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Leadership Research Paper Managing Across The Organization

Introduction

The business climate in today’s global economy is ever-changing and more competitive than perhaps any time in the world’s history. Companies now face a myriad of challenges that constantly are changing. The key to dealing with such change has remained constant, however; the most successful companies feature strong leadership and a driven, educated workforce. In this day and age, keeping strong leadership in place can be a tricky situation. Companies such as 3M and Chrysler have endured significant leadership changes and in the process encountered an entirely new set of challenges in the process.
The business simulation Managing Across the Organization focused on many of these situational struggles as well. Good Sport was a company that was on the cutting edge of their niche in sports equipment, yet they too endured leadership change as well as departmental resistance to new ideas and overcame these issues to remain a success. The user of the simulation, based on their decisions, moved up through the company rapidly, which in itself presented another challenge.
The following analysis was conducted to examine the key concepts the simulation focused on that are shared by companies in today’s landscape. The companies reviewed range from Chrysler and Ben & Jerry’s to Apple and Wal-Mart. The analysis will examine the challenges each company had, how leadership was affected or handled the situation, and the subsequent factors that were involved. The report will also compare and contrast the companies’ situations to each other as well as identify the key concepts used for this analysis.

Chrysler
“Involvement only occurs en masse when employees identify with the overall culture of the company” (Goldsmith & Clutterbuck, 1985). Organizational culture is the shared assumptions, beliefs, and norms of a group. A strong organizational culture often leads to a strong company with a closely knit employee base. Although today’s business world dictates...