Weaknesses of Leadership at NASA - Essay Example

Leadership at NASA Introduction Leadership has always been considered to be an elusive and mysterious concept. Every group has a leader who guides the followers towards achieving their set goals. But while some leaders succeed in this course, others have recorded poor results. In this paper, focus on leadership would be on Sean O’Keefe, the administrator charged with ensuring that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA returns to Moon and further go to Mars during his 2001 to 2005 tenure (Lambright, 2008). NASA is an American government agency responsible for its civilian space program and also with aeronautics and aerospace research. 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 O’Keefe, the disaster was articulated to technical and organizational problems. His tact and diplomacy was exuded when he chose to be open to the media on CAIB findings and fully incorporating the White House in its undertakings. As suggested by Bolden, Gosling, Marturano and Dennison (2003), he was keen to the social environment as he made public all issues on this tragedy. His dependable and cooperative traits were portrayed by his mutual relationship with Gehman, the head of CAIB who was also promptly given the resources needed to execute his mandate. Even so, there has been a limitation in adopting this approach fully in leadership studies because of the many traits that have been identified over time thus a lack of consistent leadership traits (Lussier & Achua, 2010). Though some people have been spotted with such traits, they still fail as leaders. The difficulty in measuring some of these traits yielded the behavioral school of thought. This approach has been supported by the McGregor’s theory X theory Y managers. According to McGregor, theory X managers conceive an average human being as having an integral dislike of work and would therefore avoid it if possible. As such, these persons have to be coerced, directed, controlled or threatened with punishment for them to work towards attaining the objectives of the organization. On the other hand, theory Y managers conceive “the expenditure of physical and mental effort in work as natural as play or rest, and the average human being, under proper conditions, learns not only to accept but to seek responsibility” (Bolden et al., 2003, p.6). This means that people would exercise self control and self direction which would lead them towards attainment of the set objectives. Theory Y being associated with participative leadership style as opposed to theory X depicting autocratic leadership best describes O’Keefe’s style of leadership. The administrator was keen to involve various interests in his administration. The White House was involved through the then deputy chief of staff, Josh Bolton and the science advisor to President Bush, John Marburger. He also gave the employees the autonomy to work and deliver the mission of NASA as indicated when he appointed Gehman to head CAIB (Lambright, 2008). According to Bolden et al. (2003), the behavioral approach to leadership defines how to develop specific leadership behaviors. It however fails to guide on the constitution of an effective leader when faced with varied situations. The situational or contingency school of thought provides the appropriate style to use depending on factors like the task, people, the organization, the situation and other environmental factors. The Fielder’s contingency theory posits that there would be no single way of managers’ leadership that would be considered as the best. Each situation would cause need for a different leadership style. Three situations considered by this theory include position power, task structure and leader member relations. O’Keefe portrayed his mastery of leadership by applying the necessary skills when needed. When he joined NASA, O’Keefe was keen to overhaul the policies in the organization and have the appropriate policies and structures to see the agency on Moon and Mars against the popular demand for focus on landing on Moon and Mars. This could be likened to task orientation skills of a leader as argued by Lussier and Achua (2010). However, the crisis of post-Columbia space shuttle tragedy could not have this approach to leadership give him the needed results. Relationship based approach would. Therefore, the administrator involved the staff members, appointing Gehman as the head of the autonomous investigation body; the media openly providing as much appropriate information as possible; and the government by incorporating various government representatives in the investigations and in implementing the recommendations. Despite O’Keefe portraying these leadership qualities, I consider him as a modern leader who portrays transformational leadership. Higgs and Rowland (2009) differentiate transactional leadership from transformational leadership. According to the researchers, transactional leadership causes the followers to do as directed by their leader so as to obtain certain benefits such as promotion, pay rise or job security. But O’Keefe did not indicate to the employees of NASA that following what he orders would assure them of such benefits. He led NASA through idealized influence, intellectual stimulation and inspiration, describing a transformational leader, necessary for appropriate change management in an organization. When he joined NASA, there was pressure to land on Moon and further on Mars. His ideology was however to overhaul the policies so as to come up with proper cost effective structures that would ensure successful mission to the Moon and Mars. Space enthusiasts did not buy his ideology but were interested in landing on Moon and Mars. Through idealized influence, O’Keefe managed to restructure the policies at NASA, aided by the August 2003 CAIB recommendations that saw the administrator implement appropriate structures and left the agency in 2005 with a promise of greater budgetary allocation from the government, beating all other non-security agencies (Lambright, 2008). But O’Keefe had leadership weaknesses because against the proposition by Pryor et al. (2008), he was not prepared for the abnormal. According to the authors, the current abrupt happenings in organizations call for leaders who would be proactive. The organizational factor that CAIB attributed to NASA was lack of proactive leadership forgetting that the shuttle was on experiment and not operational (Lambright, 2008). Had the management been keen on the experimental aspect, perhaps measures would have been put in place to curb the Columbia space shuttle tragedy. Conclusion Various schools of thought on leadership including traits, behavioral and contingency approaches define O’Keefe as a successful leader. He portrayed the traits attributed to transformational leaders and was keen to use the appropriate skills depending on the situation. Even so, the Columbia space shuttle tragedy put him in the limelight as a reactive leader as opposed to being proactive as he failed to control the fateful event despite his knowledge. When he resigned from NASA though, he had left indications of increased budgetary allocation for the agency in the subsequent year due to his efforts. References Bolden, R., Gosling, J., Marturano, A. & Dennison, P. (2003). A review of leadership theory and competency frameworks. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter. Higgs, M. & Rowland, D. (2009). Change leadership: case study of a global energy company. Strategic Change, 18, 45 – 58. Lambright, W. H. (2008). Leadership and change at NASA: Sean O’Keefe as administrator. Public Administration Review, Syracuse University, 230 – 240. Lussier, R. N. & Achua, C. F. (2010). Leadership: Theory, application & skill development. (4th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning. Martin, B., Cashel, C., Wagstaff, M. & Breunig, M. (2006). Outdoor leadership: Theory and practice. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Pryor, M. G., Taneja, S., Humphreys, J. & Singleton, L. (2008). Challenges facing change management theories and research, Delhi Business Review. 9 (1), 1 – 20. Read More