Jack Welch’s Approach to Leadership

General Electric has been one of those companies in the world, who have been extremely successful for decades. In a challenging business environment, the company kept its standards high for years and performed better than any other competitors. The company developed its organizational design principles under the leadership of Charles Coffin, who driven this company to success from 1892 till 1912. These principles allowed GE to follow an organizational design, which focused on people and management, and it remained to be one of its key success factors. However, a time came, when things did not go well for the company, and it was not able to sustain its success and growth, which it did for so many decades (COLVIN 2006).

 It was a time when GE needed a spark from its leadership to get back on success track as leadership can always change the whole complexion of a company with its great leadership skills. Then GE was joined by a new Chairman and CEO in 1981, and his name was Jack Welch. During that period, the company was struggling to move forward in the right direction. But the leadership of Jack Welch sparked new energy in the company, and it was able to regain its success path. Jack Welch served GE till 2001, and during his tenure, the company’s value increased more than 4000%. One of the major reasons for this great success by Jack Welch was his leadership approach, which followed a pattern to create more leaders, rather just creating followers (Hammett 2018). In this paper, the focus will be given to the leadership approach of Jack Welch that how he was able to attain so much success over the years for GE, and what was his leadership style. Two leadership theory will also be taken to analyze the leadership approach of Jack Welch.

Analyzing Jack Welch’s leadership Approach with Leadership Theories

The Jack Welch’s approach of leadership will be analyzed by keeping two leadership styles and theories in context, which is transformational leadership and shared leadership. It is important to understand that what transformation leadership is before analyzing the leadership approach of Jack Welch. The transformational leadership concept was introduced by James McGregor Burns in 1978 when he included this concept in his “Leadership” book. According to transformational leadership theory, the leader is the one, who inspires his/her followers. In this theory, the relationship between leaders and his followers is based on sharing an equal pattern of power so that both can work to achieve a common objective. This concept allows empowering people, who are working for an organization so that they can perform to their full potential. There are many traits of a transformational leader, who not only encourage his/her followers but also increase their level of creativity. It means that it is a two-way process, where the leader and his/her followers make collective efforts to achieve desired results. One of the assumptions in this theory is that transformational leader motivate, encourage and empower his followers to achieve set goals (Korejan and Shahbazi 2016) 

A leader who believes in the transformational approach of leadership, he/she creates a vision, which allows followers to follow a certain path. Moreover, a visionary leader injects energy as well as enthusiasm in his/her followers and also shows a caring attitude for his/her followers so that they can feel valued. Keeping these assumptions and elements from transformational leadership concept, it has been observed that Jack Welch was one of the masters of this concept. There can be many cases to relate where business leaders worked to bring a positive change in the organization, but Jack Welch stands above all of them in this regard. He really worked on emotional intelligence element to keep GE employees motivated to work as hard as possible. He created a culture in GE, which allowed its workers to speak their hearts out, and share their valuable ideas. He encouraged them to be more creative and take whatever initiative they can. He emphasized on the fact that GE workers are the most important assets, so he closely worked on them to use their skills, knowledge, and brains for the company (Williams 2000)

The ability of a great leader is that when he/she is given the challenge to overcome, he/she does it with a proper strategy as Jack Welch did. When he joined GE as CEO, he analyzed that the company is having a multi-layer hierarchy, where decisions are not be taken effectively. The management of the company was having so many layers that it was impossible to keep communication as effective as it should be. General Electric was missing any real vision to follow, so employees were just coming in and going out without any productive outcomes. Jack Welch realized that company needs to get rid of its current management layers to make communication more effective on all levels. Moreover, he started to build a new structure of the organization, which was more informal like he wanted everyone to call him just as Jack. It means that he did not believe in any authoritative culture and he used to follow shared leadership style by distributing the responsibilities among the staff. He asked managers to go into the field and observe whatever they can. He injected collaboration at all levels of the company. He started listening to his employees and managers and encouraged them to speak openly. He gave the ownership to his workers during meetings by saying that “we’re in this together, and we should all be prepared to get our hands dirty,” He created a culture, who valued his people more than anything (Williams 2000)

It was apparent from Jack Welch’s leadership approach that he believed in leading people, not managing them. It means that he insisted on a work culture, which believed in creating a collective vision and ask people to feel passionate about their work. He once said “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others”, (Love 2016). He showed this through his leadership approach, where he empowered and encouraged his employees and managers to become leaders. Moreover, he helped his workers to believe that change is a must for success, and it should be taken as a great opportunity for success rather looking at it as a threat. That’s why he made so many changed in GE to transform the fate of a company, which was experiencing issues and lower performance in every aspect of its business. He was well aware of the fact that people in GE lacked any motivation and commitment to work as they were not made part of the decision making. The workers were not given any ownership, so they felt that they have no value for the company, which ultimately stopped their creativity and motivation towards their job. Jack Welch changed this by enhancing employee engagement at all levels (Cobo 2017)

Jack Welch continued his vision and mission to recreate the image of General Electric, and he was able to make it a successful company, which was one of the most admired organizations in the world. This success in GE was created through his transformational and visionary leadership. He revolutionized GE from every aspect of its business like changing its overall structure as well as changing its management style. He reorganized GE with his ability to derive a new strategy with a new vision. In this process, many employees were removed in the early part, and business units were closed, which were not generating any profits for the company. It was time to make tough decisions, and Jack Welch showed his leadership ability to come up with those tough decisions. In the next phase, Jack Welch focused on strengths of GE to explore more opportunities for long term success. The company was made flexible as well as lean in its approach, where it behaved like a huge conglomerate, but its working style was following a design of smaller companies. All these changes were made due to great leadership approach of Jack Welch (Emerald 2006)

It is also important to get a perspective from Jack Welch that how he transformed GE into a successful company, and what his views are about different concepts associated with the business. An interview with Jack Welch was published by Harvard Business Review, which revealed his perspective on changing the fate of GE. When Jack Welch was asked about a good manager, he replied that “I prefer the term “business leader.” Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion”, (Thoughtpatrol 2015). He also added that good leaders are the ones, who are more friendly, informal and open with their workers. He further added that real leadership has the capability to see the real picture of things and acknowledging it, rather avoiding reality. When he was asked about an organization, which is effective, then he explained that if success is the objective of any organization, then it has to be simple. When managers are not sure about things, then organizations become complex, which never helps the cause. However, he further explained that simply does not mean anything easy, as simple organizations would also go through tough situations to come out as a winner amongst competitors. He also described that relationship between the subordinate and boss should be redefined, where subordinate has the capability to throw some challenge to their boss. He also said that expectations level in business should never exceed the reality; rather a real picture should always be kept in view (Tichy and Charan 1989)

It has been evident so for that Jack Welch transformed GE through his transformational leadership style. He showed the habits of a transformational leader, who believed in transforming an organization by transforming the lives of its workers. He totally changed the overall perspective and vision of his employees. The things were going nowhere for the company, and everything had slowed down when he joined GE. It was the test of his leadership skills that what approach he adopts to get things back on track. He was able to transform the organization through his great vision, and GE became a better learning organization. It had the legacy of one of the best in the business, and Jack Welch was able to get this legacy back through his leadership approach. It shows that when a leader is determined to do well and when he has the vision to see broad aspects of things with engagement approach, and then organizations can be changed and transformed. He certainly showed the true essence of transformational leadership (Lussier 2008)

The other leadership theory or style to be reviewed keeping Jack Welch in mind is shared leadership. In this style of leadership, the leader believes in valuing his/her employees, or motivate them rather than just passing on the instructions to his subordinates that what to do. Such leaders work on the motivation of its followers and they do not assume that they are already motivated and committed. A leader with shared leadership mindset likes to distribute the roles and responsibilities among the staff and they can initiate anything on their own. There may be a situation, where employee may feel that given instructions will not serve the purpose, so they can change the procedure on their own after consulting the leader and they can discuss the guidelines for amendments that are provided by the leader. It clearly means that such leadership style does foster positive change and creativity in subordinates because they feel responsible. They look for any positive change in strategy while completing their responsibilities. It means that dedication and motivation level of workers under such leadership is very high. Moreover, the decisions are not made by only the leader but followers also contribute in decision making and they are allowed to participate in decision making process. Their feedback, input and concerns are added to the decision making process (Zylfijaj, Mahmuta, & Grubi, 2014).

In other perspective of leadership approach, it is important to analyze Jack Welch leadership approach to see whether he showed any elements of shared leadership. The first thing that was learned about shared leadership is that such leader believes in staff engagement, rather than just giving instructions to follow. The space between leaders and followers is very limited, and followers can share their concerns and ideas with the leader. In comparison to that Jack Welch came with a participative approach, where engaged with his employees and managers, and encourage them to be more creative and initiate processes, which can be fruitful. It was also learned that shared leadership believes in encouragement and motivation of employees. On the other hand, Jack Welch totally believed in an organization, which foster change and level of motivation in the minds of its employees. He came up with an informal relationship with his workers and time to time he met with all managers and employees to listen to their feedback, ideas as well as concerned. He worked hard to keep his workers motivated and dedicated to achieve common set objectives. In the end, it can be said that Jack Welch believed in shared leadership style, and he always tried to be a shared leader. He has been following shared and transformational style leader, who believed in valuing his people to achieve long term success.

Key Leadership Lessons to Learn from Jack Welch

It has been observed in so many cases like Jack Welch that leaders are the ones, who don’t ask their followers to just follow their instructions; rather they come up with an idea of growing their followers. It is a fact that leadership role is not an easy one to handle, as a leader has to go through so many tough situations, where he/she has to make so many decisions. The leader is expected to use his/her skills, intuition, experience as well as charisma to guide others towards a path, which ultimately leads to long term success. Jack Welch leadership approach has been a great one to follow because, with this approach, he has been attributed as one of the best business leaders of all time. The first lesson to learn from Jack Welch leadership is that they always grow your team by giving them self-confidence so that they feel valued.

Moreover, leaders should always create a vision along with the input of their followers so that they not only follow that vision, but they can understand its core elements as they have participated in creating that vision. The other lesson to learn is that getting into skin and the role of others. It means that a good leader always stay close to his followers, understand their perspective on everything so that optimism and positive energy is injected into them (Severson 2017)

The other lesson to learn from Jack Welch’s leadership approach is that a leader should be a person, who is candor in nature. A person who is more informal and frank with his/her subordinates. The leader keeps himself busy with his/her people and wins their trust. The other thing that leaders can follow from the example of Jack Welch is that there can be situations, where some decisions may seem unpopular, and difficult. But the beauty of a great leader is that he takes those decisions by keeping a broader perspective in view. A leader never runs away from difficult situations and always ready to make tough decisions, as Jack Welch did in the initial period of his term as CEO in GE. The leaders are the ones, who always lead by their own example. Jack Welch engaged with his managers and employees, showed his commitment and gave his time to every process of the organization. It means that the leader has the capacity to inspire others by keeping them motivated and filled with positive energy. The other important thing for leaders to learn is that when you achieve success with the collective efforts, then do celebrate this success along with your team. It always comes with a positive vibe in the organization, keeping employees happy and satisfied (Severson 2017)

Jack Welch remains to be one of the best business leaders in the world, who practically showed the world how things can be turned around. He worked so hard for his twenty years at GE and transformed it into one of the most admired and liked companies. He sets an example for other leaders that when things are going nowhere; it means that a company is lacking a clear vision. So, it is important to set a clear vision, which shows the actual roadmap towards success. Jack Welch left a legacy for leaders, which showed that a leader should be a person, who helps others to transform their lives. He does not believe in enjoying his own career as a leader; rather he worked for others to grow as a leader and think out of the box. He engaged with subordinates at all levels and won their trust. He once said that “People have to trust you. You have to build in trust for people”, (Clifford 2017). It means that the trust deficit between leaders and followers can be devastating for a business organization. The leaders must earn the trust of their followers so that both can move forward together in a collective direction leading to success (Clifford 2017)