Throughout history, the organizational landscape has been highly competitive. Effective leadership aligned with the core corporate strategy can serve as a powerful lever to achieve success in a fast paced business environment. We have seen great leaders taking their businesses to new heights. They knew how to build great companies while treating their employees well, how to improve or change dysfunctional corporate cultures, reinvigorating tired brands and develop new strategic plans. Others proved themselves difficult to work for, stubborn and even out-of-touch. The following report analyzes the leadership of Robert Nardelli who is the chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Chrysler.
Biographical Sketch
This section presents a brief overview of his personal and professional life. Robert L. Nardelli was born on May 17, 1948 in Old Forge, Pennsylvania. He completed his Schooling in the State of Illinois and earned Masters in Business Administration from University of Louisville. Nardelli started his professional career at GE where he worked for 27 years. Nardelli served as the head of GE's Canadian appliance unit. Later, he headed the transportation systems division. He thus rose to become one of the top four executives in GE. A lengthy succession plan ensued when Jack Welch was leaving GE and Nardelli was in the race towards becoming the CEO of the company. However, after losing the CEO spot to Jeff Immelt, he exited the company.
Then, Nardelli took over as CEO of the home retailer Home Depot in 2000. Nardelli brought discipline to Home Depot but the shifting of gears was shocking to a lot of people who were well accustomed to his predecessor Bernie Marcus’ laid-back style. By many benchmarks, including sales, gross margins, and profits, Bob Nardelli did a fairly good job at Home Depot. However, Nardelli came under fire and extreme criticism for his gargantuan compensation package relative to the stock's weak performance, slowing profits and a regulatory probe about its options practices, and his management style. Also, Home Depot had to fight growing competition from Lowe’s and it needed to reinvigorate growth in the U.S. market and boost overseas growth. Finally, Nardelli stepped down and exited the company at the beginning of 2007.
Later, in August of 2007, he was brought on board by Chrysler soon after it was purchased by the private equity firm Cerberus. After the acquisition, the company turned to the leadership of Nardelli as the business required a leader who would follow the plan and stick to the numbers.
Denisco & Barker, (2016) discusses the foundation of leadership and the four conceptual pillars that comprise it. Understanding the leadership is a responsibility of an APN, the following final question was posed to Ms. Gordner. “Of the four pillars of leadership; professionalism, inspirational motivation, interpersonal relationships, and business skills, do you feel that one is more important than another, and why?” She responded,
Across the globe, there are CEO’s, managers, and several other individual’s in leadership-type roles that have the expectation of making their company successful in the eyes of the investors, the employees, and the customers that they serve. This may be measured by a company’s gross profitability, employee engagement or overall customer satisfaction. Most companies have leadership models and strategies in place that leaders are expected to use in order to drive the expectations of the company while maintaining consistency across the business. In an effort to examine various types of leadership styles, I have conducted interviews with two individuals that are or have been previously tasked with leading their teams and their company towards success.
He joined Home Depot in 2002 as executive vice president of Business Development and Corporate Operations and was responsible for real estate, store construction, credit services, strategic business development, growth initiatives, call centers and the Home Services business. Mr. Blake took over the position, which was held by Bob Nardelli, who was forced to resign his post over the controversy surrounding his lucrative pay package. However, the underlying reason had just as much to do with his handling of the transformation of the company after he took the reins in December 2000 (Azzato, M.). With no previous retail experience, Nardelli's gruff management style is said to have alienated several key top-level managers.
“On leadership” was written by John W. Gardner (The Free Press, New York, 1990). He used seventeen chapters to explain and describe essential components for the leadership should be in a successful organization. This book not only has significant influence now, but also for the future. Below are my understanding about this book, which was divided into two parts. For the first part, I will pick up some perspectives which influence me most from this book. For the second part, which is my comments and critique about this book.
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According Hughes, Beatty, and Dinwoodie’s ( 2014) work on strategy, all areas of an organization need to collaborate with each other to help bring strategy to fruition. They mentioned four elements of leadership strategy. (1) Leadership Drivers of Business Strategy. This is the identification of and the preparing of leaders to implement strategy. Certain skills, abilities and resources need to be in place prior to a strategies’ roll out. When the correct leaders have the proper skill sets are in place coupled with the backing of the organization this may create a dynamic situation. Hughes et al. (2014) describes these as “levers- that if pulled will catapult the organization toward success” (p. 236). (2)Leadership Culture, as mentioned
Destiny, brought the book True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership into my life and I want to bring it into the lives of others. More specifically those who may believe they weren’t born with the characteristics or traits to become a leader or those who have not found their passion or purpose in life; their “True North.” The book, written by Bill George and co-author Peter Sims, compiles a series of interviews with 125 managers from Howard Schultz of Starbuck’s to Dan Vasella of Novartis. The interviewees guide readers through their journey to become the leaders they are today; discussing their failures, successes, obstacles, personal tragedies and triumphs. The stories of each manager prove the True North’s thesis, which is no one person is born a leader and there isn’t one path to becoming a leader. The book is separated into three sections: 1) Leadership is a Journey 2) Discover Your Authentic Leadership 3) Empowering People to Lead. Before giving overviews of each section, it is important to define an authentic leader.
The article centers on the leadership of Home Depot's Chief Executive Officer Robert L. Nardelli. He was born May 17, 1948, in Old Forge, Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor of Science in business from Western Illinois University, and also earned an MBA from the University of Louisville.
he took a two year break to direct and run a company at the National
The role of leadership can impact an organization performance in many ways. Excellent leadership can propel a company to the fortune five hundred list. For Example, Harpo Incorporated Oprah Winfrey’s company is a successful business that has made billions of dollars over the years. The business consists of several different entities such as the Oprah Show, Oprah Winfrey Network, and The Dr. Phil Show to name a few. This could not have been accomplished with a weak or uneducated leader. Many years ago I heard her give advice to the Williams Sisters. The a...
Leadership is being able to direct or guide other people by either your own actions or by actually guiding them into the right direction (Acumen). Inspiration to be a leader might come from many different areas like your family, friends, peers, or even teachers. My inspiration didn’t really occur to me until I started attending college in August 2013. In all actuality I never even thought of how to be a leader until I was in Mrs. Moore’s Perspectives class. I now have a desire to be a great leader, and the inspiration has come from Mrs. Moore, and my family. I am the first to attend college out of my family, so in a away I have already started leading my siblings in the right direction. Being a leader means inspiring others to pursue their dreams, and aspirations and helping throughout the journey to success. Being a leader has nothing with authority or being able to tell other what, and how to do things, it’s about having people who look up to you and want to follow your example.
Being a CEO is proven to be much more difficult than trying to become one. Over the last few months we have been examining the reasons behind the successes and failures of some great CEO practitioners. It seems that, despite the different managerial styles, great CEOs employ some common techniques. The following pages contain the golden rules of successful business leadership.
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