Essay on Ford Motors: A Bold New Vision for Leadership, Teamwork, and Negotiation

Introduction

This paper is a representation of a new vision I would develop for Ford Motors Company as the newly appointed Chief Executive Officer. It seeks to explore, in-depth practices that include leadership, teamwork management, conflict, and negotiation. Also, it is a tool that aims at setting the direction for the company and fueling innovation and unity in the various development teams.

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Massive developments are occurring here at our company which has put us in the top ranks of motor-related companies and the corporate world in general. However, a new strategy is required given the rapidly changing times we are now living in. There is a notable shift in the lifestyles and trends, with new upcoming challenges that need to be resolved. Our company seeks to become the world's most recognized company with new affordable vehicle designs that will facilitate freedom of movement.

Moreover, we are aimed, through excellent leadership, at developing innovations in the motor world that will contribute positively to the community and the entire Ford's workforce. We are aiming to launch, through technological and innovative efforts, self-driving vehicles by the year 2024. The company hope, in the next five years, to double the net income from last year's $3.67 billion to $7 billion (Makri and Terri 82). Besides, with the increase in demand for efficient transport, we seek to move our production to electricity-driven automobiles. To achieve all this, then there must be factors that must be keenly adjusted.

Leadership

In the year 2006, after 103 complete years of production of the world's best automobiles, ford faced a financial crisis involving an annual loss of up to $13 billion (Friedman 23). The company was at its worst and the brink of bankruptcy. The situation attributed to the leadership since, after the change of leaders that year, Ford regained its name and state. It serves to show that without good leadership, the other significant elements of a company cease to function correctly, and in turn, the vision will be unachievable. Influential leaders are the leading cause of maximization of productivity of a company while weak ones jeopardize a company since they influence, inspire, innovate, and initiate development. Ford Motors, like any other company, has many departments all who are under day-to-day (transactional) leadership and long-run vision-based leadership (transformational). These leaders are the foundation for the success of the company. Hence to achieve our goal, we have to apply some leadership strategies to guide us through.

The greatest leaders are uniquely committed to development and refinement through continuous education, networking, and practical application of knowledge. This also includes sharing knowledge with others. Thus, the company intends to, by next year come up with education programs for the leaders of each section in ford motors. These programs will be expected to boost confidence and the skills of good leadership such as honesty, communication, commitment, and decision-making capabilities.

Another way the company shall enrich the leadership, ensuring proper feedback delivery to the transactional leaders. Regular feedback provision is very crucial in the practice of every leader. Better systems of connection between leaders for better communication and feedback delivery will be established.

All the leaders in Ford motors should then learn how to utilize both the Task orientation and people orientation leadership behaviors keenly. For high-level leaders, task orientation is the most appropriate behavior. This is a behavior that assists in the achievement of targets and goals set upon a leader. It involves practical goal setting, a clear path to objective completion, schedules, deadlines, and production of desired results. The people-oriented management (relationship-oriented) style is crucial too because it serves to energize and appreciate the employees. This style focuses on motivation, satisfaction, and wellbeing of the workers. It improves the employee relationship, and it makes them feel they can make a sound difference

The company hopes to put into use Robert J. Houses' Path-Goal theory in leadership in driving its vision agendas. This theory assumes the leader willingly complements his subordinates and also compensates them for shortcomings (Groves 246). The effective leaders provide their workers with a well-indicated path that they should follow to achieve the overall goals. This theory will give leaders ways to support and encourage their subordinates.

Ford Motors seeks to be the most trusted automobile company and to achieve this; the leaders have to be ethical. Ethical leaders are bold when doing what is right no matter the consequences that follow. A moral leader is one who places his followers' interests before his or her interests. The leader should also be fair and just and must treat all his subordinates with equality. There should be no bias in any treatment, and if any unequal treatment occurs, the ground for such should be fair and built on morality. Every leader in Ford Motors should respect other workers' decisions, values, and feelings. He or she should not use the subordinates as a medium to achieve personal interests.

Work Teams

By consistently encouraging employees' ideas for improvement, Ford hopes to pool knowledge that will enable it to boost its competitive edge. The company is currently in fierce competition worldwide with companies such as General motors. Ford is a global company, and it is divided into three regional geographical divisions that make up the entire ford market. Each of these has different functional groups that include global marketing, sales, Quality and new model launch, global purchasing, communications, finance, and comprehensive product development (Sundstrom et al. 210).

Ford intends to face the competition through the use of problem-solving and cross-functional schemes. Problem-solving teams will be created by picking of individuals from the company and grouping them to develop solutions. These teams will create forums in which ideas of significant impact on the company's profits can be improved. This initiative aims to capture and utilize suggestions from various groups of our company. The company is aiming to create cross-functional teams made up of individuals from the eleven organizational departments. These teams will focus on how to appropriately handle electrification of our automobiles, customer relations around the globe, and other tasks.

Teams are majorly used to accomplish the tasks that are complex or too large and thus require a very diverse set of expertise and skills. Through permanent and temporary teams, everyone is encouraged to have their unique say, in terms of appraising others' ideas. Teaming up people makes each person act as owners and thus fueling creativity and motivation among workers. The company will reap many benefits from the use of teamwork.

Teamwork will increase efficiency and speed of work since teams use a combination of skills and efforts of individuals. This implies that they can achieve more than one person can while working alone.

Effective Teams Will Have To Be Developed

The first step is to ensure the right mix of personality and skills in a group. The success of each team entirely depends on the people within it, and as such, the team should have hardworking and talented individuals. However, the best team must at all costs have the right balance and requisite skills to enhance the delivery of quality products. Hence, the importance of diversity and personality should not be overlooked.

After the right mix has been achieved, resources such as funds and technological resources are then provided. The allocation of resources will curb the instances of collapse the projects due to inadequate resources. Each team will need to come up with a well-identified plan that directs them to the final goal. To ensure the management of the teams, then a leader must be identified. He or she has the role of defining the functions of the members, address problems and issues in the group. Besides, the leader has the task of providing a sense of direction and efficacy to the subjects.

For the teams to properly function, every member must be ready to contribute to the group ideas, learn and teach others. Besides that, he or she must be committed to the team and willing to handle any task given by the team leader

Conflict and Negotiation

A conflict is a disagreement between two opposing groups or individuals. Disputes are common between parties in Ford Motors, just like any other organization. Past conflicts have arisen, for example, poor design of the Pinto which led to several deaths from 1972, only for the vehicles to be recalled in 1979 (De Dreu and Annelies 312). Other cars had safety-related defects that led to recalls in 2000. As the new Chief Executive Officer, Ford's vision concerning conflicts will be having a quick response to conflict and subsequent conflict resolution.

All vehicle designs would focus on social, economic, and environmental sustainability. This would go a long way in avoiding conflicts that result from unsustainable models. Ford would make vehicles based on customer requirements as opposed to making unilateral decisions. Involving the clients in determining the cars to make would highly reduce conflicts between Ford Motors and its clients, and as a result, the vehicles would be fast selling.

Inter-organizational conflicts between Ford Motors and its competitors can also be handled by solving the disputes away from the public eyes. This would involve sit-ins with the rival firms to settle differences and discuss ways to make the automotive industry grow for the benefits of both firms. The result of this will be creative innovation rather than dysfunctional conflicts.

Disagreements between work team can be resolved by having a precise outlay for conflict resolution. There will be ground rules set regarding working space and the process to follow when conflicts arise. Conflicts that occur between members of the same team should be made known to the team leader. The team leader should then call for a meeting between the opposing members and listen to both sides of the story. The team leader should then suggest amicable solutions, and the two conflicting parties should settle on how to solve the differences. In cases where the disagreements are severe and cannot be handled by the team leader, the human resource personnel takes over. The team leaders should solve conflicts between teams in a private meeting with the Chief Executive Officer.

In the new vision, effective negotiations will be crucial. There will be training on practical negotiation skills, especially to the purchasing workforce. This will ensure that Ford gets the best prices on the parts it buys from other automobile industries as well as for essential service provision. The organizational culture should be that the suppliers and primary service providers revise their terms of supply after every financial year. In cases where the terms and conditions are not feasible for Ford, bids will be invited for new suppliers with better terms.

Ford Motors hopes to embrace integrative bargaining with United Auto Workers. This is mainly to agree on best health care provision, reasonable pay, profit sharing, creation of new jobs as well as emerging issues on temporary workers. This will aid in boosting the employee's confidence by making them involved in the decision making the process for the firm hence reduce employee turnover rate. The conditions agreed upon, however, should be feasible to the company as well, not just benefiting the employees at the loss of the company. Negotiations will be applied in conflict resolution by promoting negotiations between the conflicting parties to settle...