Leadership Styler

Individual Paper #1 Carlos Ghosn Marcia Dickerson BUSN 495

CARLOS GHOSN

Background: Born in Brazil March 9, 1954 to Lebanese parents. He completed his early education in Lebanon, then moved to Paris for higher education. Carlos spent 18 years with Michelin in Brazil and North America before being asked in 1999 by Renault CEO Louis Schweitzer to come aboard and get Nissan back on track. Carlos is currently the CEO and President of Renault of France and Nissan of Japan. He serves on the boards of Alcoa, Sony and IBM. Carlos is fluent in 6 languages which help in his cross cultural achievements.

Leadership Style: Democratic, Participative, Situational, Laissez-Faire “Leaders are not born, they are developed by other leaders”

What is leadership? The ability to influence the thinking, attitudes, and behavior of other people toward the achievement of goals. When Carlos was chosen to “turnaround” Nissan he went straight to the source, the people. He had to first make a diagnosis and in his own way that was by seeing the people at all levels of the company, so your picture of what is going on is as real and as precise as possible. This shows his democratic or participative style- he empowered his team to choose the means to achieve targets, he always welcomed suggestions from subordinates he walked around and listened to all the teams and then formed and overall opinion; he called this “active consensus” Consensus is very important because when you make a decision you need to move to action and if you want to go to action effectively, you need everyone on board. An “active consensus” means that either the one person convinces the nine others or vice versa. He provided challenges to perform better and at the same time made them realize that he trusted them and their capabilities. Change in the organizational culture should come from the...