Wernher von Braun was the first and only Director of the NASA Center in Huntsville, Alabama for 10 years.  His management style was one of collegiality.  He had brought or attracted over a hundred rocket specialists from Germany after World War II.  Many of them had worked together at the Peenemunde missile works developing the V1 and V2 missiles - the latter being used widely on London, England.  They knew each other well, and were at ease finding flaws and suggesting improvements in each others' work.  And they developed new missiles for America - including the Saturn V which lifted US astronauts to the moon.

There were regular Staff and Board meetings of all the executives who reported directly to Dr. von Braun.  There were many of them.  The technical directors of the various laboratories were the "Board," and the Staff included such areas as budget, manpower, facilities, public affairs, and so on.  At those meetings, everyone was free to chime in on any issue no matter whose department.  Then the Staff portion was over and those individuals left.  The Board remained in session and the meetings sometimes became very animated and interesting as the conflict of technical ideas and approaches took center stage.

In 1970, Dr. von Braun decided he had held the Director's position long enough and agreed to transfer to Washington, DC to head up a new planning effort to help shape NASA's programs after the 1969 lunar landing.  For a little over a year, he was succeeded as director by his longtime "number two", Dr. Eberhard Rees.  Not surprisingly, Dr. Rees' management style was in most respects identical to that of von Braun.

But, in 1973 Dr. Rees announced his retirement, and Dr. Rocco Petrone was assigned to the Huntsville Center as its new Director.  A retired Colonel, former Apollo Program Director after the lunar landing, and former Launch Director at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Dr. Petrone had a distinctly different style.

His first act, was to schedule a series of presentations by each of his direct reports, so that he could get up to speed on their area of specializtion, and also gauge the individuals.  He was abrupt, direct, inquisitive, and some would say rude.  But he learned about the work and he sized up the people.  From the series of presentations, he concluded that everybody was in everybody elses business to an extraordinary degree and it needed to stop for the sake of efficiency and order as the Center made its own preparations for a post Apollo period.

So he announced a drastic change in how the Center would operate.  He told all of those who reported directly to him to get in their tunnels, shine their own tunnel until it was smooth and effective and operating at the cutting edge of whatever field it was in.  He said that each such leader should not stick his head out of his tunnel unless specifically called upon by Dr. Petrone to do so. He would determine when cross collaboration was needed and he would decide who would participate in it.  Violating that order would carry considerable career risk.

The result of that change was swift indeed.  Many of the laboratory directors that had been with Dr. von Braun for years decided to retire, as did some of the senior staff executives as well.  They could see that the approach which worked so well for them leading to the lunar landing would not be continued.  But they also recognized that with the lunar landing over, there was no longer a single driving focus which ultimately controlled all of them - carrying out the promise of an assasinated president.  For no matter how raucous their meetings or profound their disagreements, the did come to a collegial decision on how to proceed.  They had to.  There was a deadline to meet and national prestige at stake.  

The space center in Huntsville has survived Dr. Petrone and a string of directors since then - and is still a major contributor to this nation's quest in space.

It occurs to me, watching the goings on at the United Nations, and in both houses of the Congress of the United States, that our nation and our world are suffering from too much input from too many sources on too many issues.  It seems that it is time for a leader who would apply Dr. Petrone's method across the board, in the UN, in our country, and in any other country where chaotic leadership appears to be the rule.

We have globalization - the flat world,  instant communications world wide through the internet and the cable news channels, international air travel and teleconferencing, and widespread demands for a "place at the table" by every racial, ethnic, and sexual orientation.  And we have an endless supply of talking head "experts" on every subject imaginable, all with advice on What To Do.   Couple that with near universal rules about not speaking one's mind to keep from hurting someone's feelings.  It is a recipe for anarchy.

So where is the leader that will think it over, conclude it is too messy, and apply the rule:   Shine Your Own Tunnel and don't come out unless I call your name.  It cannot be Rocco, for he passed away just recently.  But there must be another one out there somewhere.