Leadership Styles and Ethical Issues in Hubble Telescope Launch Case

This report discusses the importance of effective leadership in project success and analyzes the leadership styles articulated by Charles Pellerin. It also delves into the ethical issues in the Hubble telescope launch case and possible solutions. The report emphasizes the need for emotional capabilities in project leaders and building strong project teams.

Contents
1. Executive Summary.................................................................................................................................2
3. Problems arising due to ineffective leadership........................................................................................2
4. Leadership styles articulated by Charles Pellerin:....................................................................................2
5. Leadership style to build successful project teams:.................................................................................3
6. Ethical issues in the Hubble telescope launch case and there possible solution.....................................3
7. Conclusion...............................................................................................................................................4
8. References...............................................................................................................................................4

1. Executive Summary
We often hear and learn about how effective leadership plays an important role in the project success.
Leadership is a skill required by the successful project managers and other professionals to support,
empower, encourage and help other work upon and achieve a common goal [4]. For achieving desired
goals the employees must implement right decisions at right time, integrating both "Decision making"
and "Leadership" for their success. In spite of knowing much about the importance of leadership we find
very few examples that actually presents the scenario where great leadership skill has created magic for
the projects, one of such scenario we are going to learn about in this report is the case study of NASA's
popular Hubble Telescope Launch Mission, what made it so big, what was the flaws in that project that
led to its failure and how did Charles Pellerin Project Manager of the Hubble Telescope project
overcome the issue with his great leadership skills? In his own words.
2. Introduction:
There are large things in the project that needs to get done and managed properly and that requires an
effective leadership. Leaders should not only possess the capabilities such as presentation and
communication skills, but they equally require emotional skills and competencies to successfully carry
out project activities. Hubble Telescope Project director Charles Perellin has proved this fact through his
emotional capabilities he has redeemed the repair cost of a failed project and made it a big success. We
would deeply analyze the project in terms of what it takes to become a successful project manager as
per Charles and the ethical issue inherent in the project.
3. Problems arising due to ineffective leadership
Effective leadership is important for achieving organizational goals, objectives and performances and
work for a common aim. An ineffective leader would not be able to set standards for project and
organization and in absence of these standard it becomes difficult to encourage team work. Only a
strong leader can communicate precisely what the vision of a project is, train and inspire his/her fellow
employees and team and build trust among them when it comes to head towards a goal, make
important improvements and process changes in the project [1]. This team work in turn would foster
better relationships among employee and management where they can contribute towards the overall
organizational success. An effective leader would know and value the diversity in the team environment,
continuous development of employees, and use knowledge of the workers that are highly skilled by
promoting responsibility and accountability for their work [3].
4. Leadership styles articulated by Charles Pellerin:
Charles Pellerin has proved himself as an effective leader in spite of the criticism and setback he faced
due to the failure of Hubble Telescope Launch project. He emerged as a true leader and wrote in his
book, the competencies required to be an effective leader [8]. The competency model for leadership is
based on Emotional Logical Decision making process continuum and Intuited-Sensed data preference
continuum, on the basis of which he explains four types of leadership styles which characterize the
leaders as follows:

1. The green leaders that are cultivating Emotional-Intuitive: This type of leaders gives gratitude and are
people-builder, caring for subjects like humanity and loyalty among the team. This type of leader proves
to be ultimate in handling large and complex projects.
2. The yellow leaders that are including Emotional-Sensing: This type of leader are the best relators that
makes people work as a whole team and develop harmony among the team. Also they know well how to
make even difficult people work as a team. They are proved to be good marketers for complex and large
projects.
3. The blue leader that are visioning Logical-Intuitive: This are one of those responsible and realistic
people, proving their commitment at every step, brings about new and creative ideas and implement
them with their full strength to bring innovation into the project. This leaders are good for pulling
research projects and the one which are in early phase, but they could probably not able to move on
from there [10].
4. Orange leader that are directing Logical-Sensing: These leaders works on the roots of the system and
build them with high discipline, well maintained, task organizer, and using processes that are reliable
thus achieving project deliveries and closing them on time even during difficult phase, by placing their
commitments first and meeting them anyhow [6]
5. Leadership style to build successful project teams:
As per Charles, the most effective leaders are the one that are able to lead the project activities and
their people through their emotions. These are none other than the “green” and “yellow” leaders.
According to Charles, managing a project is all about building human relationship and working as a team,
it’s all about togetherness where all stakeholders are engaged for a better outcome of the project [5].
Charles gives a very good reasoning towards the sure success of the “green” and “yellow” leaders, by
claiming that these leaders can possibly compensate in case they acquire less logical abilities by hiring
colleagues or collaborators that comes under “blue” and “orange” category, however the reverse of this
is rather impossible. So to become a good and effective project leader the manager and leaders should
possess emotional capabilities and should change their behavior into includes and gratifiers. Thus
leading towards a successful project with strong and trustworthy team [9].
6. Ethical issues in the Hubble telescope launch case and
there possible solution
The Hubble Space Telescope mission was meant to launch a very first observatory into the space that
take pictures of the universe more efficiently. This project was very first of its kind and involve billions of
dollars in its completion. However the project failed miserably, as the mirror installed in the observatory
took blurred picture of galaxy. Consequently, Charles Pellerin as a project director had to face lot of
criticism regarding the project failure, however he was able to successfully redeem the project’s repair
cost and discovered a true leader within himself [7]. The issue with the project was technical failure.
However, if we analyze the project closely we can find ethical issues in the project. As per code of
conduct by Australian Computing Society, it is the endeavor of the professional to preserve the integrity,
continuity, security and utility of ICT [12]. The project was clearly a failure to abide by minimal standard

of care, risks undermining profession and one’s own integrity. The team was failed to abide properly by
the calibration instruments findings at the time of constructing Hubble Space Telescope’s primary
mirror, resulted in a very expensive and dangerous repair mission [2].
In a statement given in [11], Charles clearly stated that he was angry on the person that was working for
the mirror instrument, and thus resulted in this mishap. As a possible solution to this issue, he should
have taken care of the circumstances calmly and as a project director tried to make the processes
complete in a more stable manner [4].
7. Conclusion
From the analysis of the case study it is clear that success is led from the top and requires management
of all the changes be it process or behavior. An effective leader would be able to manage those changes
and make the environment appropriate for working in team. According to Charles, managing a project is
all about building human relationship and working as a team, a successful leader is the one who holds all
stakeholders together and engaged them for a better outcome of the project.
8. References
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the ground”, The Conversation, http://theconversation.com/hubble-space-telescopes-chief-scientist-
on-what-it-took-to-get-the-project-off-the-ground-40287 (Accessed on 25 April 2019)
[2] D. Koepsell, 2012, “Some Ethical Consideration in Astronomy Research and Practices”, Organization
People and Strategies in Astronomy, 265-277, http://www.venngeist.org/opsa1_koepsell.pdf
(Accessed on 25 April 2019)
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Making in Non-Profit Organizations", Administrative Sciences, vol. 3, 202–220, 2013, doi:
10.3390/admsci3040202
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systematic review of the desired competencies and standard settings for physicians' leadership", Saudi
medical journal, vol. 37, No. 10, 1061–1067, 2016, doi:10.15537/smj.2016.10.1562
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[Online], Available, https://ejop.psychopen.eu/article/view/313/221
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http://www.moyak.com/papers/leadership-qualities.html

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[11] R. Pearce, “What went wrong with the Hubble Space Telescope (and what managers can learn from
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