Case Study on Ferdinand Piech

The following case study defines the role of the Ferdinand Piech in the Volkswagen and how he take the company to a next level and what kind of the behavior he has with his employees and what were his personality traits that made him oppressive among his workers and what were his management styles and how he take the company to next level. He treats his employees very badly and wants them to behave and work according to his commands and his decisions and he don’t want any employee to interfere between his decisions as he was the CEO of the company that time and wants to take his decisions all alone. Piech has ruled the organization of Volkswagen string handedly and he handled all the engineering projects of the company by himself and also proposed the new projects by himself as well. Moreover, he was also moving to a new position in the company and that was the position of the executive supervisory board. He helped the company by making different models and lead the company to a next level but when get retirement he leaves the company into a bad situation due to his arrogant behavior and due to the lack of the people equipped in the organization due to his rude decisions.

Problem Background of Ferdinand Piech: 

The main problem that the company Volkswagen was facing that the company was suffering due to the ruse behavior of the Ferdinand Piech towards hi employees and his authoritarian and Machiavellian personality traits  that keeps the company and the employees distant from his and there is a barrier between the employees and the CEO of the company. Piech was very arrogant and rude towards his employees and he makes decision on his own without taking any advice from his employees and this will be harmful for the organization because the participatory decision are more beneficial as it involves the ideas of the different persons and also eliminates the flaws from the project and the design as well but taking the decisions on his own will sometimes be risky for the organization and may harm the organization in the future with some of the wrong decisions.

1. What personality traits does Ferdinand Piech exhibit? Do you think these contributed to a good person-job fit as CEO of Volkswagen? Why or why not?

A. The organizational structure of a company defines what activities are performed in the company and what are the roles and the responsibilities of the leader. The personality traits that are exhibited by Ferdinand Piech are the authoritarian personality traits and the Machiavellian personality traits, as these traits defines his personality because he is focused on his ambition and he priorities money, moreover he exploit and manipulate others he wanted to get all the power and want no advice from anyone, as he is more confident about his ideas and designs and he knows that can perform well without any help from his employees. Moreover, he has blind allegiance on his themes and ideas and he shows aggression towards his conventional thinking, moreover he outrages aggression towards his employees and don’t want their interference so these things defines the personality trait of the Piech and these personality traits do not contribute to a good person job fit as CEO of Volkswagen because a good fit person do not exhibit these kind of personality traits because these traits do not define a good communication with his employees whom he is leading because a good fit person should have good communication with his employees and he should not be oppressive towards his employees and also value and respect their idea and themes but he is opposite and does not provide hi employees with a good working environment in the industry (Gordon, 1994).These type of personality traits do not suit a person who is working in an organization with employees working under him because the employees want good and relaxing working environment to perform properly. So Piech does not exhibit good personality traits to be at the position of CEO for the Volkswagen Company. These are all the reasons that do not make him applicable for the position of CEO in Volkswagen (Hunter, 1982).

2. Hardly anyone would argue that Piech is not an authoritarian executive. Do you sense that he is Machiavellian as well? Do you think these characteristics will have a positive or negative impact on Volkswagen’s future? Explain your answer utilizing appropriate management approaches and theories.

A. From the case study it has been observed that Piech is not only an authoritarian executive but he is also a person with Machiavellian personality trait as well because all the characteristics of the Machiavellian reflects in the personality of the Piech. The Machiavellian personality traits characteristics include the following traits; the person is focused on his interests and ambitions and he prioritize money over any relation, they are confident in their decisions and they exploit other people to do not take any decisions and they can also lie and decisive when they require to do so and sometime they do flattery as well. All these characteristics reflect in the personality of the Piech. The leadership style adopted by Piech is the autocratic and the bureaucratic leadership style as these styles define the type of leader who is more focused on his objectives and is more efficient and he makes the decision on his own and expect the employees working under him to do exactly what they are commanded by the leader. These characteristics of Piech has negative impact on the Volkswagen’s future because he do not allow the employees to participate in any decision making and do not discuss any decisions and designs with his employees so in the future after he retired the company cannot cope up with the situations on his own because the company does not know how to deal with the tough situations and how to take the risks and decisions when it will face some downfalls. Moreover, the employees do not have any decision making power and as they were not allowed to take any decisions in the leadership of Piech. However, Piech should utilize the management strategy that will helpful to fulfill the motivational and the emotional needs of the company and the employees working in it and this will create good and positive environment fir the employees to work in the organization (Adorno, 2019).

3. Imagine that you are one of the “trusted” managers that Piech moved into a key position before his retirement. You are experiencing some cognitive dissonance about working long hours and investing significant resources in one of Piëch’s pet projects, a new luxury car model about whose success you have doubts. How might you resolve this issue?

A. If I am at the key position of one of the trusted managers of the Piech before his retirement and he ask me to work on some kind of project whose success has doubts then I will think about the project from my perspective and identify the consequences that might occur if this project started or if I could modify some changes in the design as well if I found any flaw’s in the design. But Piech has the authoritarian style and he wants hi employees to work according to his instructions and commands so it will be difficult for me to convince Piech upon my advices and ideas. I have to create a communication path between me and Piech and I have to improve my communication with Piech in order to share my ideas with him. I have to work according to his instructions but on the other hand I have to try to mitigate the communication barrier between both of us in order to share my idea with him and improve the design of the car so that there will be no doubt in the success of the car model. Moreover, I will suggest him that the new idea might be risky for the company and cannot profit the company if the company will move on with the new designs and the new models. But we should improve he old ideas of the company as in the past when we sell our signature models in the market they were more famous (Matthews, 2003). So by using new designs and new technologies we can modify and improve our old products and the designs and increasing only a little amount of price only 10% for the consumers so that the consumers buy more of the vehicles from our company and this will benefit the company with huge profits (Dulewicz, 2005).

Conclusion/Recommendations of Ferdinand Piech:

In the end it is concluded that at the person who is oppressive towards hi employees and who prefers to have the autocratic and bureaucratic leadership style will have negative effect on the company and on employees as well because this type of the style and the management effects the performance of the employees in the organization and they cannot perform with their full strength. Moreover, they cannot contribute in any discussion of the company and in any decision making process but the participation of the employees make the decision making process more effective and more innovative ideas can rise when the leader of the company allow its employees to participate in the decision-making process of the company. So all the above answers and the case study prove that the authoritarian personality traits and the Machiavellian personality traits have negative effects on the company and on the employees and the company cannot be successful when because of these kinds of the traits and the improper management styles. So the leaders should avoid these type of the personality traits and focus on maintain the communication between the leader and the employees as well.

References of Ferdinand Piech

Adorno, T. F.-B. (2019). The authoritarian personality. Verso Books .

Dulewicz, V. &. (2005). Assessing leadership styles and organisational context. Journal of Managerial Psychology , 105-123.

Gordon, A. T. (1994). Organizational stress and stress management programs. International Journal of Stress Management , 309-322.

Hunter, J. E. (1982). Machiavellian beliefs and personality: Construct invalidity of the Machiavellianism dimension. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 1293.

Matthews, G. D. (2003). Personality traits. Cambridge University Press.