This workshop examines many leadership dynamics from communication, team working and engagement to perceptions, assumptions and mindsets, integrated, as they are in the practice of leadership, using a multi-media simulation.  Through this simulation and associated analysis and discussion, participants will reflect on the effectiveness of different leadership approaches and of their own leadership style, and consider alternatives.

The simulation tracks the actual events of the Columbia Space Shuttle mission as NASA engineers and leaders sought to understand the nature and threat associated with an anomaly that occurred on launch.

Over the course of the mission, managers and engineers at NASA analysed the damage, assessed the risks, and decided what to do.  Members of the NASA team had different perspectives, opinions and views about the damage, its affect and therefore the actions that would need to be taken.  Leadership, organisational culture, communication, personality characteristics, formal systems and job positions are amongst many complex issues that affected the course of the decision-making process.  In the event, at the end of the mission, the shuttle disintegrated as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere, killing the seven astronauts.

Participants will analyse the case using materials supplied by NASA under the guidance of a consultant. As the mission unfolds, they will work in teams, each team taking the role of one of the key NASA managers or engineers.  A team experiences only those events and has access only to information that that person had at the time of the mission.  This adds a rich dimension to the case experience as participants recognise how perceptions of the same event can vary.  With a combination of team working and plenary discussion, key principles and applications of leadership, management and communication unfold as the workshop progresses.

Please bring your laptop (PC - not Macs) if you can.  We will need to use one for each of four simulation teams.  

Dr Trevor Long  PhD  MB