The Role That Leadership Has within the Car Manufacturing Industry - Essay Example

The Role that Leadership has within the Car Manufacturing Industry Leadership in the auto industry just like in other organizations centerson the Chief Executive Officer who runs the day-to-day operations.This is because all other leaders engaged in the daily activities of the company ultimately report to the Chief Executive. The back of decisions-making in a car-manufacturing company stops with Chief Executive. Success in transformation in the auto industry depends on the ability of leadership to communicate the importance of transformation, re-shaping desired changes, developing a hitherto team spirit among junior employees, as well as engaging in participatory leadership.In this, Toyota Inc. is an example of a good market leader (Khanh, 2011). The modern business environment does not allow application of piecemeal improvements. Companies do not have any route to success apart from undergoing performance transformations to attain and maintain a top status. Most literature covers ways of implementing transformations without considering the role of leadership in the same.There is no single model that explains the role of leadership in the car manufacturing industry. Hill and Jones, for instance, focus on what is known as cost leadership and technology as part of strategic management in the manufacturing industry (2007). Furthermore, the precise nature of the role of the Chief Executive sitting at the helm of leadershipdepends on various things among them urgency, magnitude, and the form of transformation under implementation. Other factors that influence the nature of the role of the Chief Executive in the car manufacturing industry are failures and potential of the business organization within the auto industry, as well as the personality of the leader. References can be made to previously dominant companies such as the Ford Motor Corporation (Great Britain, 2007). In spite of the variations identified, researchers concur that four common important functions cut across the board and defy the differences necessary for any leadership to remain successful in the auto industry. Each person has a role to play in transformational performance.However, the role of the person sitting at the helm of leadership appears unique in many aspects as much as it shares other features with others within the leadership hierarchy. This is because the Chief Executive occupies the topmost part of the pyramid while other members take the cue from him downwards. If top leadership in the company gives lip service, the same will apply to the rest of leaders in the hierarchy.Leadership that fails to structure necessary culture and those fail to institute important initiatives is in the danger of losing focus.The right leadership makes sure that the right personnel take the necessary amount of time handling the most appropriate issues. Leadership plays the biggest role of giving meaning to everything taking place in the car manufacturing company. This includes making the entire process of transformation meaningful.Transformations geared towards success and achievement of a competitiveadvantage in the modern auto industry with a cut-throat competitionfor instance, requires extraordinary thinking.Everybody within the company must primarily reshape and rethinkthe entire business as it continues to run the operations daily. The biggest question regards the source of the necessary energy. Leadership that offers hitherto transformational storiesgoes great milesto help in improving commitment levels of employees by making them believe in the company missions. This also helps employees to answer many questions starting with the relevance of transformations both to them and the company. This is especially crucial the auto industry where the company manufactures motor vehicles that do not influence the staffs directly (Giuliani, & Kurson, 2002). However, the impact of powerful transformational stories depend on the capacity of the Chief Executive to take a leading role in addressing company issues, provision of compelling answers to questions, identifying and appreciating success marks in the company, and engaging openly with the personnel. The second function of leadership in a company within the auto industry entails developing the most appropriate culture that covers employee behavior and mind-sets. People occupying leadership position are always associated with their roles or the company irrespective of where they are. In this case, they are always in front of cameras with or without their conscience. Leaders must understand and internalize that any movement they make, all that they say, and every action they take is important to other employees. This means that for them to realize success, they must lead by example. They should as perfect role models.Whether they are appreciate it or not, employees always assess the actions of leaders including the Chief Executive and use the same to determine whether they believe intransformational stories or not. This circumstance requires the leadership to transform itself. Employees always look up to the leader for most things including transformation therefore, for anything to change, the leader must change. To see change among other executives, the Chief Executive must change. This means that the Chief Executive is the main role model within the business organization. Leaders ought to comprehend that personal transformation, which is important to the company entails a three hundred and sixty degrees response in the behavior of the leader regarding the particular program and following objectives laid down, a chronology of events covering utilization of time on essential priorities, commitment to identified short transformation goals, and coaching by experts where necessary(Aiken, 2010, 31). Research shows that Executive Officers find the going easy when all leaders pursue the same goals albeit with modifications to suit specific departments within the manufacturing company and come together to discuss and enhance collective organizational objectives developing a challenge and support environment within the business organization. The fastest way to instill change in the company withinthe auto industrytakes place through conceiving and executing various symbolic actions demonstrating to the staffs the most appropriateway to engage in daily business. This also shows to them that they have an obligation to provide support to other employees showing such qualities.It is the responsibility of developing a string top team in the company that demonstrates commitment. The leadership team led by the Chief Executive ought to and must be the most important asset in business activity within the company. They should take leading roles in most things including transformational performance. Companies within the auto industry require exceptional individual employees in addition to having dedicated players working within and as team members. Increasing the odds constitutes employee as well as leaders sharing relevant result-oriented stories besides modeling the appropriate duties. The Chief Executive needs to realize the value of investing in time to generate working teams throughout the company. Leadership that achieves success evaluates thecapacities ofevery member of the teamand takes the initiative to respond in a swift manner to the result.It is not bad to seek the input of third parties to develop an objective base. Leadership should be able to map members of the team in the organization on a matrix. This comes with performance in businesson one hand and the process of creating desiredorganizational culture on the other.Stars of the company occupy the top box on the right to the matrix. They include high delivery and desired organizational culture. Poor behavior and low performance sit n the bottom box on the left of the matrix. It is important for the company to have specific structures that either improve the performance of managers and supervisors or remove them when they underperform. This helps to teach employees that teamwork and reshaping are important to the business company.Features on both ends require motivation and development while dismissal applies where persistence failure is.Leaders need to take bold steps including removing from the team those members who create conflicts and fail to work in a team even if they demonstrate talented skills. Leadership especially those in strategic positions such as Chief Executives need to understand well moments when they should intervene into situations. Leadership must be able to pursue impact relentlessly by using institutional energy that puts together enthusiasm, collective motivation, as well as high-degree commitment. This is an important ingredient to the success of leadership if it entails transformational performance. Substitutes do not exist where the top leadership needs to issue instructions aimed at ensuring that the company energy shows impact.Other factors that influence the nature of the role of the Chief Executive in the car manufacturing industry are failures and potential of the business organization within the auto industry, as well as the personality of the leader. In spite of the variations identified, researchers concur that four common important functions cut across the board and defy the differences necessary for any leadership to remain successful in the auto industry. Each person has a role to play in transformational performance. However, the role of the person sitting at the helm of leadership appears unique in many aspects as much as it shares other features with others within the leadership hierarchy. Conclusion Chief Executives have a significant role to making sure that there is a balance between health initiatives in the organization and initiatives that lead to generation of profits. In this industry, programs such as IMVP are laudable (Plunkett, 2007).Thistargets delivering performance in present circumstanceswhile the former develops the potential of the organization to perform well in future and remain competitive in the market. Leadership that fails to structure necessary culture and those fail to institute important initiatives is in the danger of losing focus. The right leadership makes sure that the right personnel take the necessary amount of time handling the most appropriate issues.Leadership plays the biggest role of giving meaning to everything taking place in the car manufacturing company. Intervention strategies that targets leadership with an organization to improve employee safety behavior As much as safety is never flexible, leaders have a responsibility of being flexible. This raises complexity bearing in mind that safety requires strict, consistent, and uncompromising approach. Difficulty in such circumstances comes from the basis that allowing one employee carryout a particular duty in an unsafe way just once sends a wrong impression to the rest of employees and kills any other effort to have employees working safely in their workstations. In the past several approaches played a big role in achieving reasonable success in minimizing unsafe behaviors in the car manufacturing industry. Among other measures companies used penalties, guidance, surveillance, supportive and training-oriented programs, as wellas codes of behavior. Other efforts come from the company management, government regulatory agencies, social partners of business companies such as St. Johns Ambulance, and employee initiatives such as training and development schedules, concepts, and issues that involve health and safety. The most important role of safety initiatives is to develop a total safety culture within the auto industry. This type of culture has relevant roles in the manufacturing company. It makes sure that employees internalize and value safety apart from making it apriority. A car manufacturing company has so many machines therefore, making safety a value and priority saves lives. Also, safety culture trains people in the factory to take responsibility for personal safety as well as the safety of colleagues.The culture works towards having all workers develop the willingness and ability to handle their sense of reason in terms of safety. This means that they develop the character of going beyond company regulationsto safeguard themselves and co-workers (Mikler, 2009). Leadership in a car manufacturing industry has the greatest influence in developing and maintaining behavior based safety. Frontline employees drive the behavior based safety programs that enhances the safety of employees at the workplace.Nevertheless, managers and supervisorshave an integral function to accomplishduring development, promotion, and enhancement of the safety program. Behavior based safety programs cannot blossom without hitherto leadership. At the same time it will not be possible for any company in the auto industry to achieve safety working standards without the influence of company management.Leadership influences safety behavior in many ways. First, the behavior displayed by managers and supervisors serves as a role model for other employees. Workers learn a lot from the leadership both directly and indirectly. It is common for employees to assess the behavior of their leadership and emulate instantly. Workers study closely attitudes of their bosses in informal and formal occasions. Therefore, it is necessary for leaders to behave accordingly both in the office and in grapevines. The moist important contribution from leaders appears in what they think and do as opposed to what they say. The behavior exhibited by leadership is representative of the company. In this case, they reflect what a large group of employees does. As much as safety is never flexible, leaders have a responsibility of being flexible. This raises complexity bearing in mind that safety requires strict, consistent, and uncompromising approach. Difficulty in such circumstances comes from the basis thatallowing one employee carryout a particular duty in an unsafe wayjust once sends a wrong impression to the rest of employees and kills any other effort to have employees working safely in their workstations. The fact that this is a car manufacturing company makes matters worse because of the many machines used during the manufacturing process (Bowerman& Van Wart, 2011). It is important in the car manufacturing industry that supervisors and managers demonstrate flexibility in other sections of production and company operations but never in the safety department. Under no means should safety be compromised by the leadership of the business organization. Staffs have two major roles to play. Taking part in safety matters in a way that demonstrates knowledge of safety concerns is the first responsibility. The second function of employees to comply strictly through behavior with regulations that minimize errors in an effective way (Burns, 2010). Leadership that guides employees through these roles plays a crucial role in enhancing behavior based safety in the organization. It is not advisable for leadership to evaluate the performance of employees in safety matters only but listen to the worker, enquire from them to understand areas that need strengthening, and lead by examplein working safely. The greatest work of the leader is to listen to juniors and learn from them in the process of directing production.Scholars posit that one of the methods of building cordial relationshipsentails allowing other people teach you.The ABC model in behavior based safety constitutes a leader taking responsibility by identifying and passing the message to employees on matters regarding effects of unsafe and safe working conditions. Reinforcement comes immediately conducting an evaluation using the ABC model.Leadership undertakes the initiative to analyze the possibility of carrying out reinforcement to achieve desired safety behaviors within the business organization. Managers and supervisors must strengthensocial reinforcement for the development of safety culture and determine the likelihood of increasing the type of behavior under study. Leadership must listen to juniors to get what they consider appropriate during delivery of normal chores at work. There is nothing more important that communicating the feedback to employees when a leader spots something unusual. This should also apply to noted safe behaviour. Conclusion A good leader must be in a position to isolate an unsafe behaviour, know the impact of such act, and know ways through which such behaviour keeps occurring. This type of a leader carries the qualities to transform matters in the car manufacturing company by providing alternative behaviour that appears preferable within the organization. These qualities include among other features carrying out facilitation trainings to teach workers on ways of carrying out ABC evaluation. This type assessment helps employees in identifying effects to unsafe and safe behaviour. This is crucial in enhancing change in safety measures and behaviour. In the automotive industry, concept such as environmental screening is quite relevant. This is because the business is pegged on international relations. Bibliography Aiken, Carolyn. Transformational Leadership. Chicago: McGraw-Hill Publishers, 2010. BOWERMAN, K. D., & VAN WART, M. (2011). The business of leadership: an introduction. Armonk, N.Y., M.E. Sharpe. Burns, J. M. G. (2010). Leadership. New York: Harper Perennial. GREAT BRITAIN. (2007). Success and failure in the UK car manufacturing industry. London, The Stationery Office. Giuliani, R. W., & Kurson, K. (2002). Leadership. New York: Hyperion. HILL, C. W. L., & JONES, G. R. (2007).Strategic management: an integrated approach. Boston, Mass, Houghton Mifflin. KHANH, P.-G. (2011). Radical innovation and open innovation creating new growth opportunities for business ; illumination with a case study in the LED industry. Hamburg, Diplomica-Verl. MIKLER, J. (2009). Greening the car industry varieties of capitalism and climate change. Cheltenham, UK, Edward Elgar. http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=487388. PLUNKETT, JACK W. (2007). Plunketts Automobile Industry Almanac 2008 Automobile, Truck and Specialty Vehicle Industry Market Research, Statistics, Trends & Leading Companies. Plunkett Research Ltd. WARNER, A. G. (2010). Strategic analysis and choice a structured approach. New York, Business Expert Press. http://www.books24x7.com/marc.asp?bookid=40262. Read More