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Henry Ford – the Leadership Qualities of One of History’s Greatest Innovators.

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Henry Ford – The Leadership qualities of one of history’s greatest innovators.

Executive summary

This paper set out to find out if Henry Ford was a capable leader or just a great innovator who took advantage of a good opportunity?

We looked at the leadership traits and style of Henry Ford and found that he was a great leader, however if he had to work in today’s business world he would have to adapt to the way modern leaders deal with managing change. The examples we found of Ford’s business practices suggested he had a very direct and dictatorial management style and after years of success he failed to adapt change to his business when it needed it most. As a result, rival companies seized on changing market trends, while Ford …show more content…

Table 1.1 | Leadership | Management | Creating an agenda | Decide on the appropriate direction and create a strategy | Would deal with the delivery of the strategy, action plan and budgets | Developing people | Align people – get them ready for change and make them believe their efforts will achieve the goals set | Deal with procedures and operational structure including staffing requirements | Execution | Motivating and inspiring – Looking at intrinsic and extrinsic factors to increase performance and making sure everyone knows what’s expected of them. | Reporting on delivery against budget, making the relevant changes to ensure success. | Outcomes | Effective and successful change. | Provides a process of consistency and understanding. |

This kind of comparison not only allows us to see how leadership is adapted in an organisation but how leadership is different to management. The two roles are very different, but both work towards the same organisational goals. Where leadership will deal with change, whether that is as a result of competition or economic issues, like deregulation or change in consumer trends; management will deal with operational processes to reduce confusion and monitor development.

In contrast to this, Mintzberg (1977) believed that management and leadership roles overlap. That operationally, the concepts of the two roles don’t fit neatly

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