Former Formula 1 leader reveals the leadership rule that stops teams burning out under pressure

Sebastian Sheppard is a peak performance speaker, strategic advisor and former Formula 1 engineering leader whose work sits at the sharp end of pressure, precision and people management. 

After a career that began in military aviation, including service as a Royal Navy helicopter pilot, Seb moved through aerospace, transformation and motorsport before becoming Engineering Manager at Alpine Formula 1, where he led more than 150 engineers in one of sport’s most demanding environments.

His leadership lessons are drawn from places where delay, confusion and poor communication quickly show.

From the Royal Navy to F1, Seb has worked inside teams where standards are unforgiving, results are visible, and pressure rarely drops.

His approach focuses on calm leadership, psychological safety, trust and the ability to help people perform without pushing them into burnout.

In this exclusive interview with the High Performance Speakers Agency, Sebastian Sheppard explains how leaders can keep teams motivated when results are not coming, why discomfort is essential to development, and how executives can build cultures where people are trusted to solve problems rather than wait for instructions.

Q1. In a high-pressure season, how do you keep people motivated when results are not yet coming?

Sebastian Sheppard: “It’s always a tricky thing as a leader to keep the troops going, especially when you’re having a bad year, the results are not coming, and at the back end of the year, everybody has been working hard on next year’s car.

“You’re coming into the winter period, everybody is working really hard, but the results are still not coming in, and everybody is putting their hopes on next year’s car.

“Essentially, what you’re trying to do is keep telling people, ‘Look, this is a journey. It’s not just a quick win.’

“What we always have to do is make sure that we are turning up and being our best, that we are working together, that we have a good culture, a good way of behaving with each other, that we are looking after our wellbeing, and that we are looking out for each other so people don’t burn out.

“It’s like Olympic athletes when they train for peaks, but they know that you have to have a rest. It’s also about understanding that, as a business, and for the leaders especially, you can’t always be working at 100% because then people will burn out.

“If people burn out, they’re generally out for six months, if not longer, and then they will be very anxious to come back to the same job that made them burn out in the first place.

“So you have to be able to have that up and down, and not just be at 110% all the time. Elite athletes know this, and that’s why they work in that way: you build up to something, then you have to have a little break. You build, and so on.

“You also have to try and enjoy the journey. You can’t just be stressed out all the time.

“Especially when you work somewhere that you love, you want to try and enjoy it. You don’t want to end up being stressed out because, two years later, that job that you loved and were putting so much of your life into, you’re finding that it’s not actually what you thought it was.

“If you take time to enjoy it, you can make it fun. Leaders are very important, and you can use the team dynamics to go off and do off-site things, as I’m sure a lot of businesses do.

“It is about trying to get to another level of communication within the team, so when you turn up to work, you feel that, yes, you’re all working very hard, but you’re with your friends. In very good cases, your friends become almost part of your extended family.”

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Q2. What tested you most when you moved into Formula 1 leadership, and what did that experience teach you?

Sebastian Sheppard: “I’ve had many.

“First of all, arriving in the UK and joining the Royal Navy to fly helicopters, I felt like a fish out of water. But little by little, you start overcoming obstacles, you start learning, doors open, and you shed light on the way ahead.

“But I think the biggest one was probably turning up to a Formula 1 team, having not been in F1 and not being an engineer myself, and being put in charge of 150-plus engineers. I really had to get their respect.

“Whereas I was not technically responsible for things, I was responsible for making sure that the whole machinery worked, that it was organised, and that we had a proper drumbeat and results.

“Obviously, races happen, and if you don’t turn up with a car, or you turn up late, you don’t go racing.

“It’s about being able to turn up and find that, eventually, I did have a contribution to make, which was all about getting the whole machinery to work better.

“It was about getting the leaders who worked for me to behave more like leaders, less like managers, and less like supermen flying around with their capes, putting out fires and looking chaotic.

“If you remember the analogy of the pilot, it’s about being more like leaders, technical leaders in this case, but working with their teams so that you can empower them down and get better results.

“It’s about being able to change cultures and behaviours. There was so much to do, and there’s always so much to do in these high-performance teams. It’s a never-ending job, really.

“Certainly, that was the most difficult thing I’ve had to overcome. But I learned the most, and I’ve had a very enjoyable time.”

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Q3. How do you build excellence in environments where the standard is constantly unforgiving?

Sebastian Sheppard: “You have to be a leader that people can follow and be inspired by.

“You want to set a culture and a way of behaving. You want to make sure people understand that you work in a certain way. You want calm, professionalism, respect and trust.

“As a leader, you always have to be the best version of yourself, and you’re always trying to get people to be the best version of themselves.

“You say to people, ‘Look, when you walk through those doors, I want you to be proud of where you are, proud of the history, proud of the fact that you are contributing to the company and to the future of this company, and you are adding a little bit of the history to this company.’

“The way you can encapsulate this is that I always tell people, ‘Try and be comfortable being uncomfortable.’

“The minute you have got to grips with the job that you’re doing, you have learned a lot of things, and you start feeling more comfortable, at that point, you need to make sure that you are always pushing yourself a little bit further, either learning more, gaining more experience or opening up other channels.

“That’s where the development of people comes in.

“As a good leader, if you can have honest, open and candid conversations with people about how to develop them further, what’s good and what’s bad, without them taking offence or thinking that people are just criticising them, you are helping develop that person’s career.

“As a leader, you have to get people to understand that when you’re having these conversations about feedback, you’re doing it for their good, for their career, and to be part of that development plan that you work together on.

“So, be comfortable being uncomfortable is probably the best way to summarise that.”

This exclusive interview with Sebastian Sheppard was conducted by Tabish Ali of the Motivational Speakers Agency.

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