Case Study 4 ('Challenger, Go for Launch')

 1.Challenger case study is an example of ineffective strategic leadership.  Most of the people see what they expect to see but that is the reason for many failures of the organisations.  If you want to be strategic leader you have to think differently , so you could explore new ideas or doing things in different, better way. It is not easy, especially because people don’t like those who stand out the group, and not agree with their opinions, it is even more difficult and risky when you have to confront  your boss.  Lessons that we learned about effective strategic leadership from this case study are : to be more flexible, to be ethical(not too profit focussed) , we should lead with heart, we should be good listeners, to collaborate as much as possible and the most important to stay independent  and think differently.

2. The underlying reasons why the mission went ahead are that NASA was focussed more on publicity than on launching mission, pressure ( 6 failures before this one , TV alive, government, time, deadlines),  ,,Management Hat`` - for NASA managers it was very important for this launching to happen because of profit and customers, not enough testing guidelines, NASA didn’t want to risk to lose its image in the time of Russia-USA ‘space war’ ... For the catastrophe happened by launching the rocket everyone in NASA and Morton Thiokol  was to blame.

3. Engineers could say:,,I put my manager hat, but I still say no!’’ They should insist on stopping the mission, they shouldn’t give permission. They could use media to spread their findings regarding the mission and inform as many people as possible so they could stand up and protest against launching. With many people involved and protesting it would be much easier to stop mission.

4.And Carrefour and NHS and Challenger ,they all face similar problems caused by intention to earn as much profit as possible ,to keep their customers and to gain new ones.  Actually we cannot say it is a problem because that is the aim of every organisation. But the problems occur when the organisation doesn’t do it in a proper way.  When you set those goals you should take care not just to meet them at all costs, but to do that in a proper way (being ethical ,flexible, collaborative) ‘cause otherwise you will lose your customers and profit anyway.   Madonna is an example of effective strategic leadership , she thinks differently and that is the secret of her success unlike the Challenger case study which is the example of ineffective strategic leadership.