United CEO Scott Kirby: "There's no room for excuses"

Many professionals hit setbacks over the course of a career — a promotion that falls through, a difficult boss, a deal that collapses. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby follows a simple but effective rule for moments like these: "No excuses." He shared that philosophy on Instagram with young employees doing summer internships.

"Once you understand that, real change happens across every part of your life, because instead of feeling sorry for yourself, you start thinking about how to solve the problem," Kirby wrote. In his view, today's Gen Z workers are entering the job market amid sharp shifts, mass layoffs, and difficult conditions, but success lies not in avoiding hardship but in how you respond to it.

The 58-year-old executive picked up this philosophy while training to fly at the U.S. Air Force Academy. His resilience faced its toughest test yet when he took the helm at United in May 2020, just as the pandemic was paralyzing the entire airline industry. U.S. passenger traffic fell 60%, the company's operating revenue dropped 64.5%, and United posted a net loss of $7.1 billion. Kirby was forced to slash flights sharply and take out a $6.8 billion loan collateralized by the company's loyalty program, while giving up his own salary entirely. "In business, as in life, you run into hardship. You can spend your time explaining why it happened, or spend it finding a way through it. I've always believed the second approach is the right one," he says.

Kirby grew up in a middle-class family in a farming region of Texas and never had a clear career plan, but showed an entrepreneurial streak from childhood. "I was always trying to make money — mowing lawns, delivering newspapers, my friend and I even had a small business selling fireworks that nearly blew us up," he recalled in a 2007 interview. After earning a bachelor's degree in computer science in 1989, he worked as a budget analyst at the Pentagon before moving into the airline industry. He joined America West Airlines in 1995 and rose to president of US Airways by 2006; after US Airways merged with American Airlines in 2013, he became president of the combined company, moved to United as president in 2016, and was named CEO in 2020.

Kirby also firmly believes in self-fulfilling prophecies: "If you talk about doing something great, the odds of it actually happening go up considerably," he says. Another key trait of his leadership style is bringing people who share his values onto the team. To strengthen pilot hiring, he had the head of flight operations bring twelve respected pilots into the interview process and gave them veto power based on a single question: would they want to fly a four-day trip with this candidate? "The idea is to pick people who look out for others — people you'd actually want to work alongside," Kirby explains.

Today United has emerged from the pandemic in far stronger shape — the company's market cap sits at roughly $41 billion, not far behind rival Delta's $60 billion. This approach to adversity isn't unique to Kirby. Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian likewise stresses humility and a willingness to learn when navigating crises: "Our mantra is to always keep climbing, growing, learning, and staying focused on the goal," he says, noting that crises — whether a pandemic or a spike in fuel prices — can either strengthen a company or leave it behind. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, meanwhile, offers a strikingly different take: he argues that lower expectations actually build more resilience. "People with high expectations tend to have low resilience, and resilience is what matters for success," he says, adding: "I don't know how to teach you that, but I do hope you go through some form of hardship."