Leadership Management: A case study of Nissan
The late nineties were a period in which Nissan was plagued by a plethora of immense management problems. The productivity of the organization was low and the company was struggling to survive in a highly competitive market. These catastrophic effects were rooted in a myriad of management problems at the organization namely, lack of participation, a climate of mistrust, poor communication lines, a culture of buck passing and the lack of authority being commensurate with responsibility. One of the key predictors of success in an organization is effective leadership and ineffective leadership at Nissan was a leading cause of the management problems. Nissan was having a leadership that was oriented towards one rigid style of management as opposed to a flexible leadership style. Leadership has been an integral part of research for many years because of the critical role it plays in determining organizational success (Hambrick & Mason, 1999).
A number of research studies have established that it is imperative for organizations to understand the role of leadership and more so leadership styles in determining organizational success (Benson, 1994). It is evident that Nissan needs to change their style of leadership if the company is to achieve organization success and establish a competitive edge in the automobile industry. With regard to a highly dynamic and competitive environment in which Nissan operates, this paper will argue the need for Nissan through Carlos Ghosn, to change its leadership approach from being rigid to being flexible so as to regain their productivity and gain a competitive edge.
2.0 Problem Identification
The problem identified is that Nissan had a rigid defective leadership orientation which led to a flawed organizational culture and ineffective chains of command. It is worth noting from the start that there are other factors affecting organizational success but leadership plays a critical role in influencing employee productivity. It cannot be argued that it is the role of a leader to set a vision and spearhead for a change in direction. History has shown that great flexible leaders like Paul Walton of Wal-Mart create great businesses while rigid mediocre leaders create mediocre businesses. The business environment is a melting pot of diversity where people have different values, opinions, cultural values, work habits ambitions and opinions. For organizations to achieve success it is imperative for individual goals to be subjugated for the greater individual goals. For Nissan employees diversity which has led to departmental segregation and consequent back passing and lack of collaboration must be managed in order to achieve Nissan’s organizational objectives and this can be done by a different leadership orientation under the guidance of a flexible leader (Hogan, Curphy, & Hogan, 1994).
A number of studies have shown that when employees participate in an organization’s operations they own a stake in it which increases productivity (Judge, Ilies, & Scott, 2006). Proctor &Gamble and Wellness health networks, for example have grown to become market leaders through participation approaches spearheaded by leaders in their organizations. In the case of Nissan it is noted that employees do not collaborate or communicate across departments and there generally have mistrust for each other. Subsequently employee productivity is low and buck passing is low as no one wants to bear responsibility. This is a problem because it is documented that interdepartmental communications and collaboration highly impacts on organizational success. It is also common knowledge that for delegation to be successful, employees who are assigned certain responsibilities must be given equal authority to implement the responsibility. Additionally, at Nissan the roles of managers are not clearly defined a factor that could lead to some duties not being done or an overlap of duties; an obvious leadership under sight which is obstructing productivity.
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