Joy, Love, and Caring Out Loud: Lessons from Artemis II for Pressure-Proof Teams

I will be honest with you. I almost missed the gravity of this space mission.

Between the weight of the world, clients navigating existential funding threats, and communities I love under pressure, I have not had much bandwidth for space news lately. But April 4 was a Saturday, and I found myself in a rare moment of stillness. I happened to have the TV turned to the BBC as the Artemis II press conference was starting, and I sat down.

What I watched stopped me completely. It was not because of the science. It was not because of the engineering marvel of four humans orbiting the moon and returning safely. What stopped me was how openly, unself-consciously, and completely those four astronauts loved each other. It was a masterclass in modern leadership development.

My dear friend and communication expert Samara Bay talks about a concept she calls “caring out loud.” It means making your care visible. It means not assuming people know you value them. It means not keeping warmth private out of a misplaced sense of professionalism or habit. It means saying it. Showing it. Out loud.

That is exactly what I witnessed during that broadcast.

When a crew member told Mission Control they wanted to name a bright spot on the moon Carroll, in honor of commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife, Wiseman began to cry. Right there. In front of the cameras, the reporters, and the world. Nobody flinched. Nobody looked away. The crew held that moment with him. Because that is what a real team does. They hold the weight together.

We do not see that at work very often. Emotion in professional settings is still so often read as weakness, as unprofessional, or as something to manage rather than honor. But what I saw in that moment was not weakness. It was the evidence of a team that had built something real together. They had moved beyond being a group of experts to becoming a cohesive team culture.

Astronaut Christina Koch said something at that press conference that I have not stopped thinking about. She described being on a panel before this mission where someone asked her what a crew was. She gave a standard answer. She said now, having lived this mission with these three other people, that answer feels empty. Because now she knows. A crew, she said, is inescapably, beautifully, and dutifully linked.

Inescapably, beautifully, and dutifully linked.

I have spent 18 years in rooms with leaders and teams. I have worked with over 200 organizations. I have talked with hundreds of leaders about what makes teams work and what makes them break. I can tell you that what Koch described is exactly what is missing in most of the workplaces I walk into. It is the missing piece in most workplace culture strategies.

It is not usually a lack of skill. It is not a lack of strategy. It is not even a lack of resources, though I know many nonprofits are stretched thin. What is missing is the felt sense of being linked. It is the knowledge that you matter to the people you work alongside. It is having your contribution seen and honored. It is experiencing something that resembles joy, not as a byproduct of a good quarter, but as a value the team actually tends to.

The Artemis crew had something they called the joy train. One of the crew members explained it simply: they are not always on it, but they commit to getting back on it as soon as they can. The commander’s words were: “We try to get back on the joy train as soon as we can. And that is a useful life skill for any team trying to get things done.”

Years ago I designed a strategic planning process for a department of family medicine at a medical school. The department chair named joy as one of their primary goals. It was not just a vibe. It was not a hope. It was a goal with resources and strategies attached to it. They understood that joy is a prerequisite for high performance under pressure.

I think about that often. What would be different in our workplaces if joy was treated that way? In our Periodic Table of Great Culture Elements™, we identify "Connection" and "Joy" as fundamental elements. They are not optional extras. They are the stabilizers that keep a team from fracturing when the pressure rises.

I lead with love in my work. It is not a soft idea. It is a design principle. The teams that can stay steady under pressure, that can repair when something breaks, and that can keep performing when everything around them is uncertain are the teams that have tended to the quality of their connection. They have resourced their humanity.

What the Artemis II crew gave us over those two weeks was a mirror. Looking at Earth from space, you cannot see the wars or the burning cities. But you also cannot see the love and the care and the goodness of what is possible when human beings commit to each other. That is what I saw at that press conference. And it reminded me of why I do this work.

If you watched that crew and felt something shift in your chest, or felt a desire for that kind of connection in your own team, you are not imagining a fantasy. You are naming a real and buildable thing. You can start building a pressure-proof culture today by focusing on small, intentional shifts in how you relate to one another.

Here are a few ways to start caring out loud in your own workplace:

First, name the care. Do not assume your team knows you value them. Tell them specifically what they bring to the table that you appreciate. Be explicit about the qualities they possess that make the team better.

Second, normalize humanity. When things are hard, acknowledge it. When someone is grieving or struggling, hold that space without trying to "fix" it or rush back to the task at hand. Leadership is about holding the person, not just the project.

Third, commit to the joy train. Ask your team what brings them joy in their work. Create small rituals or agreements that allow for lightness and laughter, even in the middle of a heavy season. This is part of leadership development that often gets overlooked.

Fourth, practice repair. High-performing teams are not teams that never have conflict. They are teams that have the skills to repair when the link is strained. Use tools like the S.C.A.L.E.™ Generative Conflict Method to navigate these moments with care and clarity.

We also have to talk about the equity lens of this work. The safety to be vulnerable, to cry in front of cameras, or to "care out loud" is not distributed equally in our society or our workplaces. Power dynamics, race, and gender all influence who is allowed to show emotion and who is penalized for it. As a leader, your job is to create a container where everyone feels safe enough to be linked. This requires intentionality and a commitment to understanding how power moves in your room.

If you want to know where your team actually stands right now, I invite you to take our free Team Pressure Snapshot. It takes about five minutes and it will give you a real picture of where your team is and what they need to stay linked under pressure.

Your team deserves to be on the joy train. They deserve to feel inescapably and beautifully linked. It takes work to build that kind of culture, but as the Artemis II crew showed us, it is the most important work we can do. Let us find out how close your team already is to that goal.

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About Chrysta Wilson & Wilson and Associates

Chrysta Wilson is the CEO of Wilson and Associates Coaching and Consulting, a certified firm dedicated to transforming organizational culture and building pressure-proof leadership. With nearly two decades of experience, Chrysta helps leaders navigate change and conflict using people-first strategies and proprietary frameworks like P.I.V.O.T.™ and S.C.A.L.E.™. Discover how we can help your team thrive at wilson-and-associates.com.