Leadership's Impact On An Organization

Overall, General Motors’ success today can be accredited to the leadership that has been established, maintained, and embedded into the future of the company for years to come. Here, there has been many leaders and leadership styles involved in making the company so strong. From research done discussing Alfred Sloan, it is clear that a non-traditional, decentralized approach in a time period where all management styles were typically centralized could restructure a company and embed a system that is still followed today. Sloan carried the company through the recession by appealing to the need of the automotive industry. Curtice used a similar style of leadership as well. What could contribute to Curtice’s overall success the most is the emotional contagion that he created. After announcing the expansion, his confidence in the auto industry was seen spreading throughout the nation. His successful leadership style was more centralized, but he was still able to produce positive results.

Leadership contributes to both the organizations successes and failures. Leadership impacts the organization’s corporate culture, in the case of GM the problems related to their faulty ignition switches was due to the bureaucratic culture that management had fostered, resulting in employees concerns about vehicular safety not being addressed, leading to the bigger issues for the organization. Just like the wrong leadership can promote a toxic culture the right leadership can transform a toxic organization, and positive changes in GM’s corporate culture, though they likely still have a ways to go before reaching their goals for the organization's corporate culture.