The Leadership Development GE-Style case study offers a glimpse in to the management and leadership training provided by General Electric to its seasoned executives (Kreitner, 2008). The history of General Electric dates back to the days of Thomas Edison, with the formal company forming in 1892 (GE, 2010). General Electric is a successful company, which spans a history of over a century of time. They have grown from a company primarily concerned with electricity to one that competes globally in diversified markets such as finance, television production, aircraft engines, medical imaging, and power generation (GE, 2010). In addition, they employ roughly 300,000 people in over 100 countries (GE, 2010).
Accomplishing such success requires a diverse management team knowledgeable in the different aspects of their product and production lines. The John F. Welch Leadership Center at Crotonville provides General Electric the avenue for grooming its managers to meet the changing goals of the company. Whether GE’s approach to teaching leadership, as described in this case study, is effective or not is truly dependent upon application. If the application applies internally, within the GE organization, GE runs a very successful leadership-training program. However, whether the same training practices are successful outside GE’s application seems to be a topic of controversy. What works for one may not work for all.
First, let us look at GE from an internal perspective. In the article, Bob Corcoran: The Power of GE Education, Corcoran is quoted as saying, “The DNA of any organization rests with its leadership and talent pipeline, and what better way to strengthen how we operate and work in the world as a responsible corporate c...
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...ol of business, some of its content also works externally. GE has trained many S&P 500 executives. I think Jeffrey Immelt, current Chairman, and CEO of General Electric sums it up pretty well when he says, “Our whole system is to educate people for the GE system, not any other company’s [system]. When executives leave the GE bubble, it’s up to them to figure out what travels and what doesn’t” (Kratz, 2005).
Works Cited
GE. (2010, December 5). Fact sheet. Retrieved from http://www.ge.com/company/factsheets/corporate.html
General Electric. (n.d.). Leadership and learning. Retrieved from http://www.ge.com/company/culture/leadership_learning.html
Kreitner, R. (2008). Foundations of management, basics and best practices. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Soshe, T. (2004). Bob Corcoran: The Power of GE Education. Chief Learning Officer, 3(3), 34-36.
John P. Kotter, a worldwide famous expert on leadership at Harvard Business School, was a graduate of MIT and Harvard. He joined the Harvard Business School faculty in 1972 and who was voted tenure and a full professorship at the age of thirty-three in 1980. Kotter's honors include an Exxon Award for Innovation in Graduate Business School Curriculum Design and a Johnson, Smith and Knisely Award for New Perspectives in Business Leadership. He again gained the title as the #1 ¡§Leadership Guru¡¨ from a survey for 504 enterprises that was conducted by Business Week magazine. Outline of this book
General Motors became a “centralized organization, so decision-making authority is concentrated in the hands of top-level managers, and little authority is delegated to lower levels” (Ferrell et al., 2015, p. 199). Centralized organizations have little upward communication and top-level manager may not be aware of problems and unethical activities. According to Ferrell et al., (2015), it has been noted that “centralized organization may exert influence on their employees because they have a central core of policies and codes of ethical conduct” (p. 201). Conversely, to survive at GM employees praised the CEO intelligence and carried out their orders by keeping a low profile, and never made waves. GM rewarded employees who followed the old traditional ways and those that challenged their thinking lost promotion opportunities or their jobs. However, General Motors experienced conflict between corporate management responsibility and social responsibility. Consequently, General Motors “attempted to implement a new mentality upon its management in a short period of time” (Goussak, Webber, & Ser, 2012, p. 49) by changing the company’s environment, but
The Lincoln Electric Company corporate culture today is an extension of that which the founder John C. Lincoln and his younger brother James F. Lincoln instituted over a century ago. The company today remains a profitable, growing and admired organization. Its culture has been analyzed and utilized as an example in business education for many years. The success of the company can be attributed to: the efficiency their corporate philosophy and culture has instilled in their employees; meeting the needs of the customers; and lastly rewarding the shareholders. The gist of their corporate mindset is summed up by the past President, Mr. Willis “Lincoln Electric differs from most other companies in the importance it assigns to each of the groups it serves. (He) identifies these groups, in the order of priority as (1) customers, (2) employees, and (3) stockholders”(Sharplin, Arthur, 1989) According to Carpenter, Taylor, and Erdogan (2009), “When entrepreneurs establish their own businesses, the way they want to do business determines the organization’s rules, the structure set up in the company, and the people they hire to work with them.” James F. Lincoln was strongly influenced by religious teachings which he incorporated into his business ethics. According to Lincoln:
Robbins, S. P., & Coulter. M. (2014). Management (12th ed.). Retrieved from: Colorado Technical University eBook Collection database.
...er when it comes to quality. Besides, the company is very competitive in the market, and this kind of competitiveness has been passed to its employees. The employees compete among themselves, which brings the best out of them.
Kouzes, J., & Posner, B., (2007). The leadership challenge, (4th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-
Carpenter, M., Bauer, T., Erodogan, B., & Short, J. (2013). Principles of management. (2nd ed.).
Leadership at times can be a complex topic to delve into and may appear to be a simple and graspable concept for a certain few. Leadership skills are not simply acquired through position, seniority, pay scale, or the amount of titles an individual holds but is a characteristic acquired or is an innate trait for the fortunate few who possess it. Leadership can be misconstrued with management; a manager “manages” the daily operations of a company’s work while a leader envisions, influences, and empowers the individuals around them.
The book “The Leadership Pipeline How to Build the Leadership Powered Company”, discusses the need to establish clearly defined passages from the individual contributor to the Enterprise Manager. In the first section of the book we review the characteristics needed to succeed as a Group Manager. These characteristics are all built on efficacious passage from the previous level of manager. If an individual was not fully proficient and had not made the transition from one level to the next he or she will clog the leadership pipeline and will prevent effective management, both above the clog and below the clog.
Most companies aren’t able to run a successful company using this model due to different detrimental parts of their companies. The balance at Lincoln Electric has helped keep the company running and growing since its inception. Many employees have worked for Lincoln Electric for decades, part of the high retention rate in the company has to do with internal postings allowing employees to continually apply for jobs within the company that best fit their craft and preference. Furthermore, the surpervisonal aspect in the company is nonexistent, supervisors are not micromanagers and expect their subordinates to deliver without what is expected on their own. The biggest surprise comes from employment requirement; most jobs only require a high school diploma. In conjunction with educational requirement comes their compensation model. Employees earnings are in accordance with their accomplishments, even with this model the employees at Lincoln Electric typically earn twice as much as factory workers in other companies in the
General Electric Corporation is a multi-billion dollar conglomerate founded in 1892. The company was founded in Schenectady, New York to capitalize on the patents of Thomas Edison and the use of electric power through generation and distribution. Now a blue chip publicly traded company that has branched out beyond its core into arenas such as aircraft engineering, television, and home appliances to name a few. Over the years the corporation has been through different management models that have brought innovation in many forms that have allowed them to be envied by companies around the world. Despite great success since its conception, like many companies who can withstand the test of times, it’s natural for them to become self-absorbed, which can have a negative impact on the company structure as a whole. Coming across someone like Jack Welch who can think out of the box and in a manner that doesn’t strain the resources of the company but expands the thinking of the company as a collective unit is needed to continue the legacy of innovation in all aspects of business.
Rosen, R. H. (1997). Learning to lead. In F. Hesselbein, M. Goldsmith & R. Beckhard (Eds.), The Organization of the Future. The Drucker Foundation Future Series (p. 306). New York, NY: Jossey-Bass Inc Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership. (4th ed., p. 13). San Francisco: Johan Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Robbins, S.P., DeCenzo, D.A., & Coulter, M. (2013). Fundamentals of management (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Chapter 3: Cultivate managers who share your vision was the most important chapter to me. It talks about putting the right managers in the right positions. Welch says, “What we are looking for…are leaders… who can energize, excite, and control rather than enervate, depress, and control” (p. 35). Managers in a company should bursting with energy and are able to develop and implement a vision and not just talk about those visions. They must also know how to spread enthusiasm throughout the entire company. One of the keys to being a great business leader is getting employees excited about their work. One of the ways to get employees excited about their work is to allow employees more freedom and responsibility then they have now. In order to make this happen, middle managers have to be team members and coaches. They need to facilitate more than control. Managers should be energizers and not enervators. Welch suggests that the only way to last at GE is to get on board, to become a team player, and to adapt oneself to the company’s values and culture when describing the different types of managers that will or will not succeed. The first type of manager delivers on commitments and shares the company’s values. The second type does not meet commitments and does not share the company’s values. The third type misses commitments but does share the company’s values. Welch himself cares more that a manager sticks to the company’s values than meets the numbers. The fourth type delivers on the commitments but does not subscribe to the company’s values. Welch broke these managers into three categories, type A, type B, and type C managers. Type A managers were defined as team players that subscribe to the company’s values. People trust them; they make impacts on decisions, and are leaders who seek to develop high value in other...
Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2008). The leadership challenge. 4th ed. San Francisco, CA Jossey-Bass. ISBN: 9780787984915