Leadership: Jack Welch

Leadership: Jack Welch

Part One

Jack Welch is a distinct and revolutionary leader. His leadership style was authentic and promoted change via all-inclusive management and control. Charisma and transformation are the cornerstones of his leadership; he molded his style to adopt quality management via consistency, focus, and evaluation. The philosophy of his leadership resonates a lot with the transformational leaders of the present. Their main goal is continuity by empowering people and robust human resource functions (Watson). As the CEO of General Electric, he expanded the company through strategic initiatives embedded in leadership. The general approach that Jack Welch used was facilitating the integration of new talent to create a perfect balance between leadership and operations. The current leadership framework adopted by the company is rooted in Jack Welch’s philosophy; an integration of optimal formal and informal tactics.

Jack Welch promoted his human resources functions as the core of company operations. He was direct with his relationship with the workers and clearly outlined roles. Process managers assumed responsibility and accountability in their teams in the company. However, there was an avenue of an informal compromise that could be used to resolve issues as they arose. It is both a democratic and Laissez-Faire approach. Democracy is integrated into contributions from human resources, and the managers clearly outline tasks and delegate them. Jack Welch’s charismatic leadership was the key to success during his 20 years of service as GE’s CEO. The shortcomings were addressed by adopting leadership structures situationally. Every domain and department at the company has and must always commit to goals and standards. GE went on to have leaders everywhere in human resources.

Jack Welch’s philosophy will work perfectly for a sports organization. With successful globalization being the jewel of his legacy at GE, Welch valued every component. All parties are required to work efficiently and harmoniously for success. A sports organization integrates many integrated functions that dictate efficiency based on how they work as a unit. Having all sections of a sports organization work using standardized operations is crucial. The functional differences in functions and variables complicate management, but global elements and variables exist. A successful sports organization should work in integrating optimized units instead of sectors with varied performances. Ultimately, success is judged on the unit, including low-performing units that may lower overall performance. It is a sports organization; being informal occasionally also comes in handy.

Part Two

Phil Jackson was a basketball champion who won the NBA with the New York Knicks. In addition, he coached Chicago Bulls to six NBA championship titles and a further four at Los Angeles Lakers (Logan). Although their contributions are in different domains, Phil Jackson and Jack Welch have similar leadership approaches. The focused approach of Phil Jackson in his work as a coach placed value on the team based on the parts. Everyone has a clear role to play and contribute to the organization’s productivity. In his teams, Phil Jackson believed that everyone’s optimal performance was the foundation of the team’s leadership. Players knew their roles, as everyone related to the team’s activities.

The two shared leadership personalities and philosophies - that leadership is from within. They believed that the person should be comfortable leading regardless of who and where they are. Tasks and responsibilities are outlined concisely to eliminate ambiguities but encourage a collaborative setting. Phil Jackson believed that a team must trust each other for performance to be optimal. For him, followers can submit to someone in a leadership position only when followers trust a manager.

Works Cited

Logan, Robert G. “Phil Jackson | Biography, Titles, Teams, & Facts”. Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Phil-Jackson.

Watson, G. H. (2001, November). Cycles of learning: observations of Jack Welch. In Six Sigma Forum Magazine (Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 13-17). ASQ.