| Course | OGL 300 Theory and Practice of Leadership |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 7 |
| Paper type | Crisis action plan, slides with speaker notes |
| Length | About 733 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 slide deck with speaker notes |
| School | Arizona State University |
| Program | BA in Organizational Leadership |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for OGL 300 Module 7
Five Chances to Stop the Slide: A Crisis Action Plan for the Boeing 737 MAX
Student Name
BA in Organizational Leadership, Arizona State University
OGL 300: Theory and Practice of Leadership
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Slide 1: Five Chances to Stop the Slide
Crisis Action Plan: the Boeing 737 MAX, 2011-2021. Position: insider, follower with influence, a mid-level engineering manager on the MAX program.
Speaker notes: I chose an insider follower's position on purpose. Most people who could have changed this story were not executives; they were engineers and managers who saw problems and had to decide whether to speak.
Slide 2: From Bad to Worse
2011: Boeing re-engines the 737 instead of designing a new plane. 2016-2017: MCAS is expanded and certified. October 2018: Lion Air Flight 610 crashes. March 2019: Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashes. 346 people die; the fleet is grounded worldwide.
Speaker notes: Kellerman (2024) argues that bad leadership left unchecked tends to get worse, and this case shows the pattern. Congressional investigators traced the crashes to production pressure, faulty design assumptions, a culture of concealment, conflicted oversight and Boeing's influence over the FAA (House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, 2020).
Slide 3: What Went Wrong
MCAS could push the nose down using data from a single angle-of-attack sensor. Pilots were not told about MCAS in their manuals. Boeing sought to avoid simulator training requirements to keep the plane attractive to airlines.
Speaker notes: Each of these was a choice, not an accident. Herkert et al. (2020) argue that engineers and managers faced clear ethical signals at several stages and that organizational pressure muted them.
Slide 4: Intervention 1 (2011): Name the Trade-Off
Decision: re-engine the 737 under schedule and cost pressure. Theory: authentic leadership, with its balanced processing of information. Action: brief leaders in writing on the risks of handling changes and request an independent design review.
Speaker notes: Authentic leadership includes balanced processing, objectively analyzing information before deciding, and relational transparency (Walumbwa et al., 2008). As a manager, I could insist that the trade-off be written down rather than assumed away.
Slide 5: Intervention 2 (2016): Challenge the Single Sensor
Decision: expand MCAS authority without revisiting its reliance on one sensor. Theory: ethical leadership. Action: refuse to sign off until a redundancy analysis is completed; escalate through the ethics line if overruled.
Speaker notes: Ethical leaders model and enforce ethical conduct, which shapes what followers believe is expected (Brown et al., 2005). Signing off on a design I doubted would have taught my team that schedule outranks safety.
Slide 6: Intervention 3 (2017): Tell the Pilots
Decision: leave MCAS out of pilot manuals and avoid simulator training. Theory: courageous followership and Kellerman's typology of bad leadership. Action: document the concern and propose disclosure to airlines and the regulator.
Speaker notes: Kellerman (2004) describes how bad leadership, including insular leadership that ignores the welfare of those outside the group, depends on followers who go along. Here the people outside the group were pilots and passengers.
Slide 7: Intervention 4 (2018): Learn From Lion Air
Decision: after the first crash, treat it as pilot error and issue a bulletin. Theory: psychological safety. Action: convene a no-blame review where engineers can report doubts about MCAS openly.
Speaker notes: Edmondson (1999) showed that when team members feel safe taking interpersonal risks, they question, seek feedback and talk about mistakes more often. After Lion Air, the organization needed learning, not defense.
Slide 8: Intervention 5 (2019): Ground the Fleet
Decision: resist grounding after the second crash. Theory: adaptive leadership and leader-follower dynamics. Action: support immediate grounding, publicly acknowledge the problem and commit to independent recertification.
Speaker notes: An adaptive challenge cannot be solved by authority alone; it requires leaders to face hard realities. Grounding sooner would not have undone the crashes, but it would have begun rebuilding trust.
Slide 9: The Cost of Waiting
The fleet stayed grounded for about 20 months. In 2021 Boeing agreed to pay more than $2.5 billion to resolve a criminal charge that it defrauded the FAA during the MAX evaluation.
Speaker notes: The financial, legal and reputational costs grew at every stage that intervention was skipped (U.S. Department of Justice, 2021). That is the bad-to-worse dynamic in numbers.
Slide 10: What a Follower Can Do
Write the risk down. Refuse to sign what you doubt. Speak for the people outside the room. Build teams where doubts are safe to raise. Push for disclosure early.
Speaker notes: The common thread is that followers are not powerless. Leadership is a process between leaders and followers (Northouse, 2025), and any of these five actions might have stopped the slide.
References
Brown, M. E., Treviño, L. K., & Harrison, D. A. (2005). Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97(2), 117-134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2005.03.002
Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350-383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999
Herkert, J., Borenstein, J., & Miller, K. (2020). The Boeing 737 MAX: Lessons for engineering ethics. Science and Engineering Ethics, 26(6), 2957-2974. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-020-00252-y
House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. (2020). Final committee report: The design, development, and certification of the Boeing 737 MAX. U.S. House of Representatives.
Kellerman, B. (2004). Bad leadership: What it is, how it happens, why it matters. Harvard Business School Press.
Kellerman, B. (2024). Leadership from bad to worse: What happens when bad festers. Oxford University Press.
Northouse, P. G. (2025). Leadership: Theory and practice (10th ed.). SAGE.
U.S. Department of Justice. (2021, January 7). Boeing charged with 737 MAX fraud conspiracy and agrees to pay over $2.5 billion [Press release]. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/boeing-charged-737-max-fraud-conspiracy-and-agrees-pay-over-25-billion
Walumbwa, F. O., Avolio, B. J., Gardner, W. L., Wernsing, T. S., & Peterson, S. J. (2008). Authentic leadership: Development and validation of a theory-based measure. Journal of Management, 34(1), 89-126. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206307308913
OGL 300 Module 7 instructions, in plain terms
The Crisis Action Plan closes OGL 300; its 300 points make it the single heaviest item in the gradebook, and it is submitted as the term ends. Craft a slide deck that articulates a plan for intervening in a slide from bad to worse. Take a position as an insider or outsider, leader or follower of a group, and articulate at least five points of strategic intervention where analytical techniques from the course might have prevented the worst from coming to pass. The weekly Yellowdig posts and theory matrix entries are designed as scaffolding, so material you developed there can be built into the plan. Draw on Northouse's Leadership: Theory and Practice and Kellerman's Leadership from Bad to Worse, and cite in APA style.
How this OGL 300 Module 7 example is built
The sample states its position on the first slide and justifies the choice, then uses a timeline and a causes slide to show how the crisis built. Five intervention slides follow the same pattern: the decision point, the theory applied and a concrete action the insider could take. Each speaker note cites a source, linking theories from Northouse's text and research articles to the case. A cost slide shows the consequences of inaction, and the final slide distills five follower actions. Margin notes explain why the timeline and the theory pairing matter. The case draws on a congressional report, a peer-reviewed analysis and a Justice Department announcement.
Where the marks sit in the OGL 300 Module 7 rubric
Instructors grading the 300-point plan look for a clearly defined position, a case that actually shows a slide from bad to worse, at least five distinct intervention points and accurate application of course theories at each point. Strong decks are concise, with the analysis carried by speaker notes, and they propose actions that someone in the chosen position could realistically take. Plans lose points when interventions are vague, when theories are named but not applied, when fewer than five points are developed or when facts about the case are unsupported. Because the rubric rewards analytical critique and synthesis, connecting the interventions into a coherent plan matters as much as each slide.
OGL 300 Module 7 help from the desk
Choose a case with a clear timeline and good public documentation. Decide your position first, since it limits what actions are realistic. Mark the decision points on a timeline before you pick theories. Match each point with one theory from the course and one concrete action. Keep slide text short and put the analysis in the notes. Cite sources for every fact about the case. Reuse ideas from your Yellowdig posts and theory matrix. Not sure which five moments to pick? Our desk can help you narrow the timeline. End with a slide that a reader could remember. Check that each action is something a person in your chosen role could actually do.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Arizona State University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
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OGL 300 Module 7 questions, answered
Where can I find a free OGL 300 Module 7 sample paper?
The full Crisis Action Plan deck on the Boeing 737 MAX is on this page.
What does the OGL 300 Crisis Action Plan require?
A deck with a chosen position and at least five points of strategic intervention in a slide from bad to worse.
How much is the OGL 300 Crisis Action Plan worth?
300 of the course's 1,000 points.
Which textbooks does OGL 300 use?
Northouse's Leadership: Theory and Practice and Kellerman's Leadership from Bad to Worse.
What leadership failures did the 737 MAX investigation find?
Production pressure, faulty design assumptions, a culture of concealment and weak oversight.