Unfortunately from this case study we can not find any effective strategic leadership actions, but what we can do is to learn from the ineffective strategies used by the management of NASA.
We can learn form the case study that the leadership of an organisation should question and listen to their subordinates before taking any hasty decisions. Even the high pressure situation a check list needs to be made, starting at the top with the most important factors. In the NASA case the most important factor was health and safety, then it was reputation and so on. But the management decided to ignore recommendations of their engineers and put people's lives at risk. We have also learned that the management needs to be flexible and consider different options. The biggest problem in some organisations (unsuccessful organisations) is that the management does not listen to their employees who have better access to information and have a better view of the picture. In some situations the management will believe that they know everything and they will often refuse to take into account the opinion or the idea of a subordinate just because they are educated not to and if they do take into account some one else's view, they will consider themselves not good enough for the job. Therefore, it is much easier for them to just ignore any incoming ideas, views, opinions.
The mission went ahead because there was a lot of pressure from the public, first teacher to go into space. The management believed that if the launch was to be postponed again the reputation of NASA will be affected. The launch was postponed for six times already and the management's image was at stake, therefore, the decision was made despite the protests of the engineers.
I believe the disaster could have been avoided if the management would have listened to the engineers. But it is not only the management to blame. The whole organisation is to blame. There are many factors that contributed to this disaster. High power distance in the organisation. The manufacturer did not take any action to repair or replace the rubber rings. The launch was made during inexperienced levels of temperature.
The engineers should have communicated the problem to the entire organisation not only to the management. If the management did not answer to their emails they should have tried to communicate face to face and explain what the problem is and what consequences can arise from this problem. The engineers waited too long until they actually got in from of the managers and explained the problem. They should have been more persuasive when talking to the managers and explain what effects a possible disaster can have on the organisation.
We can not compare it with the Carrefour case study because no one told the senior executive of the retail chain that the new investments won't work.
I think we can compare it with the NHS case study because there was also high power distance between the employees of the hospital. And also some people in the organisation (NHS) have had ideas for years to try and improve and speed up the process of getting people into the surgery rooms, but again no one was listening.
