Ford Motor Company

Abstract

The content of this paper is to outline the roles of leadership and how it affects organizational performance. It then discusses the role of Allan Mullaly's, CEO of Ford Motor Company, leadership style. The paper also presents how Mullaly's decision to set a goal increased the company's performance. Also, the paper mentions about how Allan Mullaly's openness has gained him trust and helped him to reach his goal. Last but not least, my point of view on the impact of Mullaly's leadership style and how it effects the organization.

Leaders significantly influence organization's success, they must have the ability to develop new ideas, use that idea to set goals, and develop ways to achieve those goals. They must have aspiration to build vision, values, and goals, in order to accomplish great performance. Leaders have the talent to influence other people in order to have them follow him or her and have the ability to motivate the employees. They need to be able to be flexible to changes in its environment like demands, expectations, and pressure. A good leader builds trust, develop opportunities for the employees grow, get them encouraged, listen to employees, and bring up the best of them. To build trust, the person in charge should be open to communication, be honest and hold integrity, be a risk taker, problem solver, and be able to face reality. Also, another factor that can be included in being a good leader can be the willingness to be open to diversity and a one that sets good ethical competency. It is the leader that will guide an organization to success.

"Allan's style is pretty relentless," (p. 543) said the chief financial officer Lewis Booth. His look is confident, disciplined, have the desire to succeed and very determined. He filled five binders with information he collected from interviewing to set plan for Ford Motor. Communication is the key aspect for him, he wants everyone in the company to know what is going on, what the company goal is, how to reach that goal, the position that the company is in, and the fields that need specific awareness. Because of his openness, Mullaly gained many support from his employees and built trust. Mullaly created cards that were written the four goals on one side and the meaning of the company on the other side to let everyone know what his intentions were. Allan Mullaly is a very hands on leader, he expects weekly or sometimes daily updates of all the components of the company.

Ford needed someone to point out what needed to be done and how it could be done. Alan Mullaly set a goal to increase the sales by 2011 and he developed ways to accomplish that goal. One of his goals was to have Ford sustain its independence and not be taken over by the government. His target was small cars that