If you haven't seen it in awhile, watch Apollo 13. You'll see numerous leadership lessons. Here are just two I caught:
1) leadership is shared. While Commander Jim Lovell is the leader on the craft, there are different leaders on the ground. As the situation changes, leadership moves from one person to the next depending on whose knowledge is greatest.
2) leaders trust their direct reports. In one scene, the 3 astronauts exit the simulator, with Commander Lovell and Fred Haise complaining about 4 hours sitting around for 5 minutes of action. The pilot, Ken Mattingly, says, "I'd like to do it again." Although Lovell knows it was near perfect, he also knows that it's critical that Mattingly believes in himself. He turns the crew around and they run it again. Later in the movie, different people on the ground are given absolute authority over specific decisions. Although Gene Kranz is the leader, he defers to others' knowledge when making critical decisions.
What leadership lessons do you notice?
No comments:
Post a Comment