Leadership and Management

Leadership and Management

Leadership is a key part of being a successful manager. It involves setting a clear direction and vision for an organisation that others will be prepared to follow.

Employees will want to follow a good leader and will respond positively to them. A poor leader will fail to win over staff and will have problems communicating with and organising workers effectively.

Most good managers are also good leaders - but some managers are not. Managers who focus on control of people and allocation of resources can fail to provide a sense of focus that others will understand and be prepared to follow. Without clear and charismatic leadership workers may very well be managed', but will they be inspired to help the leader and the business take a fresh direction and achieve new goals?

Jack Welch was born in Peabody, Massachusetts to John, a Boston & Maine Railroad conductor, and Grace, a homemaker. Jack is Irish American. His paternal and maternal grandparents were Irish.[4]

Welch attended Salem High School and then University of Massachusetts Amherst, graduating in 1957 with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering. He is a member of the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity.

He received a MS and PhD at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1960.[5]

General Electric[edit]

Welch joined General Electric in 1960. He worked as a junior chemical engineer in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, at a salary of $10,500. In 1963, an explosion at the factory under his management blew off the roof of the facilities, and he was almost fired for that episode.[6] In 1961, Welch planned to quit his job as junior engineer because he was dissatisfied with the raise offered to him and was unhappy with the bureaucracy he observed at GE. Welch was persuaded to remain at GE by Reuben Gutoff, an executive at the company, who promised him that he would help create the small company atmosphere Welch desired.[7]

Welch was named a vice president of GE in 1972. He became senior vice president in 1977 and vice chairman in 1979. Welch became GE's youngest chairman and CEO in 1981, succeeding Reginald H. Jones. By 1982, Welch had dismantled much of the earlier management put together by Jones and led an aggressive simplification and consolidation initiative. One of his primary leadership directives was that GE had to be No. 1 or No. 2 in the industries it participated in.