"Running head: LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT SKILLS COURSE1Challenger and Columbia TragedyYour First and Last NameInstitutionCourse LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT SKILLS COURSE2IntroductionThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is considered the global leaderin space science. It is characterized by not only by the complexities and one of the most riskyhuman engagement in the wold but also a unique organization characteristic in term of itsmission, size and constraints. However, even with such complicated systems, NASA hasexperienced fatal incidences including the disintegration of ‘Columbia’: a space shuttle thatth disintegrated on 28 January 1986, seventeen years after ‘Challenger’s’ incidence. This has notbeen blamed on the sophisticated engineers in NASA but the the organizational and managementfailure.Different studies have been conducted on this case including; poortechnical communicationand conveyance of information, rigid structure of management, leadership and organizationalpressure, language ambiguity, poor organization culture and political infiltration. Theinvestigation of the ‘Challenger’s’ tragedy according to NASA (1988) was conducted by ‘ThePresidential Commission ‘ and the ‘U. S. House of Representatives Science and TechnologyCommittee.’ After this, various other studies were conducted to validate the findings by the twobodies as well as after the ‘Columbia’ tragedy.This paper therefore gives an assessment of the Columbia and Challenger’s tragedy inrelation to leadership and management failure. Leadership FailureLeadership is considered to inspire change and achievement of the bigger picture within anorganization. This includes formulation of the organizational missions and plan of action as wellas good communication of the mission to the followers. In the the Challenger and the Columbia LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT SKILLS COURSE3case, it is worthy noting that NASA is a government agency whose operation are commissionedby the government. Although the Presidential Commission pointed out that communication flawswere that lead reason why the Challenger disaster took place, Browning (1988) point out thatrather than limiting the blame to communication failure, much attention should be on theleadership of NASA. The first thing to note about NASA’s leadership failure is that the Columbia mission wasforced onto NASA by congress that thought the it was the great priority. Since the organizationof NASA has a culture of valuing leadership and protocol, the mission was then to respect thewish of the congress (Donovan and Green, 2003). This led to hasty moves that even at the pointflight safety risks called for emergency and high priority investigation, the top managers in thehierarchy ignored the engineers (Hall, 2003). Management FailureThe great concerns under the management failure is communication and the conveyance ofinformation. According to Moore (1992), lack of effective technical communication was one of thekey causes of Challenger’s accident. Winsor (1990), points out that juniors in the organization knewthat the O- rings were faulty but failed to pass the information for decision making. Thismiscommunication in Winsor (1988) were led by a number of factors, chief of which are is that theengineers and he managers interpreting data from assorted perspectives and sending no news tosuperiors.A different perspective was Winsor’s (1990) that points out that the problem withcommunication was the conveyance. According to him, the juniors that discover the flaws of the O-ring and other safety problems used a polite language when communicating to the managers and theengineers that was interpreted as ‘safe to launch.’ According to the study, the problem was not LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT SKILLS COURSE4whether information was given to the manager but the how the communication was conveyed. Moore(1992) points out that the real challenge with communication was that the management of NASA wasled through intimidation. This could have coerced the juniors convey the information to the managersin the manner they did.StrategyAfter the information of safety risks was conveyed to the management, no measures were takenand hence launching still took place. Pace (1988) pointing out the group differentiation in making theChallenger launching decision states that communication may have failed in four major strategicdimension namely; centrality, clarity, openness and interrelatedness. The management of theChallenger mission had failed to bring the juniors closer and work democratically which would havegiven the juniors confidence to communicate without breaching any protocol. Centralism and lack ofinterconnectedness are considered barriers to effective communication within an organization.Values ImplementationThe four major values that Moore (1992) pointed out might have caused intimidation of thejuniors by the seniors are; the fear of retaliation, the Marshall’s tradition that discourages reporting ofbad rules, lack of justice and objectionable acts that are said to overrule engineers on fatal technicaldecisions. These inflexible values might have had detrimental effect on the operations of theengineers and the juniors of the organization.ConclusionThe NASA’s Columbia and Challengers tragedies are majorly due to human causes rather thannatural causes. These causes rest entirely on the leadership and management failure to address keysafety and communication issues that the organization was facing. On leadership, NASA was forced LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT SKILLS COURSE5to launch the Columbia space mission by the congress that reorganized the whole system withinNASA. When safety risks were discovered before the launch, it is the organizational culture that ledto the miscommunication between the juniors and the manager. In any organization, values are important, but it is upon leadership and management to upholdvalues of respect and inclusion in decision making. Decisions however, are not to be rushed butgiven time to survey all options. "