Leadership by Welch, Immelt—and Layer

Lean leaders put people first

Regular readers know I’m not a big fan of Jack Welch, to put it mildly. My opinion is shared by many in the lean world, at least those who recognize that the second, oft-forgotten, pillar of lean is “respect for people”—a concept diametrically opposed to Welch's “leadership” methods.

Unfortunately, idol worship took hold. Welch held, and to some extent still holds, a power unrivaled since the pagan idols of ages old. A generation of GE “leaders” and Welch worshippers barfed forth onto the business world and proceeded to decimate U.S. manufacturing, and common sense, for that matter. I believe this was a significant contributor to the economic malaise of the last several years as the gullible followed his advice to outsource, chase cheap labor, whack employees, and measure success and value purely by the increase in stock price.

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Great point!

I like this...when I used to teach leadership classes in the Navy, we would do an excercise where we'd have a class brainstorm two lists: words that describe the BEST teacher they'd ever had, and words that described the WORST teacher they'd ever had. Then we'd ask them whether those same lists also described the best and worst leaders they'd worked for...

Read "Built to Last" by Collins and Porras for more about GE

Context counts. In "Built to Last" Jim Collins and Jerry Porras reminded people that Jack Welch's predecessor at GE, Reginald Jones, had retired as "the most admired business leader in America" (http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/companies-need-not-hi…). If someone's view of Jack Welch is clouded by the notion that somehow he turned around a troubled company they should revisit his tenure.

In Harvard Business Review (July-August 1996) Henry Mintzberg wrote, "Go to the popular business press and read just about any article on any company. The whole organization almost always gets reduced to a single individual, the chief at the 'top.' ... But after the organizations are created, we don't need heroes, just competent, devoted, and generous leaders who know what's going on and exude that spirit of the hive. Heroes - or, more to the point, our hero worship - reflect nothing more than our own inadequacies."

Joe

Jokes are not often simply jokes

When I read Welch's "Straight from the Gut", an old joke came to my mind: a sheepdog says to the sheep: < My leadership is based on very simple criteria: when I bark, you start rushing - and quick! >