Do some research to identify the characteristics and behaviors that made Welch so admired

Do some research to identify the characteristics and behaviors that made Welch so admired

One of the most renowned personalities in the field of business is Jack Welch. Jack Welch had excellent leadership skills that saw General Electric post 4000 percent growth. He introduced changes to the company, getting rid of communication barriers among employees, introduced succession planning, and made the tough decision to close down some profitable departments (Arthur et al., 2017).

Lesson 3 Pay & Compensation, strategic & Practical Approaches Essay

One of the leadership qualities that made Jack Welch successful was his passion for what he did. He was passionate and loved everything he did. A passionate leader is fully engaged and committed to achieving their goals while also helping others along the way. As a passionate leader, Welch had a profound understanding of his people; he was an outstanding communicator; he was resourceful; and had clarity of vision (Agarwal, 2017).

Welch also exhibited a culture of candor. Candor is defined as the quality of being open and honest in expression. He would talk bluntly and openly about what he believed was right without fear of contradiction. Candor is linked to increased performance and transparency and with this, Welch created a company with open lines of communication upwards; downwards and at all levels across the organization.

He was also insatiably curious. Jack would use smart, strategic, thoughtful, and targeted questions to get information to use it for the benefit of his organization (Fernández-Aráoz, 2020, March 3). With curiosity, Welch used it to unlock creative and innovative thinking among his employees. It also showed his desire to learn by being too inquisitive and voracious for knowledge.

Welch also brought positive energy to the workplace. As a result, his employees picked up on it and became more energized, helping GE to soar high in the market (Kuantan, 2015). This leadership behavior has a positive effect on workplace cohesion and productivity, making GE one of the most successful global companies.

One of the shortcomings of Jack Welch’s leadership style was his use of stack ranking, where he would fire the bottom 10 percent of the managers and employees of the company (Cappelli & Tavis, 2016). The metrics by which he used to categorize the employees in the bottom 10 percent up for firing were questionable. It was also a show of lack of empathy on his part.