Leadership Assessment of CEO of Ford, Alan Mulally - Coursework Example

Leadership Assessment Introduction Leadership is recognized as one of the most important elements determining the growth and success of an organization. It is regarded as an indispensible element in the contemporary business world, which has widespread influence on organizational performance and the people or the followers involved in accomplishing desired business or operational objectives. It will be vital to mention in this similar context that several scholars have unanimously concluded leadership as a process, which is not restricted to characteristics or traits that are owed by only few people from their birth. Leadership in the form of a process has been argued as transactional occurrence, which takes place between leaders and followers. From this standpoint, the essay intends to analyze the leadership style(s) of a senior executive within an organization who has been able to exert profound impact on the followers and the overall performance of a business corporation. Correspondingly, the Ford Motor Company has been selected as the concerned organization for the essay, based on which, Mr. Alan Mulally, the former President and CEO of Ford who retried on July 1, 2014 is selected for assessing his leadership style(s). Analysis of the Leadership Styles of Mr. Alan Mulally Mr. Alan Mulally was appointed as the President and the CEO of Ford in the year 2006. The role of Mr. Mulally during his tenure as the President and the CEO of the company has been exceptional. When this placed as the new President and the CEO of the company, he was confronted with significant challenges of declined market share and reduced product sales of the company. The company was burdened with numerous challenges and problems and it was daunting tasks for him to streamline the declining performance of the company. The first task he decided to perform was restructuring the organization. The bottom-line behind this strategy of Mr. Mulallay was to change the prevailing corporate culture and visions of the people working in the organization. Mr. Mulally’s transformational leadership style coupled with better decision making indeed facilitated in turning around the deteriorating performance of the company (Stallard, 2014). Mr. Mulally was blessed with the leadership traits such as effective decision-making skill, trustworthy, patience, tactfulness, confidence, achievement, assertiveness, enthusiasm and ambitious among other. The leader aligned his leadership’s traits with the vision of enhancing the overall performance of the company. The company, under the leadership of Mr. Mulally, revealed resilient performance despite the severe economic challenges and financial crisis witnessed by the global economy. One of the major reasons behind the interrupted performance of the company during the economic crisis can be attributed to inspirational leadership embraced by Mr. Mulally. Besides, participative style of leadership can also be related with the leadership practices of this leader. Evidently, the leader would walk across the floor with the workers and listen to what they had to say. Furthermore, Mr. Mullaly would consider the views and opinions of every employee and make decisions accordingly. The leader highly recognized the philosophy of working together. Undoubtedly, the leadership styles that Mulally demonstrated indeed have much positive and profound impact on his followers (Kaipa & Kriger, 2010). Analysis of the Organizational Structure and Culture of Ford Ford is a US based automobile company, which performs its varied operational functions globally. The company deals with the design, manufacturing and distribution of automobiles. The company, in order to reduce complexities in its operational procedures, has certainly adopted and designed flexible organizational culture, which is quite effective towards responding to changing external business environment. Besides, a hierarchical reporting structure is followed within the company (LinkedIn Corporation, 2014). Since Ford operates globally, naturally the employees associated with the company belonging to different cultural backgrounds render their services towards the accomplishment of broad organizational goals and objectives. The participative and open communications are the major features of the company’s organizational culture. Ford is committed towards exhibiting a culture that recognize and cares the various stakeholders involved with the operations of the company. The company treats its employees as assets who render their dedicated services towards the achievement of the mission and vision of the company. The company remains much committed towards developing future leaders and also values the views along with opinions of every individual associated with it. The prevailing structure and the culture of the company have been successful enough to seek combine efforts of the individuals within the company in the most efficient manner. Apparently, the One Ford approach embraced by the company has promoted individuals to develop their relationship based skills and engaged in promoting teamwork by information sharing and respecting all individuals within the company (LinkedIn Corporation, 2014). Performance Evaluation of Mr. Alan Mulally In the current highly volatile and dynamic nature of business environment, change is an essential component for surviving successfully. In order to evaluate the performance of Mr. Alan Mulally, it would be vital to view him as a change agent. While Mr. Mulally joined as the new President and the CEO in Ford, the performance of the company was found to be extremely deteriorated. Justifiably, the company was surrounded with the problems of high operational costs, lack of innovation, deteriorating quality of products and declining competitiveness. Mr. Mulally, as a change agent, introduced a restructuring plan also known as ‘The Way Forward’ grounded on the idea of One Ford’, which implies concentrating on one particular brand. The change initiative initiated by the leader also included massive cost-cutting strategy. These strategies undertaken by the company facilitated Mr. Mulally to turn around the declining performance of the company. Prior to his retirement, the company has been successful in re-strengthening its business reputation as well as improving overall performance by a considerable extent. It is worth mentioning that all the decisions and the strategies of Mr. Mulally rested on fair and ethical grounds. Thus, the success story of Ford after his appointment as the President and the CEO along with his strong inclination towards conducting ethical leadership practices clearly reveal outstanding performance of the leader (Hellriegel & Slocum, 2010). Determination of Three (3) Best Practices Employee motivation is a strong determinant, which aids in influencing the performance of a company. Hence, the role of leaders within an organization is not limited towards defining goals and making decisions, but at the same time, it is crucial for a good leader to motivate employees or the followers to render their best services towards the accomplishment of desired business targets. In this regard, the three best practices that organizational leaders can use to motivate employees are energizing team members, acting with integrity and most importantly communicating with every organizational member in the most efficient manner. Notably, leaders instead of sucking the energy of the employees must energize them and should strive to infuse passion and positive energy amid them. Leaders recognizing this practice can benefit immensely in the form of increasing dedicated performance of the employees. Acting with integrity is another major leadership practice, which can drive increased level of motivation within the employees. Integrating the interest of employees with the organizational goals eventually motivates them to strive for common goals and objectives as well as facilitates in developing a sense of pride for the organization. At the same, organizational leaders need to be a good communicator as well. Choosing right mode of communication is extremely important for leaders to motivate employees and seek trust of the employees (Zwilling, 2012). Challenges and Benefits of Managing Diversity The phenomenon of globalization has offered numerous benefits to the business organizations, while it has also created certain challenges as well. In this regard, the growing diversity within organizations has challenged the leaders to manage diversity in the most efficient manner. Managing diversity is predominately related with acknowledging differences persistent within individuals in an organization. Nevertheless, while managing diversity, leaders are confronted with the challenges of promoting equality irrespective of the factors including nationality, race and cultural background. It is quite difficult for the leaders to determine inclusive strategies that promote non-discrimination. Diverse workforce reveals different attitudes and behaviors which at times can cause conflicts (Green, López, Wysocki & Kepner, 2012). Though certain challenges pertaining to management of diversity are apparent, the notion of managing diversity also facilitates in providing significant benefits to the organizations. In this regard, diversity promotes generation of different ideas and views that can be aligned with the decision-making process of an organization. Such alignment facilitates leaders in an organization to emerge with effective decisions. Besides, it also promotes creativity and innovation necessary for ensuring long-term success of the organizations (Green et al., 2012). Developing an Effective Business Strategy to Address the Challenges and Issues In order to deal with the challenges of diversity and to create productive diverse workforce, leaders are required to understand discrimination as well as related consequences associated with the same. In addition, leaders should also recognize the personal cultural biases as well as prejudices. Such practices of leadership will certainly create greater acceptance of diversity within an organization. Leaders need to value that each individual is unique and different from others based on which their respective requirements are observed to be quite different. Besides, developing an organizational culture wherein every individual is respected regardless cultural backgrounds and ethnicity will promote an efficient management of diversity (Green et al., 2012). Conclusion Leadership is an indispensable element for the modern business organizations. Every organization is dependent on the wisdom and the abilities of the leaders to manage the changing needs of the business and employees in proactive way. The detailed analysis of the leadership styles of Mr. Mulally revealed that the leader performed both transformational and participative leadership practices that facilitated him to streamline the performance of Ford. The leadership styles of the leader eventually imposed positive impact on the followers. Specially mentioning, employee motivation is ascertained to be another strong determinant of organizational success. Correspondingly, leaders in an organization need to undertake certain best practices that motivate employees to contribute their best and reap the benefits arising thereon. Nevertheless, diversity within an organization also emerged as one of the major challenges for the leaders to manage. Managing diversity requires the leaders to identify personal bias and prejudice. In addition, developing an organizational culture, which respects individuals within the organizations irrespective of the prevalence of any cultural difference, is essential component for the success of an organization. References Green, K. A., Lopez, M., Wysocki, A., & Kepner, K. (2012). Diversity in the workplace: benefits, challenges, and the required managerial tools. University of Florida, 1-3. Hellriegel, D., & Slocum, J., 2010. Organizational behavior. USA: Cengage Learning. Kaipa, P., & Kriger, M. (2010). Empowerment, vision, and positive leadership: an interview with Alan Mulally, Former CEO, Boeing Commercial—Current CEO, Ford Motor Company. Journal of Management Inquiry, 19(2), 110–115. LinkedIn Corporation, 2014. A report on Ford Motor Company covering its structure, culture, strategy and Swot Analysis. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/Harsh_BITS/report-on-ford-motor-company-pom Stallard, M. L. (2014). 7 practices of Alan Mulally that helped ford pass competitors. Retrieved from http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/01/22/7-practices-alan-mulally-that-helped-ford-pass-competitors/ Zwilling, M. (2012). 8 ways leaders can motivate employees beyond money. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/martinzwilling/2012/01/10/8-ways-leaders-can-motivate-employees-beyond-money/ Read More