Question

Using your favorite search engine, conduct research on a well-known leader of a corporation. You might be interested in researching formers leaders such as Lee Iacocca of Chrysler, Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines, Jack Welch of General Electric, or Ray Kroc of McDonald's. Alternatively, you could research present-day corporate leaders such as Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo, Mary Barra of GM, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Gregory Hayes of United Technologies, etc. Remember, the leader you choose to research doesn't have to be on this list -- pick a leader who piques your curiosity! Some students have chosen the CEO of their own employers, but please be sure that you have a minimum of two sources in addition to your textbook if you do so.  

Review articles and biographical information that is available on the Internet. You should have a minimum of two (2) sources in addition to your textbook. The goal of your research is to answer the following questions about the leader you chose:

• Based upon your research, what type of behavioral leadership style does/did the individual practice? Task-oriented, people-oriented, or a combination of the two? Explain.

• How would this individual's leadership style be characterized in terms of the path-goal theory of leadership? Explain.

• Would you describe this individual as a transactional or transformational leader? Explain.  

• In what specific ways do you feel this individual was an effective leader?

• In what specific ways do you feel this individual's leadership could be improved?

Answer 1

John Francis Welch served as the chairperson and the CEO of General Electric for twenty years being from 1981-2001 when he retired. During his tenure, the company underwent the highest value rise of 4,000%.

Jack Welch practiced the task oriented behavioral leadership style. It is whereby he was mostly keen on the tasks that are to be carried out with an aim to hit targets as well as achieve a given performance standard. It involved concentrating more on the finding the step-by-step way out necessary to meet set certain objectives rather than being concerned with the ideas of the staff.

Welch believed in the public philosophy that a firm should either be number one or two in a given industry failure to which it should be closed down.

To facilitate tasks were fulfilled timely, Welch valued surprise as well as unexpected visits to the offices. For the underperforming staff, General Electric was not the place for them. They were instantaneously fired which made him acquire a reputation for brutal candor.

To further improve performance, Welch dismantled the bureaucracy as well as destroying the nine-layer management hierarchy.

Welch believed that managing less is managing better. He focused on instilling confidence in the staff as well as an emphasis on vision as opposed to supervision. For him, managing is all a matter of allocating people and resources, provide for them what they need and let them perform. In so doing and more so giving them more responsibilities, they will be in a position to make better decisions.

Unfortunately in task-oriented leadership styles, leaders fail to consider on the well-being of the team. As such this is disadvantageous since it can lead to retention as well as motivation issues.

On the other hand, it is advantageous as far as ensuring that deadlines are met as well as tasks completed.

It also facilitates the leaders coming up with adequate strategies such as delegation to make the work done in a productive and timely manner.

According to Path-Goal theory, a leader is responsible for motivating the team in achieving the set objectives. The leaders are at liberty to change the staff’s styles as well as behaviors.In achieving this, the leaders behave differently. There’s the directive way, whereby there are work tasks as well as performance standards to be met. Participative manner involves collaborating with the staff in the decision making. Lastly, achievement oriented way means setting challenging objectives and then trusting the staff on the task.

Jack Welch in his task-oriented leadership style concentrated on instilling the team some confidence. He believed by giving the staff more challenging task they would be more efficient decision makers.

Transactional leaders trail a traditional approach the management whereby the leader and the staff behavior acts as an active exchange. In this case, the leaders compensate employees with high performance and reprimand the in cases of mistakes as well as poor performance.

On the other hand, transformational leaders have a social and emotional intelligence which helps them inspire others in being visionary. Jack Welch type of leadership concentrated on the transactional aspect. He would give the employee a way to do things on their own and then there after retaining the best who he would reward well and at the same time fire those with poor performance.

Jack Welch was an active leader. Its evidence during his tenure that the value of the company rose by 4,000%.He instilled a unique organization behavior in the company which helped remove barriers in the traditional functions as well as outsource great ideas which would later be shared with every staff. He named this the “boundaryless company”.

By instilling confidence in this staff was also a great move. It acts as a motivation realizing that great responsibilities can be entrusted to them. With such boosted morale it eventually results in increased performance.

To improve the leadership, Jack Welch would also have incorporated transformational style.As such, it would have assisted the staff to be more visionary and therefore, be more useful in decision making thus improving on the faulty systems. It would have boosted productivity further.

To minimize the fault brought about by task oriented behavioral leadership style, Jack Welch would have also employed people oriented behavioral leadership style. Its incorporation would have resulted in taking care of the staff well-being and therefore, they would fell motivated thus improving the productivity.