Leadership Style of GM Holden Ltd - Case Study Example

Leadership Style of Andrea Grant Name Professor’s name Course name Date Leadership Style of Andrea Grant Holden is a subsidiary for the lucrative multinational of General Motors. GM Holden Ltd was created in 1856 and began as a saddlery business. It then moved onto the automotive field which allowed it to become a subsidiary of General Motors in 1931. Holden is now an Australian automaker based in Port Melbourne, Victoria. This company has not limited its ventures to Australia alone. It has diversified and spread onto neighboring areas, making the potential and size of the organization considerably larger. It is in charge of General Motors not only in Australasia but is also partially responsible for the General Motors Daewoo that is prevalent in South Korea. Holden is famous for the diversity and quality it presents. The bodyworks, engines and assembly plants function all over the different states in Australia: Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia. Thus, the entire works of the company is spread onto a very large scale, leaving a huge responsibility on its managers. The company has interest not only in the production of cars alone. Like all major auto producers, tt also deals with races and participates in racing because of its ample association with cars. Since the 1960s, Holden models have provided the racing fields with a consistent group of domestic touring car racing. It has also established its own racing team. The quasi-factory Holden Racing Team (HRT) has successfully participated in V8 Super car racing (Toll HSV Dealer Team News). Thus, the organization has not limited itself to the production of cars alone but is also involved in other aspects of auto production. This allows them to stretch their hemispheres to greater horizons. Though these ventures make for a great deal of commercialism, they also put immense responsibility on the shoulders of the individuals responsible for running the organization. The job of a leader for Holden will be one that incorporates its various sectors and empowers them to run to the best of their capabilities. According to Casey Stengel, player and manager of an American baseball team, a leader’s is able to get together a group of great players, but the difficult part arises in compelling them to play together (Walker 2002). With a company like Holden the responsibility of the managers is to enforce the importance of the repute of this multinational company. As a representative of General Motors, Holden is expected to run at the same successful and profitable standards, thus placing a great deal of responsibility on the leaders of the organization. This essay will discuss the role played by Andrea Grant as HR as the Executive Director of Holden when she was appointed in 2000. Andrea Grant was the first woman to join the Board of Directors at Holden. When Grant first came into power she was given a very conventional method of leading the Human Resources department. The department kept most of its attention focuses to the administrative and industrial parts of the organization (Robinson 2005). This personnel policy and procedure department had seen very little change, Despite prior efforts to create new leadership programs, the attempts had been futile because of the lack of credibility held by the HR department was immensely low. Thus, the result was the Grant took power she wanted to bring about two changes within the company. One was to establish a human resources department that gave value to the Holden organization. Her second aim was to assist the organization in creating a capability and culture that allowed it to be able to easily meet with any business challenges that arose in the future. Thus, Grant immediately saw the problems with the out-dated human resource system and the lack of credibility it maintained in the organization. She set out to remedy these problems in her attempt to make the HR department a sufficient and profitable part of the organization. Grant realized the importance of a successful vision for the department (Canfield & Switzer). One of her first initiatives was to create a persuasive vision that was to be followed by the department. Grant observed the essential strategies that had been emboldened and used by Holden. She then applied them to the specific needs of the group at HR and created the first strategy to be established for the sole demands of the department (Cieri 2007). Once the vision had been set, Grant realized the needs of organizational structure to set this strategy into motion (Harris 1994). To do this, a new HR system had to be established to replace the old and disintegrating model. This new model had the added opportunity of supporting and assisting in the Holden business and its set strategies. Grant’s plan was to create a department that would not only provide customer services but also assist in applying expertise to the relevant departments. The customer service would provide services not only to business partners of Holden and the expertise provided transactional and value-added services to different customer groups. In this way, Grant achieved a middle ground, satisfying both investors and customers through the HR department. This new structure was exceptionally successful because it allowed to existing and new talent to be introduced and encouraged at Holden. The expertise included a variety of jobs. This meant that the HR department was responsible for organizational development: leadership and employee developments, employee relations: work life and diversity and HR processes: recruitment, compensation and benefits (Ulrich & Brockbank). The team merged all three aspects of the HR department to create a structure that matched the right people to create a competent and strong team. This realization of a powerful team was essential for Grant’s team. Because of the quick and powerful changes, the affect of the implemented strategy was difficult and unsettling for the employees. However, Grant understood the importance of time and ensured a steady but fast enforcement of the changes. This lowered the fear felt by employees of losing their jobs and allowed the new HR department to begin to function without wasting much time (Ulrich 1997). However, the result was one where Grant could claim that when the company spoke of the achievements made by Holden over the past years, the Board would also discuss the success of the HR department. The other method employed by Grant was to create a culture of capability within the HR department. Grant saw the authoritative style used to run the organization. Many organizations focus on this form of control to ensure a productive and lucrative effort from their task force (Denhardt 1993). The methods used by the managers were one that instilled fear and disappointment into the hearts of the employees. Grant aimed at changing this method of leadership. She understood the need for a participative style of leadership. This allowed for greater risks, more communication and employee participation (Dubrin 2006). Grant understood the need for changes to be implemented from the top tier of the organization. She felt that if the Executives were not willing to change then there would be little incentive for the managers to follow. Grant’s acceptance as the sole female on the Board was one of Holden’s first moves to bring about innovation into their organization. Grant felt the leaders to be the ones who brought about the change needed by the culture and capability of the organization. They could obtain this at an individual and collective level. It is for this reason that a great degree of energy and time was spent in ensuring the correct leaders and attitude was used to run Holden. A competent leader would not only assist in the competencies and success of the company but also ensure that the employees worked to their full potential (Shackleton 1995). Thus, Grant worked on revamping the entire Holden Board. Eighteen months were spent in creating and maintaining an efficient and successful executive team. This meant that the role and purpose of the board had to be defined. This was coupled with the accountabilities of the directors as well as individual and team development. Apart from the processes, the behavior of the Board was also discussed. This meant that an effective and apt Board was now put into place. Grant realized the importance of leadership and used the power given to her to ensure that a strong Board was established. Grant focused on leadership because she felt it to be an essential part of the organization’s model. She saw the failings of Holden because of its authoritative style of work. Despite the varying and diverse models produced by Holden, there was very limited innovation. A form of fear persisted between the employees from their managers. She talked of how a specific leadership model could not be applied to Holden. This was because each organization needed its own set of leadership skills. These had to be tailor made to the specifications of the organization rather than taken off a shelf. Holden faced enormous success after the recruitment of Andrea Grant to their organization. As one of the largest automotive companies, Holden is responsible for employing 9500 individuals and earning $ 6 billion in revenue. With such enormous figures it was necessary for Holden to employ the best professionals to run its human resources department. Grant realized the need to be persuasive in what she sought to achieve. She realized that often enough managers and leaders were unable to accept or understand her strategies. Instead of allowing place for her hesitancy to show, she would take up a confident attitude and show exactly what her needs implemented. This assisted her leadership skills into attaining exactly what she demanded. Also, Grant understood that her ideas would not always be successful. Instead of losing hope, she realized that problems could be solved or would pass over. Thus, she accepted that her leadership innovations might not always give the desire result but also believed that if she waited, the trouble would soon pass over. The executive director of Holden believed that organizational change was a crossing, It would invigorate individuals into bringing about change, A great and sudden change was one that would not work in the long-term. It was impossible to throw everything out and start with the new. Instead it had to be a consistent series of changes that would function with an overall strategy. Also it was much better to undertake lots of smaller changes rather than just one grand change. Because employees were a vital part of the organization and people could get very wary and emotionally worn down with too much change. Works Cited Canfield J & Switzer J (2004), The success principles: how to get from where you are to where you want to be, HarperCollins, p 29 Cieri D H (2007), Human Resource Management in Australia: Strategy, People and Performance, McGraw-Hill/Irwin, p 607 Dendhardt R (1993), The pursuit of significance: strategies for managerial success in public organizations, Wadsworth Publishing, p. 6 Dubrin A (2006), Leadership: Research Findings, Practice and Skills, Houghton Mifflin; p. 113 Harris D (1994), Organizational linkages: understanding the productivity paradox, National Research Council (U.S.), National Academies Press, p 1 Robinson J (2005), Strategic Business Partner: Aligning People Strategies with Business Goals, Berett-Koehler, p 211 Shackleton E (2005), Business Leadership, Thompson Learning, p. 2  Toll and HSV Dealer Team confirm V8 Supercar alliance (2005), Toll HSV Dealer Team News, Available at: http://www.hsvdt.com.au/hsvdt_new/2006/news/toll_hsvdt_release.asp [Accessed September 20 2009] Ulrich D & Brockbank W (2005), The HR Value Proposition, Harvard Business Press, p 10 Ulrich D (1997), Human resource champions: the next agenda for adding value and delivering, Harvard University Press, p 161 Walker J (2002), Ready, Aim, Inspire!: 101 Quotes on Leadership & Teamwork, IUniverse, p 6 Read More