Act of Leadership by Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Let's look at an incident in the professional life of Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, which captures an important aspect in the art of management.

Dr. Kalam felt that during the 1970's and 1980's, while he was working at ISRO, he had a priceless piece of education which couldn't have been imparted by the best of universities. His narrative of this invaluable lesson was something like this - 'I was given a significant responsibility by Prof. Satish Dhawan, the then Chairman of ISRO. I had to manage the project to develop India's first Satellite Launch Vehicle - SLV-3, to put our satellite ROHINI into orbit. This was one of the largest high technology space programmes undertaken in the 1970's'.

'The whole space technology community was geared up for this task. Thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians put in tireless effort for a number of years, resulting in the realization of the first SLV-3 launch on 10th August, 1979. SLV-3 took off in the early hours and the first stage worked beautifully. But the mission could not achieve its objectives, as the control system in the 2nd stage malfunctioned. The project had failed'.

'Tough questions had to be answered to all the stake-holders. There was a press conference at Sriharikota, where the media glare had to be faced. Prof. Dhawan took me to the press conference but asked me to just stay at his side, while he tackled the press. As part of it, he was unequivocal that the whole responsibility for the failure of the mission rested on his shoulders. This despite me being the Project Director!'

'Work re-commenced on the SLV-3. Prof. Dhawan again handed me the responsibility of managing the mission, despite the previous failure. When we launched SLV-3 on 18th July, 1980, successfully placing Rohini into orbit, we were overjoyed. Obviously, there was a press conference. Like the last time, I expected Prof. Dhawan to handle the press. He called me aside and said that I would need to do it and he would not accompany me. When I asked why he had spoken to the press last time but not now, in our moment of success, his logic was astonishing'.
'He said 'when a project fails, the leader has to take the flak; when it succeeds, the person who has been responsible for the success should have the limelight''

Simple; yet profound?