Apollo 13- Leadership During a Crisis Essay

A team leader faces many challenges such as co-ordinating a team to achieve a set goal or objective. Every team is created for a purpose, and each one must succeed in meeting objectives. Learning how to get the best out of a team is really the key to making things work. Other factors and challenges that may affect a team leader include budgets, schedules, project timelines, and complaints or bad relationships with underlings. Balancing a series of tasks and roles is really what being a leader is all about, so the most successful leaders will have a dynamic blend of diplomatic skills. Leaders know how to motivate "the troops", and they also know how to quiet down and relate one-to-one when that sort of approach is needed. The best way to become a

Apollo 13 launched on April 11, 1970 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crewmembers aboard the ship were James A. Lovell Jr., John L. Swigert Jr., and Fred W. Haise, Jr. Before the launch, there had been a few problems. Thomas K. Mattingly was supposed to fly on the Apollo 13 but he was exposed to the measles. He didn’t have the antibodies to fight the disease, causing him to not be able to go into space. Swigert took his place. Right before the launch, one of the technicians saw that the helium tank had a higher pressure than expected. Nothing was done to fix this. During liftoff, the second-stage engine shut down, causing the other engines to run longer than planned. Apollo 13 was off to a rocky start.

The Apollo 13 mission was a significant historical event, because of the dangerous repercussions that followed the explosion of the oxygen tank on Apollo 13. The story in which the astronauts Lovell, Swigert, and Haise surviving these errors during the flight is truly incredible. In the movie Apollo 13, the creators depicted most of the events involving the crew’s adventure to and from space quite accurately. Although creating most events successfully the creators of Apollo 13 failed in many regards when it came to the creation of the plans the crew used to survive, and the small details that were missed, involving the crew in the process of flying the space shuttle and surviving the accident.

The team leader’s ability to manage and improve team performance will be limited by his or her own authority and ability to influence others. There may be restrictions in terms of organisational policy; there may be financial, resource, or time constraints, or team members themselves may be reluctant to participate and to accept change.

Shortly after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed and walked successfully on the Moon for the first time in history, another lunar mission almost ended in disaster without the valor and strong leadership it took to get three men back to Earth. Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks), Jack Swiggert (played by Kevin Bacon), and Fred Haise (played by Bill Paxton) blasted off on the Apollo 13 mission on April 11, 1970, in trying to collect samples from the surface of the Moon and survey it. Swiggert took the place of the more experienced Ken Mattingly (played by Gary Sinese) since Mattingly was the only one not immune to the measles after one of the other astronauts had contracted it. The flight surgeon

Apollo 13 mission to the moon was suddenly derailed, when one of the three oxygen tanks exploded, and another failing simply as collateral damage from the explosion, therefore leaving one oxygen tank for the three astronauts aboard Apollo 13. The astronauts included mission commander Jim Lovell, lunar module pilot Fred Haise and command module pilot Jack Swigert (the back-up pilot for Ken Mattingly) found themselves rotating the moon in a small confined space that was designed for only two

When leading an established or developing team it is important to recognise any challenges that may occur and deal with it as soon as possible to try and prevent the issue escalating.

When the Apollo 13´s team is about two thirds of the way to the moon their oxygen tank one explodes with the second one with only little oxygen left in it. The team has to get home safely with little time and resources. The Apollo 13 team decided to still go to the moon, or at least go into the atmosphere to slingshot them back to Earth. The team safely made it back home by splashing into the Pacific next to Samoa. The Apollo 13 team trusted in each other and successfully made it back to

Leadership by the team leader, who has responsibility for the team, is critical for team

Effective teamwork is dependent on good leadership. In other words there certain characteristics such as the behaviours and qualities of the leader and the behaviours of team member or followers that contributes to the effectiveness of a team. Different leadership theories such as the Trait theory, Situational theory, Behavioural theory, Transformational and Transactional have been develop to describe the different styles of leadership and to identify what makes an effective leader. However, there are certain qualities and behaviours that a team leader must possess in order to create a high performance team. Consequently, the National Health Service (NHS) (2013) has produce a leadership framework which provides nine dimension of leadership behaviours which are essential for being an effective leader. Goleman et al (2002) suggest that effective leadership behaviours include “self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management and confronting the impossible”. In other words, a team leader has the awareness of his or her own strengths, weaknesses, emotions, beliefs and values and its influences his or her decision making as well as how he or she manages her emotions. In addition he or she has the awareness of the individual team member skills and abilities and therefore is able to delegate certain task to members who are capable as each member of the team has a unique

On April 13, 1970, NASA's Mission Control heard the five words that no control center ever wants to hear: "We've got a problem here." Jack Swigert, an astronaut aboard the Apollo 13 aircraft, reported the problem of broken down oxygen tanks to the Houston Control Center, less than two days after its takeoff on April 11th. Those at the Control Center in Houston were unsure what had happened to the spacecraft, but knew that some sort of explosion had occurred. This so-called explosion sent Apollo 13 spinning away from the Earth at 2,000 miles per hour, 75 percent of the way to the moon. In order to get the astronauts back to the

On April 10th James "Jim" Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise embarked on one of the most historic missions in NASA history. Three days later on April 13th, while performing a routine stir on the O2 tanks, the Apollo 13 mission suffered a terrible electrical malfunction and was forced to make an emergency return mission. The movie has forever contributed two phrases to our everyday cultural vocabulary, "Houston we have a problem", communicated by Jim Lovell, and "Failure is not an option", voiced by Gene Kranz.

Everyone knows the plan, strategy, and tactics to be used to achieve the goals and objectives. This comes down to the people who make it happen, meaning the leaders – whose job is to constantly communicate with the team members letting them know that even though this is not the normal job, it is exiting – and that that excitement is what is going to pull them through until the finish line.

as well. I gathered this from their horseplay and wisecracks in space prior to the accident.

Apollo 13, the 1995 motion picture directed by Ron Howard, is the true story of Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert, a team of astronauts reassigned to a space flight with diminished preparation time. This routine mission to the moon suddenly becomes a survival mission to safely return home to Earth. The film details the circumstances affecting two separate but cohesive teams. The purpose of this case analysis is to identify the critical events, explain the underlying causes of why these events happened, and draw logical conclusions about the teams¡¯ performances as related to effective teamwork and leadership.