Mission and vision statements give large companies a clear way to explain why they exist and where they intend to go. For a company operating across defense, aerospace, space, and advanced technology, those statements also help connect daily engineering work with a broader corporate purpose.
For Lockheed Martin, the published mission is: “Our mission is to solve complex challenges, advance scientific discovery and deliver innovative solutions to help our customers keep people safe.” Its 21st Century Security program is described as “our vision for delivering all domain deterrence to our partners in NATO, Europe and worldwide.”
The company also states a distinct purpose: “At Lockheed Martin, our purpose is to ensure those we serve always stay ahead of ready.” Together, these statements show a company focused on customer missions today while preparing for changing security needs.
For its current corporate profile and stated values, see the official Lockheed Martin About Us page.
What Is Lockheed Martin’s Mission Statement?
“Our mission is to solve complex challenges, advance scientific discovery and deliver innovative solutions to help our customers keep people safe.”
Lockheed Martin’s mission describes its work in three linked parts. It starts with solving difficult problems, extends into scientific discovery, and ends with delivering solutions that serve customer needs. The wording is broad enough to cover the company’s major business areas, while the final phrase gives the mission a clear practical outcome.
The mission also reveals who Lockheed Martin serves. The company identifies U.S. and allied government agencies as its primary customers, while its portfolio also includes civil and commercial applications.
The wording is direct for a large corporation. It describes a sequence of work and a customer result instead of centering only on revenue or market position.
What Is Lockheed Martin’s Vision Statement?
“21st Century Security is our vision for delivering all domain deterrence to our partners in NATO, Europe and worldwide.”
Lockheed Martin’s vision looks beyond current programs and focuses on how defense capabilities should work in the future. The company presents 21st Century Security as a connected approach built around advanced technology, interoperability, resilience, and collaboration across partners.
This vision shifts the frame from individual systems to connected defense. The company describes platforms, networks, data, and people working together across air, land, sea, space, and cyber domains. For customers, that means faster decisions and coordinated capabilities. For employees, it sets a direction for engineering, software, manufacturing, and partnerships.
What Is Lockheed Martin’s Purpose Statement?
“At Lockheed Martin, our purpose is to ensure those we serve always stay ahead of ready.”
The purpose statement centers on readiness. It says the company’s work should help customers prepare for threats, missions, and changing conditions before those challenges become urgent.
Its current corporate site presents “stay ahead of ready” as its identity, culture, and promise. The purpose therefore acts as a bridge between what the company does now and the future described by 21st Century Security.
Key Differences Between Lockheed Martin’s Mission and Vision
| Area | Mission | Vision |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | What Lockheed Martin does for customers | The future state of defense and security it aims to support |
| Timeframe | Present and ongoing | Future oriented |
| Primary Audience | Customers, employees, and stakeholders | Customers, partners, employees, and the broader defense ecosystem |
| Core Question Answered | What does the company do and why? | What future is the company working toward? |
| Purpose | Guides current work and decisions | Sets long range strategic direction |
The two statements are distinct but closely connected. The mission describes the company’s work and intended result, while the vision describes the kind of defense environment and capability model the company wants to help build.
Core Values Behind Lockheed Martin’s Mission and Vision
Lockheed Martin states three core values: Do What’s Right, Respect Others, and Perform With Excellence.
- Do What’s Right: This commits the company to high standards of ethical conduct, which supports trust in work tied to national security and major public contracts.
- Respect Others: Lockheed Martin connects this value to the talent, skills, and expertise of its people, making employees a direct part of mission delivery.
- Perform With Excellence: This value reflects the importance of customer missions and the trust customers place in the company’s work.
Together, these values create a simple operating system. Ethics sets the standard, respect defines how people work together, and excellence defines the expected level of performance. That combination gives the broader statements a practical cultural base.
How Lockheed Martin Lives Its Mission and Vision
Lockheed Martin’s 21st Century Security strategy provides one of the clearest examples of the vision in practice. The company describes efforts to adopt digital technologies, use open architecture, strengthen industrial resilience, and expand collaboration with trusted partners. The stated aim is to deliver defense capabilities faster and at lower cost while improving interoperability.
Its work on mission integration is another visible example. Lockheed Martin describes mission integration as bringing platforms, networks, and people together so customers can move from emerging needs to delivered capability more quickly. This directly connects the mission’s focus on solving difficult challenges with the vision’s emphasis on connected systems.
Lockheed Martin has also invested in secure generative artificial intelligence for internal use. In 2024, it introduced LMText Navigator to support code generation, data analysis, and business processes, linking the effort to its broader 21st Century Security work. This shows the company applying the same technology focus to its own operations that it brings to customer programs.
A fourth example appears in wildfire response. Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky have worked with CAL FIRE on autonomous aerial firefighting technologies, while the company has described broader 21st Century Firefighting work using aircraft and artificial intelligence enabled intelligence for first responders. This extends the mission beyond military applications while retaining the goal of helping customers keep people safe.
How Lockheed Martin’s Mission and Vision Have Evolved
Lockheed Martin was created in 1995 through the merger of Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta. The company therefore has a corporate identity dating from 1995, but its history reaches much further into early aviation, with the Lockheed and Martin businesses developing through aviation, defense, space, and later information and cyber capabilities before the merger.
Its mission language has remained focused on solving difficult problems, advancing science, and keeping customers safe. A 2020 Lockheed Martin sustainability report used essentially the same mission wording found in a 2025 company filing, suggesting continuity in the core mission rather than a major rewrite.
What has changed more visibly is the strategic expression around that mission. Earlier corporate language emphasized aviation, defense systems, and technology services. Today, 21st Century Security adds a focus on connected systems, digital technologies, resilience, interoperability, and partner ecosystems. That shift treats security as a networked problem rather than a set of separate products.
What Your Company Can Learn from Lockheed Martin’s Statements
Lockheed Martin’s statements offer several useful lessons for entrepreneurs, marketers, and brand managers.
- Be specific about the work: The mission names activities such as solving challenges and advancing scientific discovery. A useful mission should tell readers what the organization actually does.
- Connect work to an outcome: Lockheed Martin ends its mission with a customer result, keeping people safe. Your own mission can be stronger when it links what you do to a clear benefit.
- Give the vision a strategic shape: 21st Century Security is tied to concrete ideas such as interoperability, digital systems, resilience, and collaboration. A vision becomes more useful when it can guide actual business choices.
- Keep values operational: The three core values are short and tied to conduct, people, and performance. Values carry more weight when employees can connect them to daily decisions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is Lockheed Martin’s current mission statement?
Lockheed Martin states: “Our mission is to solve complex challenges, advance scientific discovery and deliver innovative solutions to help our customers keep people safe.”
Q: What is Lockheed Martin’s vision for the future?
The company describes 21st Century Security as its vision for delivering all domain deterrence to partners in NATO, Europe, and worldwide. Its strategy focuses on connected systems, digital technologies, resilience, and collaboration.
Q: Does Lockheed Martin have a separate tagline from its mission statement?
Lockheed Martin has historically used the tagline “We never forget who we’re working for.” The phrase appears in older official company materials and communications.
Q: How does Lockheed Martin’s mission statement reflect its brand identity?
The mission centers on solving difficult problems, scientific discovery, customer service, and safety. Those ideas match the company’s current presentation as a defense technology company serving important missions across multiple domains.
Q: Has Lockheed Martin’s mission or vision statement changed?
The core mission wording appears consistent across official company documents from 2020 and 2025. The company’s strategic direction has developed more visibly through 21st Century Security and its emphasis on digital, connected, and resilient defense capabilities.
Q: What core values guide Lockheed Martin?
The company lists Do What’s Right, Respect Others, and Perform With Excellence as its core values. Lockheed Martin says these values are fundamental to how it operates and conducts its work.
Q: How does Lockheed Martin put its mission into practice?
Examples include mission integration, digital engineering, secure artificial intelligence tools, connected defense architectures, and support for applications such as aerial firefighting. These activities connect the company’s stated mission with practical programs and operating choices.
Final Thoughts
Lockheed Martin’s mission, vision, and purpose serve different roles. The mission explains the work and customer outcome, the purpose centers on readiness, and the 21st Century Security vision describes a more connected model of future defense. Its three stated values then provide the behavioral standards that support those ideas.
For business owners and brand teams, the main lesson is structural clarity. Strong corporate statements do not need to sound grand to be useful. They need to explain what the company does, why it exists, and where its strategy is headed. What do you think of Lockheed Martin’s mission and vision? Share your view in the comments.
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