Abstract
There are no doubts that Jack Welch, former Chief Executive Officer of General Electrics (GE), is internationally reputed for his extraordinary leadership style and business acumen within one of the most powerful American companies, more precisely, General Electrics. He definitely transformed GE into a prolific business and the company figures talk for themselves. During the two decades at the head of the company, GE grew from US$13 billion in 1981 to US$480 billion in 2000.
General Electrics (GE) is the second largest American company in terms of capitalization. GE has been driven by two of the most charismatic leaders of the end of the 20th Century and they both left their stamp in the strategic management of the company. Dedicated to numerous businesses, GE's portfolio is definitely diversified and offers a breadth of high technological products and services around the world to numerous customers, governments, other companies and individuals.
This paper is going to deal with Jack Welch's leadership and management styles and his own theories regarding leadership that saw him emerge as an extraordinary business leader for GE and one of the pioneers of leadership concepts.
Firstly, it would be judicious to define leadership; leadership is one of the great intangibles of the business world. Today, a leader understands that you have to give up part of the control to get results, so he acts like a coach and not as a boss. Successful leadership is not dependent on the position of a single universal pattern of inborn traits and abilities. According to Harry Truman: "a leader is a man who has the ability to get other people do or to do what they want to do and make them like it ".
Jack Welch, or John Francis Welch Junior, was born in Peabody, Massachusetts, U.S.A, in November 1935. He is the son of Grace Andrews and John Welch who was a railroad conductor. Jack Welch was married twice and divorced twice as well and has four children from his first marriage.
Concerning his education, he actually graduated in Chemistry from the University of Massachusetts and had a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois in 1959. One year after his graduation, he was Junior Engineer at GE until 1968 when he operated as Vice President and Head of GE Plastics until 1971. From 1971 to 1973, he was Vice President of Chemical and Metallurgical Division of GE and until 1977, he was Head of the Strategic Planning.
Tags: Jack Welch, GE globalization strategy, Jack Welch's leadership and management styles
