CEO as Leader of Ford Motor Company

CEO as Leader of Ford Motor Company

The leadership of any large, diverse multinational corporation needs to concentrate on a unifying vision coupled with transformational leadership skills to keep the company moving forward over the long-term (Wang, Oh, Courtright, Colbert, 2011). At the Ford Motor Company, the challenge is to not only manage these core aspects of effective leadership, the CEO must also initiate and continually improve innovation over time as the auto industry is going through significant transformation (Luca, McNamara, 2010). The intent of this analysis is to evaluate how effective leaders are in the auto industry in synchronizing these many tasks, in conjunction with serving as a catalyst of effective innovation and transformational growth over time.

Analysis of the CEO Role at Ford

Alan Mulally is currently CEO of Ford Motor Company, and his background is heavily based on aerospace, defense and commercial airline industries. In these industries, cost and time-based project management skills are essential to keeping existing customers and gaining new ones. This is especially true with the U.S. And foreign governments who often purchase commercial and military jets from Boeing to highly specific deadlines and very precise quality standards. This same type of leadership style is critically important for the managing of complex systems, processes and new product introduction schedules at Ford. At first many critics doubted if Alan Mulally would be successful in his position as CEO of an auto manufacturer. He took the job in the midst of a major economic recession and was the only CEO of the Big Three automakers to turn down a full loan from the U.S. Government, saying Ford would battle their way out of the financial turmoil gripping the industry (Saporito, 2010). The characteristics and traits that the Ford CEO is illustrate of the types of leadership necessary for transforming organizations and keeping them continually moving forward to their goals and objectives (Wang, Oh, Courtright, Colbert, 2011).

Analyzing why Alan Mulally is succeeding shifts the focus of any analysis to the essential aspects of transformational leadership. The core aspects of transformational leadership include a strong level of emotional intelligence (EI) or the ability to successfully interpret conditions accurately and respond to them to ensure a high level of motivation by (Birasnav, Rangnekar, Dalpati, 2011). Transformational leaders have the ability to interpret and respond to complex problems while ensuring their teams stay involved and committed. The progression of a manager to leader is often predicated on how effectively they make the transition from transactional, tactical management to longer-term transformational leadership (Gilley, Dixon, Gilley, 2008). Transactional leaders can often rely on short-term rewards to gain cooperation and support, yet transformational leaders must gain the trust of their subordinates for goals to be internalized and believed in. Alan Mulally clearly is a transformational leader as the results delivered to this point show that Ford's employees have been able to rise above their personal interests and pursue the common goals and objectives of the company (House, Shamir, 1993). The results Ford is achieving from a financial standpoint correlate back to the level of trust inherent in the company itself, which a critical factor enabling higher levels of communication, process workflows, and heading to greater transparency and trust overall (Hurley, 2007). What has happened is a best practice in transformational leadership. As Ford is fighting back from losses and is the only of the Big Three automakers to have a profitable quarter since 2009, the evidence

Transformational leadership is more long-term in focus and works to create an environment within an organization that provides employees with an opportunity to take an active ownership role in their jobs (Birasnav, Rangnekar, Dalpati, 2011). Ford is undergoing a transformation by concentrating on individual worker accountability and a focus on results first, often completely dismantling older systems that led to confusion and lack of clarity of roles and tasks (Saporito, 2010). This is also the sign of an exceptional transformational leader as well. The focus on selectively trimming back the areas of the organization that are not performing takes courage and a willingness to change both the culture and its supporting systems (Wang, Oh, Courtright, Colbert, 2011). This is the riskiest decision for a leader to make, and one that requires the continual investing in trust and open communication to keep a company moving forward. Alan Mulally has been able to do this and save a U.S. auto manufacturer in the process.

Conclusion

Leaders over time transform from a transactional mindset to one that encourages trust and through self-sacrifice, shows commitment to a goal. The CEO of Ford had a series of very significant challenges and had to continually work to overcome them through transformational leadership and EI approaches mentioned here. He has been successful in using trust and open communication as a catalyst of further accomplishment and resulting increased sales throughout the auto maker.