Jack Welch started with General Electric (GE) in 1960 as a Junior Chemical Engineer and by 1981 had risen to the position of Chairman and CEO – the youngest to ever hold this role at GE. Under Welch the company market value grew from approximately $12 Billion to a huge $505 billion at the time of his retirement and many attribute this growth to the “energetic and visionary leadership style” of Welch
Welch’s leadership style contained four main tenants; create a learning culture, open communications with all team members, willingness to take risks and embrace change and empowerment of employees (Shriberg and Shriberg, 2011)
The first of Welch’s four main leadership strategies was to create a learning culture – both for himself and all of his …show more content…
As he rose within the company he created the capability for all employees to continue to learn and share ideas. (Slater, 2003). Welch set up what he called the “boundaryless organisation” where the best ideas could be learned and passed to all business units within the company. He demolished the idea that the best ideas come from within and embraced that a good idea could come from anywhere and any situation or any process could be improved upon – no-one should think they they know it all. (Shriberg and Shriberg, 2011)
Open communication with all team members was another strategy Jack employed. Welch always encouraged open communications and demanded that all employees face facts rather than sugar coat anything. He advocated frequent, candid performance reviews and added that “you have no …show more content…
When Welch first took over at GE he exhibited a very strong, direct style of leadership while he made the necessary changes to the company structure. His firm, top down style was appropriate for that task (Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee, 2001). As the company turned around, Welch adopted a “more emotionally intelligent leadership style”, he gave employees a vision, instilled a sense of common purpose and made them feel like they were a part of creating something. Welch advocated that everything is constantly changing from technology and business environment to competition and consumer spending habits and every person in the company must be open to re-inventing themselves and everything they do in order to embrace changes and keep up. In other words, he wanted all employees to ignore tradition and embrace constant change. (Slater,
Welch’s leadership style contained four main tenants; create a learning culture, open communications with all team members, willingness to take risks and embrace change and empowerment of employees (Shriberg and Shriberg, 2011)
The first of Welch’s four main leadership strategies was to create a learning culture – both for himself and all of his …show more content…
As he rose within the company he created the capability for all employees to continue to learn and share ideas. (Slater, 2003). Welch set up what he called the “boundaryless organisation” where the best ideas could be learned and passed to all business units within the company. He demolished the idea that the best ideas come from within and embraced that a good idea could come from anywhere and any situation or any process could be improved upon – no-one should think they they know it all. (Shriberg and Shriberg, 2011)
Open communication with all team members was another strategy Jack employed. Welch always encouraged open communications and demanded that all employees face facts rather than sugar coat anything. He advocated frequent, candid performance reviews and added that “you have no …show more content…
When Welch first took over at GE he exhibited a very strong, direct style of leadership while he made the necessary changes to the company structure. His firm, top down style was appropriate for that task (Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee, 2001). As the company turned around, Welch adopted a “more emotionally intelligent leadership style”, he gave employees a vision, instilled a sense of common purpose and made them feel like they were a part of creating something. Welch advocated that everything is constantly changing from technology and business environment to competition and consumer spending habits and every person in the company must be open to re-inventing themselves and everything they do in order to embrace changes and keep up. In other words, he wanted all employees to ignore tradition and embrace constant change. (Slater,