Introduction
The selection of a leadership style by a company’s management plays a crucial role in pursuing organizational goals and encouraging performance excellence in the workforce. Indeed, since it is the employees who undertake the tasks within the business processes, it is essential to ensure that their leader possesses the proper skills, competencies, and strategies necessary to motivate, organize, monitor, and discipline their performance. In particular, in the contemporary context of competition based on innovation, leadership plays a crucial role in guiding the employees in a manner that maximizes their potential and helps them grow their professionalism alongside organizational development. In particular, according to Qi et al. (2019), “managers and scholars have increasingly emphasized the important influence of innovation on competitive advantage, sustainable development, and long-term organizational success” (para. 1). Thus, it is necessary to review some of the most popular leadership styles as applied to the organizational context of General Motors to identify their advantages and disadvantages. This paper will be focused on the evaluation of the Transformational and Inclusive Leadership styles from the perspective of their capability to ensure the firm’s meeting of its goals and organizational objectives.
Transformational Leadership
Firstly, the Transformational Leadership style is one of the most frequently used theories of leadership in multiple business spheres. This approach entails the active participation of a leader in the performance of the employees through their inspiration and encouraged change toward the needs of the workforce and the company. In particular, as stated by Saleh et al. (2018), “transformational leadership happens when leaders become wider and uphold the interests of the employees, once they generate awareness and acceptance for the purpose and assignment of the group, so when they blend employees to appear beyond their own self-interest for the good of the group” (p. 3). In other words, the transformational approach prioritizes collective efforts over individual ones in order to pursue organizational goals and achievement. In this regard, a leader using this style is considered a role model, an intellectual facilitator, and an inspirator whose behavior is idealized due to the necessity of setting positive examples among employees (Saleh et al., 2018). Overall, transformational leadership allows for yielding successful organizational change by means of the leader’s active involvement in the processes that lie beyond their responsibilities to ignite inspiration in the followers.
As stated before, the choice of a leadership style when managing a large organization predetermines the opportunities for influencing people in a correct way so that their performance aligns with the overall organizational goals. Research suggests that the implementation of Transformational Leadership approaches in an organizational setting allows for achieving successful outcomes and competitive advantages for the business entities (Saleh et al., 2018). Thus, when discussing the advantages of this leadership style within the context of General Motors, one might state that the Transformational Leadership style is effective in motivating employees to perform to the fullest of their professional potential. In the context of General Motors, this approach might have positive outcomes due to the prioritization of motivation and engagement of the workforce to ensure competitive advantages of the corporation (“Form 10-K,” 2020). Thus, the ability of the leader to motivate and inspire the employees is a positive feature due to its potential to ignite proactive change in an organization.
Another significant advantage of this leadership approach in the context of General Motors is the ability of a leader to generate new ideas and yield effective problem-solving by means of group work. Indeed, the teams’ engagement triggered by this leadership style allows for focusing on the areas that need change and applying resources to find effective solutions (Saleh et al., 2018). Moreover, the Transformational Leadership style is particularly important in a time of change, which is an immediate characteristic of the contemporary, rapidly developing business world. The consolidation of followers around the leader who sets the example to follow and unfolds the potential of employees is applicable to General Motors, which functions in the global market and has to address continuous changes (“Form 10-K,” 2020). Thus, these advantages allow for characterizing the Transformational Leadership style as effective in times of change, given that the leader is actively involved in all the processes and is closely connected with their followers.
Apart from the advantages and positive outcomes the Transformational Leadership style might have in the context of General Motors company, it is characterized by significant disadvantages. In particular, since General Motors is a global corporation, it seems difficult to implement the Transformational Leadership approaches on the full scale to reach all employees. Moreover, it predetermines the existence of a defined hierarchy within the company, which might limit the opportunities for free innovative processes, which are highly valued in the corporate culture of General Motors (“Form 10-K,” 2020). In addition, as stated by Saleh et al. (2018), this leadership style is “too focused on big ideas, thus, the leader ignores the problems that lead to them” (p. 3). Therefore, this style does not provide necessary benefits for General Motors in its everyday operations when small tasks and particular business processes need to be accomplished. Conclusively, despite its advantages, the Transformational Leadership style might not be properly applied to the context of General Motors since it shows limited benefits for an innovation-driven global corporation.
Inclusive Leadership
Secondly, another leadership style that is relevant to consider in the context of General Motors is the Inclusive Leadership approach. When the Inclusive Leadership style was first introduced to the field of management in 2006, it was defined as a combination of “words and deeds by a leader or leaders that indicate an invitation and appreciation for others’ contributions” (Qi et al., 2019, para. 5). As the title implies, this way of leading a company entails the inclusion of different populations of employees to meet the needs and requirements of an organization maximizing the contribution of each follower. In particular, Inclusive Leadership “refers to leaders who exhibit openness, accessibility, and availability in their interactions with their followers” (Osland, 2019, p. 147). Moreover, this style of leadership allows a leader to be proactive and avert crises by engaging employees to find creative solutions in advance (Chang, Ma, and Lin, 2022). Overall, this leadership style is a highly effective, contemporary, and proactive way of leading multinational corporations toward competitive advantage based on innovation and creativity.
The contemporary appeal and popularity of the Inclusive Leadership style in the modern business allow for focusing on its multiple benefits. In particular, one of the main benefits of this approach to organizational leadership is that it encourages employee innovative behavior (Qi et al., 2019). The issue of innovation and technological advancement is particularly important for General Motors since it competes in the industry of automotive vehicle manufacturing with other rivals prioritizing innovative solutions (“Form 10-K,” 2020). Thus, Inclusive Leadership allows General Motors to maximize its talent’s potential to generate innovative solutions by encouraging bold decisions.
In addition, the Inclusive Leadership style’s advantage for General Motors is related to its facilitation of recognition and sensitivity toward a diverse workforce. Indeed, since General Motors operates across six continents, its leadership’s ability to address the particularities of the cultures, genders, and identities contributing to the firm’s success is vital. Overall, as “the globalization trend continues, multinational companies recognize that leaders must learn to be effective in cross-cultural environments” (Sukri and Shasrini, 2020, p. 1). Therefore, the inclusion of each individual in a diverse workforce with the priority set on talent-based contribution is a significant leadership facilitator of the company’s performance excellence. Moreover, the communication with employees is open, effective, and professional, which helps a leader motivate the contribution of each individual and apply their potential in the right direction (Fang et al., 2019; Korkmaz et al., 2022). In addition, a leader of General Motors is highly reliant on the effectiveness of the leadership style to ignite feelings of belongingness and purpose in each individual serving the goals of such a large corporation.
However, there are several disadvantages characterizing the Inclusive Leadership style. In particular, it neglects the strictness of organizational hierarchy, which might jeopardize the premises of subordination (Sukri and Shasrini, 2020). Nonetheless, in the context of General Motors, the corporate culture benefits from free communication and openness of the leadership, which maximizes trust, engagement, and retention (“Form 10-K,” 2020). Another possible disadvantage is the threat of blurring the distinctions between the responsibilities of a leader and their subordinates, which might hinder performance. However, it is unlikely to disrupt the overall innovative processes inside the corporation due to the high level of workforce commitment. Thus, despite minor disadvantages, Inclusive Leadership might be highly effective when applied to General Motors.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the review and evaluation of leadership styles from the perspective of their advantages and disadvantages for General Motors has demonstrated that the Inclusive Leadership style is better applicable to the organizational particularities of the firm than the Transformational Leadership style. Overall, the multinational company operating in a highly competitive business environment is driven by competition, innovation, and a continuously developing workforce. For that matter, it is essential that the leadership motivates, encourages, and engages the employees in creative and innovative solutions. In this regard, the Inclusive Leadership style provides a CEO with the opportunities to involve each employee’s potential and empower talent for unconventional and efficient solutions. On the contrary, the Transformational Leadership style limits the opportunities for yielding innovation and creativity due to its limited attention to rules and routine procedures, use of power, and necessity of continuous performance monitoring. Thus, with the use of the Inclusive Leadership style, General Motors will be able to manage its global corporation in an efficient manner, allowing for employees’ innovative contribution to the competitive advantage of the corporation in the global automotive industry.
Reference List
Chang, P.C., Ma, G. and Lin, Y.Y. (2022) ‘Inclusive leadership and proactive employee behavior: a cross-level moderated mediation model’, Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 15, pp. 1797-1808.
Fang, Y.C. et al. (2019) ‘The impact of inclusive leadership on employees’ innovative behaviors: the mediation of psychological capital’, Frontiers in Psychology, 10, pp. 1-11.
Form 10-K (2020) Web.
Korkmaz, A.V. et al. (2022) ‘About and beyond leading uniqueness and belongingness: a systematic review of inclusive leadership research’, Human Resource Management Review, 32(4). pp. 1-20.
Osland, M. (2019) ‘21st century: change, leadership, and women’ in Albrecht, D. et al. (eds.) Leadership as we know it. Leadership Education Books, pp. 141-151.
Qi, L. et al. (2019) ‘Impact of inclusive leadership on employee innovative behavior: perceived organizational support as a mediator’, PloS One, 14(2), p. e0212091. Web.
Saleh, R.M.M. et al. (2018) ‘Leadership in the organization: a conceptual review’, International Journal of Management and Human Science, 2(4), pp. 52-59.
Sukri, A. and Shasrini, T. (2020) ‘Leadership style of multinational corporations: a brief review’, International Journal of Media and Communication Research, 1(1), pp. 1-11.