World Leaders - Henry Ford's Transformation Leadership - Essay Example

The implementation of the economic method in early 1910 revolutionized American industry by promoting mass consumption and allows it to produce more than 15 million copies of the Model T automobile. Through his industrial leadership capability, Ford became one of the richest and most famous figures of his time. The paper discusses the profile of Henry Ford as one of the model leaders of the nineteenth century and explores his transformational leadership style. The paper also discusses leadership characteristics demonstrated by Henry Ford and aspects of servant leadership.

Transformational leadership is the key aspect of Henry Ford’s leadership. The transformational leadership of Henry Ford is depicted by the particular success of Fordism which was based on the philosophy of rationalization and standardization. Rationalization is the decomposition of the activity of the worker into elementary tasks which allows an industrial process to work on machine tools specialists. This leads to a simplification and standardization of gestures and a consequent increase in productivity (Alizon, Shooter, and Simpson, 2009).

Ford was a pioneer in this industrial philosophy and transformed the entire face of the automotive industry of the time. Standardization in the Ford factories is was pushed to the extreme that only the Model T was produced, and even that only in black because of its fast drying time. This favored not only an increase in production but also the geographic expansion of the Model T as standard parts could easily be sent for repair. According to Maxwell (2009), Ford possessed three essential qualities possessed by a transformational leader.

Ford developed a unique vision of the future of the organization that encouraged subordinates to work harder to achieve that vision (Maxwell, 2009). Ford also possessed excellent communication skills and was ready to rally employees to his cause which distinguished him as a prominent transformational leader. 

Ford also possessed confidence in his vision which was an important element in the relationship of Ford with his workforce.

The changes brought about by Ford’s leadership in the mode of production were later adopted in most sustainable industries in the early twentieth century which provided a strong decrease in the cost of production. Model T priced at $825 at the time was equal to six months’ salary of a teacher but remained well below the average price of a car which was around $2000 at the time (Zuehlke, 2007). Ford Motor Company’s sales increased tenfold and Model T’s output increased from 250,000 vehicles in 1914 to 472,000 in 1916 and one million in the early 1920s (Zuehlke, 2007).

Alizon, Shooter, and Simpson (2009) are of the opinion that one of the most important aspects of Henry Ford’s leadership relates to marketing success. Ford created a massive publicity machine in Detroit, to ensure that all newspapers retransmit the ads on its products and an extensive network of distributors introducing the car in almost all the cities of North America. For this reason, sales soared for the product of Henry Ford like no other product in history. 

Elements of servant leadership can be found with Henry Ford since he was keen on looking after the needs of his workforce. Ford is termed as a pioneer of welfare capitalism which is a paternalistic industrial practice to improve the living standards of workers. Ford announced an increase in minimum daily wage of $ 2.34 to $ 5 for workers in learning and a further reduction in working hours daily from 9 am to 8 pm (Henry, 2007). Due to such depiction of servant leadership practice; he was described as a "great humanist" and even a "crazy socialist”. Ford himself explained in his memoirs, this is "one of the best ways to reduce costs never implemented" (Henry, 2007). Ford had a global view of his action. His commitment to reducing costs led to many innovations in technology but also commercial processes and he pioneered a system of franchises that installed a dealership in every city in North America and in major cities on six continents. 

There are a number of leadership challenges that were faced by Ford. Ford Motor Company’s plants were plagued by a major turnover, which led many departments to incur annually 300 people to fill 100 jobs and excessive absenteeism. Moreover, almost all jobs are monotonous, and work on assembly lines became difficult to manage due to monotony. Hiring and training workers was also very expensive. Wage growth was a solution to fight against these problems. His philosophy of work increased productivity quickly however wages remained virtually unchanged for 30 years. Ford’s resolute leadership was able to overcome the majority of these challenges which marks him as one of the greatest leaders produced in the era of the industrial revolution.

Conclusion

The paper discussed the profile of Henry Ford as one of the model leaders of the nineteenth century. It is found that Ford possessed three essential qualities possessed by a transformational leader and the changes brought about by Ford’s leadership in the mode of production were later adopted in most sustainable industries in the early twentieth century. The paper also discusses leadership characteristics demonstrated by Henry Ford and aspects of servant leadership. It is concluded that elements of servant leadership could be found with Henry Ford since he was keen on looking after the needs of his workforce and his industrial practices improved the living standards of the workers in his factories.