Building an organizational culture. Lessons from the Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster. Recent data (2024) on leadership versus tragic events (2003)

When I attended a class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on building organizational resilience, one of the topics covered was an analysis of the Columbia space shuttle disaster, which ended in the tragic deaths of seven astronauts. The classes at MIT and the analysis of the disaster taught me with very valuable lessons about managing complexity and crisis in organizations. I learned a lot from them, and I continue to try to apply the practices presented in my daily work. So I was particularly pleased when, a year later, in September 2024, I happened to come across a newly released 72nd episode of the HBR On Leadership podcast, which covered the same topics. In it, I found an additional, equally interesting analysis of the tragedy, this time focused primarily on the role of leadership. I was so inspired that I decided to search for the latest data and reports on the role of leaders in organizations that same day. I wanted to compare it with material from MIT and HBR. I wanted to see how leaders and the organizational culture compared to what NASA faced more than 20 years ago. This led to an analysis based on data from the reports, which I invite you to listen.