Leading Change – Carlos Ghosn at Renault and Nissan

Max De Pree explains that the true leader (manager) is there to enable his followers to reach their full potential, that he is their "servant" not the master. In his book Leadership is an Art, De Pree summarizes the qualities of the future leader. Leaders need to recognize when another individual’s skills and gifts could do the job better than they can. •Leaders must be able to gracefully step down and follow the other person’s lead.

“No organization can survive over an extended period of time without the proper focus on people as its most important resource.” – Charlie Eitel. Effective change leaders have dreams. They are aware of their current state, and where they want to go (Banutu, and Shandra, 2007). Simmons Company founded in the early 1900s, was a trade-mark leader in bed mattresses. With booming sales, the company faced a fundamental issue of whether or not it should go ahead with the new CEO - Charlie Eitel proposal. He suggested on changing the current program which could cost $7.2 million dollars, especially at the time when the company was having financial problems in the heat of the economic crisis of 9/11. Eitel’s strategy was to transformed the culture of authoritarian behavior in most plants and install a respectful friendly and stimulating work environment, similar to the organization’s Janesville plant which produces the largest revenue of $150 million” in sales out of the company’s total sales of $900 million. (Casciaro, and Edmondson, 2007).

Improved lives is what good leadership is all about. We have learned that the culminating factor that good leader’s actions result in is the improvement of lives for those around them. Externally, Alan Thompson was able to improve the lives of his customers by extending their fleets’ service periods and mitigating their fleet downtime. Alan was able to internally increase profitability within Texaco of Canada, as well as motivate his people to successfully pair the right products with the right customers. This symbiotic relationship, one that improved the

There are three main factors which together changed the fate of the run-down Nissan: Carlos Ghosn’s strong leadership, his use of appropriate strategies, and his invention of a new management system and style.

Joseph Dunn is the owner and general manager of Dunn’s Ski Emporium in Vail, Colorado. Business has been above their competitors for years, but Joseph believes he is able to bring in more business if he merges with the Deli next-door. The business from the ski emporium has attracted customers to the deli and vice versa. George is thinking of retiring in the next few years, and Joseph wants to ensure that George’s success continues after he retires. Joseph is a social architect by trade and has faith that he is able to change both businesses into one, while staying above his competitors. Change demands leadership, and leadership is about coping with change. The result is that businesses have to seek change to survive and compete effectively (Kotter, 1990).

Level 5 leaders are build up. Most administrators have the potential to become one. It is not only skills, but ethics and values. Furthermore, having the courage to reflect in your own decisions, actions, and be self-effacing like to understand your weakness and mistakes, learn from it, and steer in to the right path is essential. Additionally, by more doing then talking, keeping yourself on the ground, and never giving up. Always been the example, but giving credit to others. Great leaders are guides, not dictators. By being able to foster, develop, and sustain the next leaders, the good will become great. To achieve results, leaders must keep the end in mind. Consequently, always working and steering for permanent positive results, while using the negative for the development of leadership skills, perseverance, and the development of resilience.

Individual Assignment: leading change for Carlos Ghosn at Renault and Nissan – Core Leadership task

Ghosn closed plants, laid off workers, broke up long-standing supply networks, and sold off marginal assets to focus on the company’s core business. Nissan was now breaking the cultural norms of keiretsu investments. Cutting down costs was just the first step in Nissan’s recovery. Actually changes were introduced in every corner of the company, from manufacturing and engineering to marketing and sales: update of Nissan’s car and truck lineup; introducing new, dynamic designs; quality improvement. These strategies quickly polished Nissan’s image in the marketplace, and re-established the company in the minds of consumers as a leader in innovation and engineering.

Cross-functional teams are not without disadvantages. The team can take significantly longer to develop cohesion because members come from different experiences and backgrounds. Moreover, a team leader must take care managing team relationships carefully because there may be a high level of conflict in these teams due to unit rivalry, egos, and possible conflict between the interests of the various parts of the organization represented by team

Carlos Ghosn presently is chairman and chief executive officer of the Renault-Nissan Alliance. He started his career in a manufacturing company named Michelin, which was a Europe’s renowned tire maker company. During this job, he was rapidly promoted and was transferred to many places like in Le Puy, France, South America, North America. While working in this company and while attaining rapid promotions he started acquiring great cultural leadership skills as well as his skill in transforming a troubled business into successful business started catching the eyes of many organizations.

Leadership shapes history. Good leadership is about getting good results in all respects. Leadership qualities of managers shape up the future of any certain organization. In this report we will be discussing about leadership qualities of Carlos Ghosn. Carlos Ghosn is a well-known personality in the business world especially in car manufacturing businesses.

When Carlos Ghosn becoming the new CEO, the managers and employees was not happy about it because they don't know what is his intentions. He whom was known as the “Le Cost Killer” did not even blink an eye when changing the current organizational culture and the internal processes of Nissan. The main reason of the resistance in Nissan was because of Ghosn's Brazilian ethnicity and also his Lebanese heritage and the difference in culture way of approaching the problems are really different from the people of Japan. Everyone knows that the Japanese management culture is the masculine(manly) type with large power distance and that the Japanese people are really obedient towards the higher ups (Hofstede). Carlos whom previously had shown a proactive management type of style at Renault where he managed to improve the cost-efficiencies and because of his good management record, he was being headhunted to become the CEO of Nissan. In a country like Japan, one usually assume that the new CEO should be someone who knows the local culture and customs of Japan but in this case however Carlos was probably aware of the fact that regardless of his shortage of knowledge about the culture itself, he had an advantage for having worked on four different countries with different cultures and was able to overcome the cultural differences.

Carlos Ghosn was credited for successful management of Japanese firm Nissan to a profitability which earned him a well known name called "TurnaroundArtist." Even though he was an outsider and lack a clear understanding of the traditional working methods of the Japanese firms, Carlos did a recommendable work which brought the company into sense of urgency in management. According to IBSCDC (2005) when Carlos was the CEO for the Nissan Company, he managed to reduce the firm's debts of about $19 billion to almost zero.

In today’s cutting edge competition, a good leadership is the requirement of the day. Organizational goals cannot be achieved without good leadership. Without a good leadership organisations grow very slowly and usually lose direction and competitiveness. Good leaders must be able to provide clear directions, inspiration and motivation. An effective leadership brings many benefits and helps an organization to achieve success and stability. Some of the common advantages of a good leadership are:

Leaders and managers play an important role in the development of an organization. We can state that managers who are able to add on to the revenue of a firm are effective and successful leaders. Managers should play important role in other aspects of an organization’s growth other than generating profits. A successful leader or manager may be someone who has the uncanny ability to carry out their tasks at a degree of effectiveness irrespective of their level of management, age or even previous work experience. A successful leader’s qualities may vary as per various circumstances; however, they should consider the importance of self awareness as well which is explicitly considered as one of the main factors that can fail or make them into