CEO Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

CEO Paper - Essay Example Iacocca had adequately displayed through his actions that he is a fair but firm manager; that he assumes full responsibility for his actions; that he is an optimist who seeks opportunities in the face of overwhelming problems; that he goads his managers into maintained discipline by requiring them to face the problem and make tough decisions; and finally that he is a leader as well as a manager. Iacocca admits to some shortcomings, such as giving in to the pressure of union demands in fear of bankruptcy, but there is no perfect executive. For all intents and purposes, Iacocca has demonstrated that he embodies the tenets of Henman, Drucker, Kotter, and Heifetz and Laurie. The theories are therefore validated, in so far as concerns the leadership style of Lee Iacocca. ... Iacocca was known for discontinuing certain models in favor of what turned out to be best sellers, namely the Mustang, the minivan, the Jeep Grand Cherokee, and the convertible Le Baron (Nulty & De Llosa, 1993; Taylor & Schonfeld, 1992). The following discussion explores the leadership style of Lee Iacocca, and how he manifests the leadership principles described by Henman, Drucker, Kotter, Heifetz and Laurie. F2 Leadership (Linda Henman, 2011) F2 is short for ‘firm but fair’ leadership, meaning that the executive treads the middle ground between relationship behavior on the one hand, and task accomplishment on the other (Strategy Driven, 2011). Evidence of Iacocca’s sense of fairness is his pronouncement when he first took over Chrysler that he would accept only $1 as his salary which the company was in distress, until such time as Chrysler would have recovered and been stewarded back to a firmly stable growth path. Iacocca admitted that as chairman, he was persu aded to give in a bit too much to the unions, and it showed weakness on his part. â€Å"I was part of that (giveaways to union contracts). You always knuckled under because if you took a 2-week strike in the old days, it could bankrupt you†¦But they really had you.. You can’t pay a janitor $50 or $60 an hour to sweep the floor. That’s a little wacko’ (Iacocca, quoted by Smith, 2006). However, when tough decisions had to be made, the Chrysler CEO did not balk. In order to save Chrysler from bankruptcy, Iacocca had persuaded the Federal government to extend to it a $1.5 billion loan guarantee in 1980. In 1983, seven years before its deadline, the company had fully paid off all federally backed loans. How Iacocca did this was by making some very difficult