a crew on a vessel exploring the cosmos. Not that DS9 didn’t have its own ship and missions, but the show was more centralized on the space station versus the USS Defiant. Star Trek: Voyager would truly take viewers where they’d “never gone before.”

During the premiere, the USS Voyager was sent on a mission to locate and arrest a Maquis crew.

The Maquis were a group of United Federation of Planets citizens who found themselves in Cardassian space after a peace treaty between the Federation and Cardassia redrew the boundary lines. Not wanting to give up their homes and resettle, the citizens formed a group called the Maquis and began to wage a campaign meant to get their homes back. Maquis-related stories were featured in both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

The Voyager crew tracked the Maquis raider, a small scout-type vessel, to an area of space known as the Bad Lands. This area was one big plasma storm. Think big firestorm with flame wrapped tornadoes. While attempting to apprehend the crew, both ships were pulled 70,000 lightyears across space by an entity known as The Caretaker.

If 70,000 lightyears sounds huge, that’s because it is in reality. If Voyager set a course for Earth, located in the Alpha Quadrant, from their location in the Delta Quadrant and traveled, non-stop, at Warp 9… it would take them 70 years to return home.

By the end of the episode, both crews realized they would need each other to make the journey home. So, the Starfleet crew and the Maquis crew combined to create one unified group.

Captain Kathryn Janeway

The leader of this new crew would be Captain Kathryn Janeway. Played by Kate Mulgrew, Janeway was a force with which to be reckoned. She was bold but thoughtful. From the first episode and throughout the series, Captain Janeway always weighed opportunity against reality. She was responsible for this new crew and her mission was to get them home. Any opportunity to do that had to be studied closely, but the cost was also weighed. If it violated her ethics and the laws of Starfleet, it was a no go. Her principles and the ones on which the Federation was founded were core to her being and her leadership.

Janeway could be stern as well expecting nothing but the best from her crew, but she understood that while she expected the best… she had to provide opportunities for them to be the best. In other words, Captain Janeway’s leadership was set on one paramount principle: that she must set her officers and crew up for success.

The captain could also be quite understanding. Given she and her newly unified crew were stranded 70,000 lightyears away from home, she found ways to nurture her crew. In many ways, she turned Voyager into a home. She was completely compassionate.

And as I mentioned, she was a woman. And for me, that was a powerful lesson learned. She did not sacrifice her leadership abilities to her gender nor did she lack in femininity.  Captain Janeway was perfectly balanced as character. She provided to me, at a tender age of 12, my first female role model and hero. And I wasn’t the only one. Janeway continues to be a role model for people today… especially given that the character has just received new life on the brand new kids’ show Star Trek: Prodigy.

Based on this information, what can the character teach CLOs about leadership and delivering on promises/strategies. If we had to narrow the list of characteristics down to focus on, let’s go with:

• Bold
• Uplifting
• Compassionate
• Balanced

The Bold CLO

Being bold can sometimes be confused with being pompous or arrogant when it is anything but. Being confident in your ability is a key part of being bold. A chief learning officer must be bold and confident in their ability to lead their respective team or learning organization.

In today’s uncertain world, boldness is a life saver for learning leaders. No doubt you sometimes feel like your organization is a cruise ship on a stormy sea. The crew (company leaders and their teams) and passengers (employees) are being tossed from one side of the ship to the other thanks to the choppy sea. That life saver is the thing you cling to for peace of mind.

Cling to your boldness and don’t be afraid to show it to others. Be their live saver. They need to see it as well. They need to see confidence and be confident in your ability to lead. That doesn’t mean they have to agree with everything you do, but they need to be “at ease” with you at the helm.

The Uplifting CLO

Being bold doesn’t mean being downtrodden.

Remember Janeway uplifts her crew when they are down. An uplifting CLO must do the same. We are still feeling the pain of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are, at the writing of this article, still in the pandemic itself… although there is light at the end of the tunnel. However, things are still very uncertain. Your employees are concerned. They may not outwardly or verbally admit it, but they are feeling the stress.

As an uplifting chief learning officer, provide goals they can achieve. They don’t have to be easy goals, but they need to be attainable. Give them positive feedback. Review learning with them and mark progress improvements. If you have a large organization or an organization that is largely remote, delegate. Have your team follow-up with employees on learning. Let them be your surrogates. It’s important, regardless of the organization’s size, to have that personal touch.

The Compassionate CLO

If you are uplifting your employees in their learning… it’s not difficult to also be compassionate.

Companies and employees alike are struggling. The struggles aren’t necessarily the same, but they are connected. Sometimes, learning can be a distraction from the reality of the Great Resignation and all that comes with it. But it can also be a great opportunity to upskill and reskill.

A company’s ability to reskill and/or upskill their employees will be the mode by which the organization moves into the future successfully. It becomes the lifeblood of your employees and the company as a whole.

Find new ways and new skills for your employees to learn. Provide opportunities for them to expand their horizons. But at the same time, take into account the employee’s whole self. Employees are not just ID numbers. They are living, breathing entities. Provide learning that helps them manage. Maybe it’s financial knowledge. Maybe it’s a mindfulness exercise. Trust me, the employee will appreciate it even if it might seem a bit of a stretch at first.

The Balanced CLO

Speaking of mindfulness… a chief learning officer must be balanced. I’m not just referring to a balance of the mind, but of life in totality.

Everything a chief learning officer does must be with balance. It’s not easy. Not by a long shot. Variables constantly change and the CLO and his/her/their team must read those variables and respond accordingly.

But remember this always: balance is the key to success. Don’t let anyone say otherwise. Yes, there are pieces that are important to success as well… intelligence, leadership, data analysis, content creation and curation, etc., but all those pieces must be in… you guessed it… balance. Otherwise, it’s just a chaotic mess.

Captain Janeway, in all things, always took a balanced approach to command.

The Female Factor

As I said previously, Captain Janeway was my first female role model. In today’s world where gender equity and pay equity are big topics, Janeway can be the endgame. What do I mean by that statement?

Janeway represents where our culture should be today with women in leadership. She represents the true north… from a science fiction point of view anyway. Her gender is not a weakness or a discredit to her ability. The creators of Star Trek: Voyager created her in such a way that she exuded command and it was delivered with perfection through Kate Mulgrew.

Janeway’s femineity was a benefit, not a detriment. She was not seen as less than and she was certainly not disrespected as a result. She was seen as an equal. With the corporate structure, woman should be equalized among their male peers in all ways. And equity must be created Any attempt to hamper this move forward can be characterized as a step in the wrong direction.

In Summation

Now for a quick trek fact.

The great thing about Star Trek is regardless of who is sitting in the “big chair” you can be assured that person will be unique. Finding the right actor to play the captain in a Star Trek series is not easy choice.

In fact, Kate Mulgrew was not the first person to play Captain Janeway. French-Canadian actor Genevieve Bujold was originally selected to play the character, then named Captain Nicole Janeway.

The same can be said for a chief learning officer. Be unique and bring your own brand of person to the job. Sometimes, unexpected success happens… the magic that is being a CLO is sparked and spread across the organization in ways never thought possible.

In the coming weeks, I will continue to write about what CLOs can learn from the remaining Star Trek captains. The next one will focus on Captain Jonathan Archer, played by actor Scott Bakula.