Apollo 13 Leadership

The leader must be sure to take the group dynamics into consideration. It is important to make everyone involved feel that their needs are important. For the project to be a success, everyone participating must feel as if they are contributing and that they are being valued equally.

One of the important points for leaders in critical situations is the fact that one must remain optimistic and believe in themselves and the team to achieve the set goal. Without the personal conviction managers will not be able to motivate the team to develop new solutions, to continue working and foster collaboration. This leadership style is known as transformational leadership. (LaFasto 2001). After “Houston we have a problem” was transmitted from Apollo 13, Gene Kranz stayed optimistic all time and was convinced that they can manage to get the crew home safely and alive. He believed that Mission Control could overcome all the difficulties occurred. “We are not loosing these men“. One of the other sentences Gene Kranz said “failure is not an option“ emphasizes, that he believed in the goal and was willing to pull out all the stops to get the crew home (Apollo 13 1995).

Although flawed in the technical events, there are many realities that the movie Apollo 13, successfully presents. One of these realities being the representation of supporting details. An example of this is seen when the creators of the movie had Lovell’s wife fearing that her husband might die on the Apollo mission. This fear was something real that Lovell’s wife in actuality experienced, in which the creators portray quite accurately by showing the nightmare she had of her husband’s death. Another example of an accurate supporting detail was how the creators were able to describe Mattingly’s inability to fly on Apollo 13 due to his exposure to German measles. The movie Apollo 13, Is also quite precise when it comes to presenting the dates and places of important events revolving around the Apollo 13 mission. This is shown when the creators precisely show an accurate date and place of launch which was at Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970. Another important date and location that was accurately presented was where the lunar module landed which was, in the Pacific Ocean, on April 17,

While the movie provides the dramatic fuel to entertain anyone that can understand the danger the men faced, the real story lies behind the successful failure that was Apollo 13 in the three astronauts and NASA experts. Within the storyline a multitude of examples of the leadership skills, theories, and traits that were all called upon in desperation to successfully bring the astronauts home can be found. The real success is seen within the leadership attributes of Apollo Commander Jim Lovell, Flight Director Gene Kranz, and the astronauts and NASA experts as two groups, as they each worked in separate ways to find solutions to the various problems that plagued this mission.

The film, Apollo 13, is based on the real-life crisis that occurred April 13, 1970 on board the Apollo spacecraft. The two main characters, Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) and Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) are the key players who will address how a leader is able to survive and thrive in a world in which unexpected events occur on a regular basis. They portray the effective styles of leadership in balance with their ever changing surroundings, as well as their ability to maintain their interpersonal relationships with a group under unfavorable conditions. This film is a powerful movie because it makes clear to the viewer just how often disruptions and discontinuities occur. Also, it is an excellent example of how leaders must be able to meet

suggests new ideas to solve group problem or new ways for the group to organize the task

On July 20, 1969, the lunar module landed. Humanity did itself proud on that day. Until now nothing this big had ever been accomplished. The dream of traveling to the moon was already centuries old when the second World War ended in 1945. The primary objective of Apollo 11 was to complete a national goal set by President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961: perform a crewed lunar landing and return to Earth. Apollo 11 would be the mission to achieve the goal that President Kennedy had laid down, with more than five months to spare before the end-of-decade deadline. On July 19, after Apollo 11 had flown behind the moon out of contact with Earth, came the first lunar orbit insertion maneuver. At about 75 hours, 50 minutes into the flight, a retrograde firing of the SPS for 357.5 seconds placed the spacecraft into an initial, elliptical-lunar orbit of 69 by 190 miles. Later, a second burn of the SPS for 17 seconds placed the docked vehicles into a lunar orbit of 62 by 70.5 miles, which was calculated to change the orbit of the CSM piloted by Collins. The change happened because of lunar-gravity perturbations to the nominal 69 miles required for subsequent LM rendezvous and docking after completion of the lunar landing. Before this second SPS firing, another TV transmission was

Working in a group to achieve a high quality group project can be one of people’s most difficult school experiences. Working in a group is tough because there is often someone who does not pull their own weight. “There are five stages to group development, adjourning, forming, storming, performing, and norming” (John & Wiley pg 166). Christine’s group from the Case Study the Forgotten Group Member is in between the Storming and Norming Stages. The Storming Stage “is dealing with tensions and defining group tasks,” while the Norming Stage is dealing with high emotionality and tension among the group members” (John & Wiley pg. 166). Christine and her group could have had better

Group member cohesiveness was absent from the group meeting for several reasons, but the primary reasons were due to the fact that the group members did not have a common description of value or structure to the discussion. Each member viewed their own area of involvement within the organization as being more valuable than any other area, and it was this exclusion of other valuable traits that lead the group to begin to clash in such a

In situations where roles are vague or time is limited, this leadership style can lead to communication failures and uncompleted projects. Sometimes the group members may not have the necessary expertise to make quality contributions to the decision-making process.

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.

Without leadership, a team lacks direction and cohesion. Leadership is there to solve challenges associated with teamwork and to insure the attainment of the main objective of the team effort. Leadership reduces the risks associated with a project. This happens because the person or team providing direction for the project do not get involved in detailed implementation freeing them to see the big picture from which they identify and reduce or eliminate risks. Leadership increasingly means the difference between a successful project and a failed one despite the availability of resources. This is because of the role leadership plays in the effective allocation of resources to achieve the projects objectives.

When doing so the other group members were active listener, by using their whole body verbally and nonverbal. Like facing the speaker and giving eye contact and try to avoided interruption. The group also acknowledges the thoughts of the speaker by giving constructive feed back. Due to the effectiveness of the group communication, we were able to build trust, respect and understand the issues and make decision for effective change. We illustrate this by coming together as a group one again to accomplish the goal we initially wanted to accomplish. Since the first organization that we had chosen was incorrect, so we had to make the necessary changes to accomplish our goals. The other effective feature is the purpose of the group. Kozier et al (2010) stated that the effective group purpose is when “goal, task, and outcomes are clarified. Understanding and modified so that members of the group can commit themselves to purposes through cooperation” (p.401). For instance, each individual was assign a task and knew what was to be accomplished. As group we all decided to meet at suitable day and time which was beneficial to all team members, because we could commit to the group and focus on what needed to be achieved.

Working in a group can be very difficult at times. Different people with different views may not always agree which one another. Throughout the various task I played the communicator. I made sure everyone was on track on what we wanted to do. I also made sure people was okay and happy in the role they was playing in the group. My group worked together in collecting ideas from one another and making it into one.

The group assessment in this unit put together four motivated members that wanted to create quality work. Interestingly, it also included for the first time, in my many team assessments, an additional strong-minded member that wished to lead the group. Sousa & van Dierendonck (2015, p. 15) propose, that sharing leadership duties requires humility from the group leaders to allow others to take responsibility for the task whilst remaining willing to step in and lead when needed. DuBrin (2016, p.27) further states that good team members have the courage to challenge the direction the task is taking and therefore showing leadership within the group. This was an important learning activity for myself as I moved from initial apprehension of joint leadership, to increasingly appreciating the strengths of other team members and the value this added.