Values that Pfizer and Delta CEOs draw on for great leadership

Times of situation often uncover the quality of leaders.

At Yahoo Finance's Invest 2025 event, Pfizer (PFE) CEO Albert Bourla and Delta Air Lines (DAL) CEO Ed Bastian shared however their values person guided their decisions successful turbulent times.

"I'm precise optimistic," said Bourla, who goes with a "nothing is impossible" mindset. "If determination is thing astir maine arsenic a person ... it is my optimism."

Bourla, whose tenure astatine Pfizer spans implicit 25 years, has led the drugmaker done the COVID-19 pandemic. He attributes his optimism to a profoundly idiosyncratic source: his mother, a Holocaust survivor.

"She was acceptable successful beforehand of a firing squad ... and she survived," helium said. "She would archer me, 'You tin marque it.' That's what gave maine astir of my optimism."

He added that it's besides important to beryllium surrounded by those who are "not optimists truthful that they tin onshore maine to reality."

Over the past year, Pfizer's shares person dropped 5%, underperforming the S&P 500's (^GSPC) astir 15% summation arsenic investors see the company's way successful a post-pandemic environment.

For Ed Bastian, Delta's CEO since 2016, sticking by your beliefs gives you a compass during turbulent times.

"Make definite you cognize what you basal for," helium said. "Make definite you cognize what your ngo is, your intent ... compared to what you basal against, due to the fact that you're going to request to propulsion connected each of those fibers erstwhile you get done crisis."

Bastian, presently the longest-serving CEO for a large US airline, has navigated the pandemic and planetary economical shocks. He recalled a speech with erstwhile Home Depot (HD) CEO and Delta committee seat Frank Blake astatine the commencement of the pandemic.

Bastian noted that Blake expressed assurance that Delta would navigate the situation successfully.

"Values volition beryllium revealed during [a] crisis," helium said, adding that it is highly hard to make quality erstwhile a "storm hits." If those values are not intelligibly defined, a person risks losing absorption and stability, according to Bastian.

Over the past 5 years, Delta shares person climbed astir 62%, though they inactive way the S&P 500's 89% rise. Shares hover astir level twelvemonth to date.

Most recently, Delta and different airlines person been forced to face the fallout of a 43-day authorities shutdown — the longest successful US past — which has prompted thousands of formation cancellations and staffing disruptions.

Bastian has described the shutdown arsenic "incredibly disruptive to our customers," noting that the institution received "no precocious informing to beryllium capable to get radical to antithetic places."