ALLAN MULALLY

ALAN MULALLY LEADERSHIP AND FORD MOTOR COMPANY

ALLAN MULALLY

1. Discuss the role of leadership and how it can impact organizational performance.

Leadership is an organizational role, in which a person takes the responsibility of a group of people to follow him to achieve an objective, usually the mission and vision of the organization. (Boland & Tenkasi, 1995) A leader has a charismatic personality and has this ability to make people follow him. It is not necessary that a leader will be a manager, leader can anyone in the organization. One of the tasks of a leader is to manage the performance of his followers, which has a direct effect on the performance of the organization. Organizations are largely dependent on the leaders to handle the employees and train them to give their optimal output. The leader also motivates their follower's and guides them to fulfill their assignments on time. They also come forward to solve any organizational related conflicts of their followers. (Beech, 2002)

The relationship between a leader and his follower is usually very strong because a leader touches the heart of their followers; the leaders do not tools like scolding or suppression like a manager but use the tool of logic and communication to convince their followers on a topic. This makes the relationship between the leader and the follower very strong. (Anantatmula, 2008) The leaders can have a great affect on the efficiency of their followers, level, and quality of output from their followers, determine how well the objectives are met, and control the amount of money spent in the organizational operations. (Anantatmula, 2007) The leaders can make changes in the way the employees are working whenever they feel that there is deviation from the path of organizational goals. Therefore, organizations are usually dependent on its leaders and their level of expertise to achieve the goals.

2. Discuss mulally's leadership style at Ford Motor Company and provide examples of how his actions fit this style.

When Alan Mulally joined ford motor company, the company was going nowhere and the company was facing many problems. When Alan Mulally joined ford motor, he adopted a combination of democratic and autocratic sort of leadership style to take Ford motors out of troubled waters. (Alavi &Leidner, 2001) After joining ford, he at first collected all the information about Ford motors and how has it been running over the years. He interviewed dozens ...