What Do People Do When They are Leading - Bob McDonald (Procter & Gamble) - Assignment Example

? What Do People Do When They Are Leading -- Robert “Bob” McDonald (CEO and Chairman of Procter & Gamble) Date 1. Background of Procter & Gamble CEO (Bob McDonald) Bob McDonald is the retired President, Chairman, and CEO of Procter & Gamble, an international commercial company situated in Ohio, and employs more than a hundred thousand workers in different countries (Kane, 2012). He studied in the US Military Academy where he served in the 82nd Airborne Division for five years. When McDonald left the military, Procter & Gamble (P&G) asked him to join the company and served as the brand manager of one of its leading products. In 2009, the board appointed him as the CEO owing to his 29 years of service and substantial contribution to the international expansion of the company (Kane, 2012). At West Point, McDonald had learned much valuable insights on values-based leadership, which he imparted to his senior executives when he became the CEO at P&G. 2. Leadership Style and Philosophy Bob McDonald firmly believes in innovation, which is for him a driving force that can solve challenges for sustainability (Confino, 2012). The drive for innovation made P&G as one of the first companies to accentuate the importance of crowd sourcing and social media to generate new ideas and leverage change through networking with different groups of people. McDonald considers innovation as the lifeblood of P&G given that it allocates about $2 billion annually on their research and development, which is approximately over 50% of its competitors combined (PwC 2010, as cited in Nagpal, 2013, p. 31). Considering the future of the company, McDonald also believes that leaders should build an innovative corporate culture, where a stream of ideas and innovation can be generated by more than 50,000 employees and millions of daily interaction with customers. Such approach, therefore, can facilitate the company in improving their processes, products, and customer experiences. McDonald’s leadership principles can also be attributed to his training at West Point, where he learned having a sense of purpose and character through, which he believed was the most significant trait or quality of a leader (Kane, 2012). 3. Personal and Organisational Values As the company’s CEO, Bob McDonald promotes a “value-based leadership” through which he advocates the essential values of purpose and character (Hurley, 2012, p. 107). He defines purpose as the belief in the ethics and mission within an organisation while character, as he perceived, refers to an act carried out with personal responsibility and integrity. With his personal values-based leadership, McDonald is recognised both as an individual and global business leader anchored on his belief that outstanding companies and leaders should operate with consistent values and with a clear sense of purpose (Procter & Gamble, 2013a). With regard to organisational values, McDonald espouses a corporate innovation at P&G. Although he recognised the value of sales promotion that can boost the company’s growth, he believes that true innovation can provide a wide range of opportunities for the company to excel in their investments and strategic goals (Kuratko, 2012). Moreover, McDonald’s key points for leadership derived from his military experience can be characterised with strong organisational and personal values in stimulating action in the workplace and promoting a sustainable competitive advantage (Yardley, Kakabadse, & Neal, 2012, p. 68). 4. How McDonald’s Values Influence Ethical Behaviour of the Organisation Ethical behaviour is the key ingredient of Procter & Gamble’s success, as noted by House and Rehbein (2004, p. 105). Its corporate values reflect their behaviour that influence the way they the company works and toward their business partners (Procter & Gamble, 2013b). In addition, employees at Procter & Gamble are obliged to act in the company’s best interests at all times and take prompt actions in resolving any conflicts of interests that may arise (Pride, Hughes, & Kapoor, 2012, p. 40). Also, P&G’s Principles, Values, and Policies (PVPs) Guide outlines the company’s belief in doing what is deemed appropriate for the business and with their integrity to promote success both at the individual and organisational level (Ethical Performance, 2012). P&G is also committed to developing a good corporate citizen and expects its employees to be responsible for all individuals to further enhance themselves and others. McDonald’s values of purpose and character can be observed within the organisation that influenced employee behaviour in inspiring them to achieve the objectives and goals of the organisation. 5. McDonald’s Greatest Strengths and Weaknesses McDonald’s three greatest strengths are his well-defined statement of a sense of purpose and corporate values, character and friendly personality. His sense of purpose and corporate values are manifested in his leadership at P&G where he aligned the fact of promoting a clear sense of values from the company’s top management to the staff (Confino, 2012). It must also be noted that he joined P&G because it has the purpose of improving lives, which McDonald views it as an enormous responsibility with his role as the CEO of the company. His character also strengthens his leadership at P&G to which he always prioritises the needs of the organisation before his own, and prefers to lead his team, “the harder right instead of the easier wrong” (Reiman, 2013). His colleague described him as a friendly and earnest person and is good at remembering names at the same time. However, the only speculations that people may consider of his weaknesses are his leadership style, incapacity to identify a successor that reduced the confidence of the board on him, and his incapacity to raise enough sales in times of economic turbulence (Cincinnati News, 2013). The communication channel among all the members of the company shows inefficiency because of the CEO’s weakness in his leadership style. Despite these criticisms that challenged McDonald’s performance at P&G, some still believes on his leadership in looking after the company’s best interests. 6. Quality that Contributes to McDonald’s Success As an opinion, the quality that contributes much to McDonald’s success is his passion to be a proactive catalyst for change. In one of his interviews, however, he cited that being proactive in initiating a positive change is a key ingredient for success (DiversityInc, 2013). For McDonald, this encompasses overseeing a valuable international business that is committed to improving and changing the lives of people. This quality and coupled with his sense of purpose and values of leadership, integrity, and discipline (Reingold & Burke, 2013) has driven him to become the person that he is today. As a business executive, he personalises his values into the experience of the organisation where his subordinates could be able to satisfy their purpose of improving the lives of people and in the communities where they operate. Moreover, his training from military experience has contributed much to his success given that much of his leadership at P&G can be attributed to the values and discipline he got from his military training at West Point. 7. Influence of Communication and Collaboration, Power and Politics in the Organisation’s Dynamics With the leadership of Bob McDonald at P&G, it could be observed that communication and collaboration, power and politics are influential on the company’s group dynamics particularly with how they make decisions and judgments. This is evident in the way the management requires its staff to abide by their principles, values, and purpose. In addition, the company’s political involvement is a significant aspect in realising their purpose through public policy, which allows them to touch more people’s lives across different countries worldwide (Procter & Gamble, 2013c). Their commitment to transparency also assures their stakeholders, employees, and consumers’ interests are well-represented. By implication, the exercise of power and authority within the organisation characterises the value of equality in satisfying its stakeholders’ interests. Also, P&G recognises the importance of social media to communicate and collaborate with suppliers, consumers, employees, and diverse group of stakeholders; thereby, allowing them to have an efficient business collaboration and communication in promoting their products and services. This interaction within the organisation largely influences P&G to become one of today’s leading consumer-product companies. References Cincinnati News. (2013, June 3). Behind the scenes at P&G: Bob was playing defense. Retrieved from http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20130603/BIZ01/ 306030012/?nclick_check=1 Confino, J. (2012, September 26). Procter & Gamble CEO on solving the world’s sustainability challenges. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/procter-gamble-ceo-solving-worlds-sustainability-challenges DiversityInc. (2013). Corporate diversity: How P&G’s values drive innovation. Retrieved from http://www.diversityinc.com/leadership/corporate-diversity-drives-procter-gamble-ceo-innovation/ Ethical Performance. (2012). Procter & Gamble: A matter of principle. Retrieved from http://www.ethicalperformance.com/bestpractice/casestudy/78 House, J., & Rehbein, J. (2004). Multilingual communication. The Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Co. Hurley, R. (2012). The decision to trust: How leaders create high-trust organisations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Kane, T. (2012). Bleeding talent: How the US military manages great leaders and why it’s time for a revolution. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Kuratko, D. (2012). Entrepreneurship: Theory, process, practice. (9th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning. Nagpal, J. (2013). Talent economics: The fine line between winning and losing the global war for talent. London, UK: Kogan Page Limited. Pride, W., Hughes, R., & Kapoor, J. (2012). Business. (11th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning. Procter & Gamble. (2013a). Company. Retrieved from http://www.pg.com/en_US/company/ purpose_people/executive_team/values_based_leadership.shtml Procter & Gamble. (2013b). Purpose & people. Retrieved from http://www.pg.com/en_US/company/purpose_people/pvp.shtml Procter & Gamble. (2013c). Our political involvement. Retrieved from http://www.pg.com/en_US/company/global_structure_operations/governance/governance_political.shtml Reiman, J. (2013). The story of purpose: The path to creating a brighter brand, a greater company, and a lasting legacy. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reingold, J., & Burke, D. (2013, February 8). Can Procter & Gamble CEO Bob McDonald hang on? Cable News Network. Retrieved from http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/02/08/procter-gamble-mcdonald/ Yardley, I., Kakabadse, A., & Neal, D. (2012). From battlefield to boardroom: Making the difference through values-based leadership. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Read More