Apollo 13 Case Study

Apollo 13 Case Study Apollo 13 has experience a major malfunction which changes the mission from landing on the moon to a spacecraft that is now is in a desperate struggle to return to earth with the crew alive. The team work needed to achieve this is substantial and many of the staff at mission control center will in some degree be a leader. Aside from Gene Kranz, one of the first people to emerge as a leader and take control of the situation is Sy Liebergot. His review of the data coming in from the crippled space craft leads him to start conceptualizing a plan to save the crew. He displays many leadership traits in the span of the first few minutes as he is under pressure form Mr. Kranz who needs information right now in order to asses the situation. Sy is asked the ultimate question, what is going on? Sy’s ability to adaptive to the situations and review the data demonstrates his ability to work under pressure, all the while he knows that others are awaiting his response. Once he has reviewed the data he is very confident in his response and is able to delivery a very authoritative response. Through his use of analytical review and logically thinking he is able to assist in formulate a resolution. His ability to control the stress and focus his energies on the situation he is able to give Mr. Kranz some immediate information. With this information, Mr. Kranz can now get a better understanding of the dilemma and direct the teams’ efforts to resoling the crises. For these brief moments, Sy is was the leader and takes the task of compiling data and reporting back. Through this interaction, we see Mr. Kranz using a consult type of interface with Sy, as he does with all of the personnel in the control room. At some point, most everyone in the control room shares the leader role based on their job function within the control room. Sy emerges as one of the few who is in a unique position because of his expertise in and having