Leadership Styles and Ethical Issues in Hubble Telescope Launch Case

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: