Chapter 7 | To Lead from the Front | Leadership | Value Education Class 7

To Lead from the Front
This is a very interesting incident that happened in 1979. The organisation named Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was very excited. After ten years of hard struggle, they were ready to launch their first rocket, Rohini. This was the first time India had built its own rocket launch vehicle without taking any help from satellite super powers-US and Russia. Dr APJ Abdul Kalam was the Project Director of the SLV mission and Dr Satish Dhawan was the Chairman of ISRO, at that time. The countdown started and Kalam along with other experts, monitored the launch anxiously. When it was four minutes before the satellite launch, they realised that some control components were not in order. Everyone was stunned not knowing whether to proceed or not. Kalam decided to bypass the computer, switched to manual mode, and launched the rocket. In the first stage, everything worked fine. In the second stage, a problem developed. Instead of the satellite going into orbit, the whole rocket plunged into the Bay of Bengal.
It was a big failure.
The world media was waiting to know what had happened. Some in the ISRO team were worried because they would be criticised for wasting millions of people’s money. Satish Dhawan took Dr Kalam to the press meet and made him sit aside. He took the blame for the team’s failure and said, ‘We failed! But I have a very good team that I immensely trust. Next time, we will succeed for sure.’ The entire nation believed Dhawan and stood behind ISRO’s hard working and dynamic team. Next year, on 18 July 1980, the same team led by Kalam successfully launched Rohini RS-1 into the orbit!
The whole country was proud and cheered for ISRO’s success. Satish Dhawan congratulated Kalam and his team, and this time asked Kalam to conduct the press conference that day! The rest is history as we know it. Kalam led many more successful launches.
This would not have happened without what Dhawan did on the day of failure-he placed his trust in Kalam and took the entire responsibility for the failure, on himself. Dhawan displayed the true test of leadership. He didn’t merely ‘lead’ his team to achieve success but he ‘empowered’ Kalam to achieve far greater deeds. Kalam came to be known as the ‘Missile Man’ of India.
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