N/A - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages It was established in 1958 from its predecessor NACA – National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics – and has posted remarkable performance including the famous Apollo moon-landing missions and lately, the Space Shuttle project.
O’Keefe came from a financial management background when he joined NASA with his mission being to mitigate $4.8 billion overrun problem of the International Space Station. The administrator faced pressure from enthusiastic astronauts to land to the Moon and Mars. But O’Keefe intended to have an overhaul of the policies of NASA before embarking on the Moon-Mars mission (Lambright, 2008). The aim of this paper would be to evaluate the leadership portrayed by O’Keefe in NASA towards attainment of the set mission amidst resistance to change. Various theories and approaches on leadership would be borrowed from different secondary sources.
The trait approach to leadership borrows from the Great Man theory which identified key characteristics that define a successful leader (Martin, Cashel, Wagstaff & Breunig, 2006). Some of these suggested traits and skills were exhibited by O’Keefe in his leadership of NASA. The administrator was willing to take responsibility for the happenings in the organization. When taking over the helm of NASA, O’Keefe was critical of the space enthusiasts’ demand for Moon-Mars landing and chose to first concentrate on large scale policy change. The 2003 Columbia space shuttle tragedy that saw seven astronauts die when the space shuttle was preparing to land defined the administrator’s leadership competence. According to Lambright, “he dealt with its aftermath with a rare blend of strength and compassion” (2008, p.231). The then US President Bush left O’Keefe to be in charge, choosing not to constitute an independent investigation body despite public demand. Through the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, CAIB appointed by ...Download file to see next pagesRead More