Execution Under Fire: What Sales Leaders Can Learn from a Former RAF Pilot

Leadership isn’t about having all the answers. Sometimes, it’s about asking better questions and knowing when to step back so others can step up. That was the core message from Sarah Furness, former RAF combat helicopter pilot and Squadron Leader, at National Sales Conference 2025’s standout session: “Leading Under Fire.”

The title didn’t exaggerate

Sarah Furness has led teams through missions over Afghanistan, where decisions had consequences measured in seconds and lives. But her insights didn’t focus on pressure. They focused on how to lead when the plan fractures and the team is looking to you for clarity.

She posed a simple but confronting idea: Leadership under fire isn’t about control. It’s about trust.

And the audience of GTM leaders, many managing high, velocity sales teams took notice.

Three shifts that separate good leaders from great ones

1. Know when to lead from the front and when to collaborate.
Sarah described a pivotal shift in her career: learning that strength doesn’t always mean direction. Sometimes it means creating space for others to solve the problem better than you could.

For sales leaders, the instinct to step in can be strong. But the real unlock often comes from letting teams self-diagnose and giving them the tools to do it well.

2. Ask brave questions.
She challenged the room to ditch the need to “know” and embrace curiosity. Asking the right questions, especially when you feel under pressure, creates psychological safety and unlocks better thinking from the team. “That’s when diversity stops being a buzzword,” she said, “and starts becoming your advantage.”

3. Use setbacks to build trust.
Sarah was candid: not every flight went to plan. But the way her team debriefed , honestly, consistently, without blame, turned failure into fuel. For modern GTM teams, this mindset shift is everything. Setbacks don’t erode trust if they’re handled right. They can deepen it.

From helicopters to headcount: the relevance to GTM leadership

You might not be leading a squadron, but if you’re scaling a commercial team, the parallels are clear:

• Strategy rarely survives first contact with the quarter.

• Your team needs more than motivation, they need a culture where learning is fast, feedback is welcome, and clarity isn’t top-down.

• And you need to decide: are you trying to direct everything, or design a system where execution can thrive without you?

Why this talk hit home

What resonated most wasn’t the military analogies. It was Sarah’s practicality.

She didn’t glamorize pressure. She demystified it. She reminded us that leadership is about building structures that help people stay clear when everything else gets noisy.

At Hive Perform, we believe the same. That’s why our product isn’t built to replace judgment, it’s built to help GTM teams reflect faster, ask sharper questions, and adjust before it’s too late.

Execution clarity isn’t a luxury. It’s the system great teams fall back on especially under fire.

Inspired by Sarah Furness’s NSC 2025 session: “Leading Under Fire.”

To follow her work on leadership under pressure, visit  https://sarahfurness.com/