Leadership Style And Behaviors Of George Edwin Mueller: A Case Study

Qualifications and Experience of George Edwin Mueller

George Edwin Mueller was an American electrical engineer who was associated administrator at the NASA and headed the office of Manned Space Flight from September 1963-1969. He was one of the most brilliant and fearless managers who was having the good understanding of the instrumental testing and conducted the successful Apollo program in the landing a man on the moon.

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The qualification of George Edwin Mueller was Bachelor of electrical engineering and Ph.D. in Physics from Ohio State University in 1951.

George Edwin Mueller has worked for the NASA which is the biggest space and Aerospace organization from USA (About the George Edwin Mueller, 2018).

The most notable achievement of George Edwin Mueller was leading the project of Apollo, landing of a man on the moon in the 60s. Moreover, he has got the National Medal of Science in 1971.

George Edwin Mueller was leaders of the early human Spaceflight who has conducted the Apollo program by leading the way to the proper management of the resources and planning of the actions. The leadership style of George Edwin Mueller was democratic as he always discusses the things with the team members. The George Edwin Mueller was forward thinker and had the credit of much successful accomplishment of the space and aeronautical sector (Yahaya, and Ebrahim, 2016). The communication and team working elements of his leadership are the key factors that have helped in developing a creative and highly qualified team. The risk-taking ability of George Edwin Mueller has a significant impact on the planning and maintaining the feasibility of the mission for the space landing. George Edwin Mueller was never getting upset from the failure at the beginning of the project (Arnold et al., 2015). He has always come with a positive attitude and keeps the team members motivated by giving confidence in their work and recognizing the effectiveness of the hard work. The management and analytical skills of George Edwin Mueller were excellent and supporting him to lead the diverse team and achieve the goals and objectives of the particular project (Sullivan, 2017).  The leadership of George Edwin Mueller has helped the NASA in achieving the success and extraordinary goals.

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The leadership requires a proper analysis and consideration of a specific behavioral approach for managing the team to meet the objectives. According to the analysis of the leadership of George Edwin Mueller, it has been carried out that the key leadership aspects involve the building the trust within the team, acting with the integrity, inspiring other, innovative and creative thinking as well as communication with the members (Lin, and Cheng, 2015). For example, the planning of the Apollo mission was the dream of George Edwin Mueller and it was accomplished by forwarding thinking and involving the ideas of various people to get the process right by analyzing every possible aspect of achieving the goals (R?ducan, and R?ducan, 2014). George Edwin Mueller has encouraged the trust of team members by providing them with the chance for offering the knowledge and information related to the topic. The trust that shown by George Edwin Mueller in team members has influenced the morale of the team and encouraged them to take the ownership of the tasks allocated to them.

Notable Achievements of George Edwin Mueller

The effectiveness of leadership behavior for George Edwin Mueller includes the inspiring nature and lead by the example. The leading authority of Apollo program has given the responsibility for managing the actions and development of the plan. George Edwin Mueller has taken the risk and develops the strategies that can be beneficial in preventing the equipment failure (Renz, 2016). For example, George Edwin Mueller has decided against the unit testing and pushed the team for full system testing. That was a right move for the project success and identifying the critical issues that might affect the landing of a man on the moon. Mueller has always taken the challenges as the risk that increases the leadership effectiveness and inspires the other members. In spite of that, George Edwin Mueller was an effective leader because of forward and innovative thinking (Ramchunder, and Martins, 2014). The Apollo program was a dream project of NASA which requires a special attention at each stage of operation. The forward-thinking and innovative approach in the planning and testing of the operations related to the project have influenced the quality of the activities and supported the other members to identify the requirements (Hattie, 2015). In addition to this, the leadership of George Edwin Mueller was full of integrity that influences the ethical approach, value, and belief in the work which improves the effectiveness of the approach that considers for managing the project. The leader has the collective sense of mission which the organization going to complete.

The leadership behavior of George Edwin Mueller had provided with various examples of success within the project of Apollo program. It has been identified that the leader had made intense efforts towards the execution of the project by making use of the democratic leadership style. This type of leadership behavior had impacted the project in both positive and negative manners across its life cycle. It is very important for the leader to ensure an effective execution of the behavior so that to avail the efficient result out of the same (Novo, Landis and Haley, 2017). A leader with democratic leadership behavior share the decision-making activities involved in the project with the team members which enhances the scopes of ideas to wider senses. The responsibilities of problem-solving are also shared with the team members making them more engaged in the project. This act enhances the efficiencies and interest of the project team towards the project and makes them work with more dedications and efforts.

Democratic Leadership Style of George Edwin Mueller

George Edwin Mueller made use of this leadership behavior among their team so that to avail the desired success out of the Apollo program project. The project included a wide range of critical issues or problems throughout its life cycle which were being resolved with the help of a combined team of the project. Effective solutions and ideas were found with the help of the concept of democratic leadership of involving every team members into the project activities and other related decisions (Fiaz, Su and Saqib, 2017). This project is been considered to be the most crucial project for the entire team which requires to be accomplished effectively at any cost. The leader made the entire project team get engaged with the project throughout its lifecycle and ensured an effective result out of it.  

The leadership behavior also impacted the employee motivational levels and made them set workable goals and identify their achievements throughout the project. It has been found that the style had made huge contributions in making the project of Apollo program successful with the help of effective teamwork and commitment. It even helped the leaders in identifying the critical issues that might affect the landing of a man on the moon and resolve the same effectively (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017).  The project team of Apollo program was highly encouraged and engaged at each stage of the project which made the leader identify the loopholes and implement required solutions into it. Along with this, the leadership behavior also provided with a creative environment involving diversified members and helped the leader with new ideas and concepts to initiate the project smoothly.  The project is basically found to be positively impacted by the use of leadership style of George Edwin Mueller and made the initiative a remarkable success.

However, this leadership behavior was quite time-consuming throughout the project cycle and made the other team members to manage the time accordingly.  It has been found that the decision-making process of this style had also consumed much time to accomplish the project successfully (Shamir and Eilam-Shamir, 2018).

Conclusion   

The above report concludes with the facts that democratic leadership behavior is an effective style for making a project successful. It has been identified that the forward thinking and innovative approach in the planning and testing of the operations related to the project have influenced the quality of the activities and supported the other members to identify the requirements. The report even revealed that the style had made huge contributions in making the project of Apollo program successful with the help of effective teamwork and commitment. It is very important for the leader to ensure an effective execution of the behavior so that to avail the efficient result out of the same. Further, it has been identified that the leadership behavior used throughout the project cycle had proved to be beneficial for the project of the Apollo program. It had made the project team contribute with their ideas and resolve the issues faced across the project life cycle.

References

Arnold, K. A., Connelly, C. E., Walsh, M. M., & Martin Ginis, K. A. (2015). Leadership styles, emotion regulation, and burnout. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 20(4), 481.

Fiaz, M., Su, Q., & Saqib, A. (2017). Leadership styles and employees’ motivation: perspective from an emerging economy. The Journal of Developing Areas, 51(4), 143-156.

Hattie, J. (2015). High-Impact Leadership. Educational Leadership, 72(5), 36-40.

Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Lin, H. C., & Cheng, C. T. (2015). A Study on Relationships among Principal’s Positive Traits, Sustainable Successful Leadership and Leadership Effectiveness in Elementary Schools. Xuexiao Xingzheng Shuangyuekan= School Administrators, (100), 24.

Novo, B., Landis, E. A., & Haley, M. L. (2017). Leadership and its role in the success of project management. Journal of Leadership, Accountability, and Ethics, 14(1), 73-78.

R?ducan, R., & R?ducan, R. (2014). Leadership and management. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 149, 808-812.

Ramchunder, Y., & Martins, N. (2014). The role of self-efficacy, emotional intelligence and leadership style as attributes of leadership effectiveness. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 40(1), 01-11.

Renz, D. O. (2016). The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. John Wiley & Sons.

Shamir, B., & Eilam-Shamir, G. (2018). “What’s your story?” A life-stories approach to authentic leadership development. In Leadership Now: Reflections on the Legacy of Boas Shamir (pp. 51-76). Emerald Publishing Limited.

Sullivan, P. S. (2017). The Relationship of Self-Awareness to Leadership Effectiveness for Experienced Leaders.

Yahaya, R., & Ebrahim, F. (2016). Leadership styles and organizational commitment: literature review. Journal of Management Development, 35(2), 190-216.

Online

About the George Edwin Mueller, (2018), [Accessed through] <https://www.springer.com/in/book/9781461437000> [Accessed on 23, October 2018]