Question

·        Identify two CEOs whose leadership you admire. What is it about their skills, attributes, and effective use of power that causes you to admire them?

Answer 1

The two CEOs whose leadership I admire a lot are:

• Steve Jobs of Apple Inc.
• Jack Welch of GE

Steve Jobs is the epitome of being an authentic leader. The central component of this type of leadership is genuineness. This trait of genuineness makes them relatable and trust-worthy. The authentic leader has the heart of owning his mistake and works in correcting the same. These leaders are very influential and are mass-attracters. Talking about authentic leaders, they combat the traits of destructive leaders - another side of the toxic triangle. Authentic leaders never get overwhelmed of their power and or start getting negative. Who can be a better example than Steve Jobs of being an authentic leader.

Apple Inc. became the industry leader under the guidance and vision of Jobs. Steve Jobs, owing to his far-sightedness, had proposed and implemented backward integration to own the manpower and manufacture equipment. He also resorted to forward integration to possess the Apple stores which were to be used for managing customer relationship and holding workshops for Apple’s products. The efforts of Steve Jobs had made the supply chain of Apple very effective and systematic.

Jack Welch is truly a transformational leader. As Jack Welch came to leadership in GE, the company was subjected to the following changes:

• Elimination of excel workforce
• Transformation of GE to a boundary less organization
• Managing leadership and succession planning through 20-70-10 rule

Due to the efforts taken by Jack Welch:

• The earnings per share increased by more than double the rate, thereby increasing the profits of the company.
• The company’s organization structure became more effective as the company became more transparent owing to the boundary less culture
• The 20-70-10 rule encourage the managers to perform well as no one wanted to be in the lowest 10% performing bracket

A good leader is judged on 3 aspects: making profit, making growth and making loyalty employees. Jack Welch fared well in making profits and making growth of the organization. With time, employees have accepted his leadership style and are working in tandem. So, Jack Welch has fared quite well on all 3 aspects of leadership.