Inspirational Leadership of Louis Chenevert - Essay Example

The Inspiring Leader This paper examines inspirational leadership with a focus on the CEO of United Corporation Technologies, Louis Chenevert who has managed to realize success with the company. While other manufacturing industries in the United States such as Baldwin Locomotives and Zenith have collapsed, UTC continues to realize success in the aerospace business. At the firm, Louis Chenevert is an inspirational leader in terms of how he motivates the workers at UTC to improve their productivity level. Among his qualities as an inspirational leader include projecting a positive attitude on the workers of UTC. Showing confidence on what workers are doing is the key to improving productivity. This is because workers are often motivated as a result of what their leaders think about their efforts at work. Where the leader shows doubt in what other workers are doing, this acts as a demotivating factors and tends to reduce employees morale at workplace which in turn affects productivity. Other than Chenevert projecting positivity on work done by employees of UTC, he also actively participate in the initiatives undertaken by employees at UTC. This is important in terms of instilling confidence and interest among employees to exert more effort in improving their performance at work. Chenevert also provide guidance and make positive remarks and this plays a role in boosting the morale of employees at workplace. In addition to motivational qualities, Chenevert has also incorporated soft skills as the CEO of UTC to ensure smooth operations and improved productivity. This includes ensuring the firm adopts effective communication techniques, duties are delegated according to skills and experience and an emphasis on creativity and innovativeness to ensure UTC remain a leader in the aerospace business. Introduction The manufacturing sector in the United States has continued to witness a decline in the recent times. In the 1950s, the manufacturing industry contributed averagely 25% of the nation’s gross domestic product. However, this is not the case at present since most of the industries in the United States are in total ruins like for example, Baldwin Locomotives or Zenith. On the other hand, some manufacturing industries have managed to continue thriving despite of competition from foreign companies and stiffer regulations. For example, UTC (United Technologies Corporation) has managed to remain a leader in the aerospace technologies and this is partly contributed by efficient leadership and core motivational qualities that inspire employees to improve worker involvement. The current CEO of UTC is known as Louis Chenevert and his leadership at the helm has seen the company’s share –price surge from $ 37 to a staggering $117. This has been achieved through hard work and a commitment to UTC’S mission and vision by both the leadership and workers in general (Thomson 2014, p.1). Core motivational qualities displayed by Louis Chenevert As the CEO of UTC, Louis Chenevert engages in projecting a positive attitude on employees. This involves emphasizing teamwork since being a team leader helps to motivate other workers when the leader shows a positive attitude on the projects being undertaken by employees of the company. The firm is a conglomerate that deals in aerospace business where innovativeness is prioritized. To encourage innovativeness among the workers, allowing the employees space to explore their creativity is important in ensuring that UTC comes up with unique technologies that gives the company a competitive edge in the aerospace business. As such and as a motivational quality, Louis is often confident regarding the work undertaken by his employees. Workers are normally sensitive and often engage in sensing their leader’s confidence level with regard to performance expectations (Yidong & Xinxin, 2013, p.443). Being skeptical about a project as a leader can lead to a negative feeling among the team members working on a project and in the end affect productivity. The company engages in a trend where it learns from the past mistakes and places quality as a priority while embracing a lean management. In a company that requires innovativeness, a democratic form of leadership is important where the workers are given freedom to undertake their own initiatives with little supervision. This plays a role in motivating employees to put more effort in work in order to achieve success with their initiated projects and geared at improving productivity at UTC (Yidong & Xinxin 2013, p.445). On another note, the company’s CEO believes in the flexibility of employees to learn and develop their skills through innovative training and working in teams. This is important in motivating worker engagement and helps to improve performance in the company. Louis Chenevert also exhibit motivational qualities by actively participating in UTC’s projects. This motivates workers in the sense that they view the CEO as being interested in what they are doing (Tebeian 2012, p.1095). Where a leader does not show interest in the work being done by other employees, the employees may also lose interest in their work and this tends to affect productivity of a firm in general. At UTC, both Chenevert and David are actively involved in the projects undertaken by employees at UTC. The other motivational qualities exhibited by Chenevert involve presenting clear goals for the firm to embrace, this is important particularly in a firm that emphasizes teamwork. Workers in a team improve their efforts when presented with goals and objectives that are clear and related to the project at hand (Grant 2012, p.465). This helps in terms of eliminating confusion that normally slows down the productivity of a team working on a project. Chenevert emphasizes clarity with regard to the objectives of UTC and this motivates workers to embrace UTC’s vision geared at realizing success and quality with regard to their aerospace projects. Where workers are able to understand and accept the goals set by a leader, they normally work hard to achieve such goals or objectives. In essence, this result in an environment where employees working as a team realizes higher productivity levels when the leader becomes part of the team and stresses the objectives of the company to the workers (Kark & Van Dijk 2007, p.511). On the other hand, Chenevert also believe in a process of praising and giving guidance to workers of UTC and this aids in influencing employee morale at workplace. The act of praising workers in the presence of other employees plays a part in encouraging workers to improve their performance in order to gain similar accolades. In addition, the act of correcting employee behavior as emphasized by Chenevert needs to be done in a manner that preserves the employee’s ego and reduces the embarrassment to an employee. As a leader, it is important to provide guidance to other workers in a focused manner that avoids distractions from other team members, as evident at UTC. This has led to the company maintaining a pool of disciplined workers who have respect for their various departmental or section heads and tends to work hard and impress the firm’s leadership because, the leadership at UTC also take time and effort to offer guidance to workers on how they can improve their performance (Tebeian 2013, p.318). Chenevert also believes in advancing open communication where the top management remains accessible to enable teams within the firm to consult with the top management. This also helps various teams working at UTC to get the opinion of the management with regard to the projects initiated by team members. In addition, it gives the workers confidence to improve their productivity and performance especially when the feedback from the management is positive. The fact that Chenevert is available all the time to listen to the issues or concerns of UTC’s workers, this acts as a motivating factor for employees because it shows that the top management is taking an interest in the projects initiated by other workers at UTC. Conversely, the consequence of not getting involved in the projects undertaken by employees as a leader include a decrease in productivity and a compromise of quality with regard to the finished products (Tebeian 2013, p.321). Since Chenevert became the CEO of UTC, he has maintained a clear vision for the company. As a leader, Chenevert has focused himself in looking at how UTC can improve and realize greater possibilities. This includes investing in R&D to ensure that UTC remains a leader in aerospace technologies. Further, as a motivational quality, Chenevert is always enthusiastic about the prospect of UTC business ventures. This enthusiasm acts as a motivating factor to other employees who look at the leader to provide direction. On another note, Chenevert is also committed to excellence and this act as a motivational factor because employees work knowing that a key philosophy of the company is nothing less than achieving excellence at UTC. In addition, Integrity is a quality associated with Chenevert where he emphasizes honesty with regard to work engagement at UTC and open to the public concerning matters related to for instance, environmental programmes undertaken by UTC. This improves the respect that both workers and the public have for the UTC CEO and in turn the workers are able to listen to his views as a way of improving productivity at UTC (Tebeian 2013, p.324). The soft skills Louis Chenevert incorporates and effects on employees Among the soft skills that Chenevert incorporates at UTC include communication, delegating tasks and emphasizing creativity and innovativeness. Concerning communication, a firm such as UTC requires effective mode of communication because it is a company that rely mostly on teamwork. Communication in teamwork is important to avoid confusions when working on a particular project. The aerospace business requires perfection since any fault means losing clients to other competitors. As such, communication plays a pivotal role in ensuring that everything at UTC is done in an orderly manner. On the part of Chenevert as the CEO of UTC, explaining in details to workers what is required of them in a specific task, has been important in ensuring that things are done correctly at UTC (Waldman, Galvin & Walumbwa 2013, p.160). To reach all workers, Chenevert often engage in conversations with various departments and holding meetings with all the staff of the company to address pertinent issues concerning operations at UTC. As the CEO of UTC, Chenevert also engages in active listening and this helps to ensure that he understands the issues that need to be addressed in the company. This involves listening to the views and issues raised by workers in order to take appropriate action meant to improve the performance of workers at UTC. The other soft skill incorporated at UTC by the CEO involves delegation of tasks. Chenevert does not single handedly oversee all the tasks or operations at UTC, but has delegated some responsibilities to team leaders (Waldman, Galvin & Walumbwa 2013, p.165). Delegating tasks provides workers with autonomy to explore their skills and improve the firm’s productivity in general. Further, delegation of tasks at UTC by Chenevert results in the flexibility of operations and ensures that the company completes projects on a timely manner. Chenevert emphasizes the delegation of tasks where workers are assigned a particular task that relates to their skills and experience; thus, allowing the CEO to focus on other important managerial matters. With regard to creativity, Chenevert has ensured that the firm focuses on innovation as a way of improving UTC’s competitive advantage over other firms dealing in the aerospace business. To improve creativity and innovativeness at UTC, Chenevert believe in a focus on R& D capabilities that keeps the firm a head in terms of inventing new technologies that define the future of the aerospace business. By being creative, Chenevert always view issues from a broader perspective and this involves proposition for the firm to try nontraditional solutions as a way of improving productivity. This helps in inventing new ways of taking the firm to another level of strategic planning (Zhu & Akhtar 2014, p.378). Conclusion Organizational morale depends on a number of factors that needs to be initiated by the management. This involves the use of effective leadership skills that resonates with workers and can motivate them to improve their performance at work. For instance, where the management shows interest in the work of other employees; therefore, this will play a role in boosting the morale of employees to work hard. Further, organizational morale also depends on the soft skills used by leaders at workplace to improve worker involvement such as effective communication techniques, delegating tasks, and emphasizing creativity and innovativeness. References Grant, A. (2012). Leading with Meaning: Beneficiary Contact, Prosocial Impact, and the Performance Effects of Transformational Leadership. Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 55(2), 458-476. Kark, R., & Van Dijk, D. (2007). Motivation to lead, motivation to follow: The role of the self- regulatory focus in leadership process. Academy of Management Review, Vol. 32(2) 500-528. Tebeian, A.E. (2012). How to improve employee motivation and group performance through leadership conceptual model. Annals of the University of Oradea, Economic Science Series, Vol. 21(1), pp. 1092-1097. Tebeian, A.E. (2013). The impact of motivation through leadership on group performance. Review of International Comparative Management, Vol. 13(2), 313-324. Thomson, L. (2014). Discipline and imagination: How United Technologies Chairman Louis Chenevert keeps his powerhouse humming. Retrieved from http://www. forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2014/04/02/discipline-imagination-how-united-technologies-chairman-louis-chenevert-keeps-his-powerhouse-humming/ Waldman, D., Galvin, B.M., & Walumbwa, F.O. (2013). The development of motivation to lead and leader role identity. 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