A comprehensive Islamic guideline for leadership. Business success of Haier. Story of Haier CEO. How he becomes a most influence CEO in current area and lead Haier to next industry era by introducing Ren Den Hi. 

1. Leadership in Islamic Context

3. Defining Leadership in Islam
"Each of you is a guardian,
and each of you will be
asked about his subjects."
(Al-Bukhari)
Hadith
2 a person or a group that will lead
humanity from the brink of
destruction to the way of Allah
the Almighty
Morshed Abul ‘Ala
Scholar
1
"It is He Who hath made you (His) agents,
inheritors of the earth: He hath raised you in
ranks, some above others: that He may try
you in the gifts He hath given you: for thy Lord
is quick in punishment: yet He is indeed Oft-
forgiving, Most Merciful"
(Al-An’am 6: 165)
‫میں‬ ‫زمین‬ ‫کو‬ ‫تم‬ ‫نے‬ ‫جس‬ ‫ہے‬ ‫ایسا‬ ‫وه‬ ‫اور‬‫خلیفہ‬‫اور‬ ‫بنایا‬
‫بڑھایا‬ ‫رتبہ‬ ‫پر‬ ‫دوسرے‬ ‫کا‬ ‫ایک‬‫ان‬ ‫آزمائے‬ ‫کو‬ ‫تم‬ ‫تاکہ‬
‫جلد‬ ‫رب‬ ‫کا‬ ‫آپ‬ ‫بالیقین‬ ‫ہیں۔‬ ‫دی‬ ‫کو‬ ‫تم‬ ‫جو‬ ‫میں‬ ‫چیزوں‬
‫وا‬ ‫دینے‬ ‫سزا‬‫ﻻ‬‫واقعی‬ ‫وه‬ ‫بالیقین‬ ‫اور‬ ‫ہے‬‫مغفرت‬ ‫بڑی‬
‫وا‬ ‫کرنے‬‫ﻻ‬‫وا‬ ‫کرنے‬ ‫مہربانی‬‫ﻻ‬‫ہے‬

4. Leadership in Qur’an
6.165 (Al-Anaam)43.32 (Az-Zukhruf) 22.41 (Al-Hajj)
321 Is it they who would
portion out the Mercy of
thy Lord? It is We Who
portion out between them
their livelihood in the life
of this world: and We
raise some of them above
others in ranks, so that
some may command
work from others. But the
Mercy of thy Lord is
better than the (wealth)
which they amass.
‫کیا‬‫آپ‬‫کے‬‫رب‬‫کی‬‫رحمت‬‫کو‬‫یہ‬
‫تقسیم‬‫کرتے‬‫ہیں؟‬‫ہم‬‫نے‬‫ہی‬‫ان‬‫کی‬
‫ٴ‬‫زندگانی‬‫دنیا‬‫کی‬‫روزی‬‫ان‬‫میں‬‫تقسیم‬
‫کی‬‫ہے‬‫اور‬‫ایک‬‫کو‬‫دوسرے‬‫سے‬‫بلند‬
‫کیا‬‫ہے‬‫تاکہ‬‫ایک‬‫دوسرے‬‫کو‬‫ماتحت‬
‫کر‬‫لے‬‫جسے‬‫یہ‬‫لوگ‬‫سمیٹتے‬‫پھرتے‬
‫ہیں‬‫اس‬‫سے‬‫آپ‬‫کے‬‫رب‬‫کی‬‫رحمت‬
‫بہت‬‫ہی‬‫بہتر‬‫ہے‬
tIt is He Who hath made
you (His) agents,
inheritors of the earth: He
hath raised you in ranks,
some above others: that
He may try you in the
gifts He hath given you:
for thy Lord is quick in
punishment: yet He is
indeed Oft-forgiving, Most
Merciful.
‫کو‬ ‫تم‬ ‫نے‬ ‫جس‬ ‫ہے‬ ‫ایسا‬ ‫وه‬ ‫اور‬
‫میں‬ ‫زمین‬‫بنایا‬ ‫خلیفہ‬‫ک‬ ‫ایک‬ ‫اور‬‫ا‬
‫بڑھایا‬ ‫رتبہ‬ ‫پر‬ ‫دوسرے‬‫تم‬ ‫تاکہ‬
‫تم‬ ‫جو‬ ‫میں‬ ‫چیزوں‬ ‫ان‬ ‫آزمائے‬ ‫کو‬
‫رب‬ ‫کا‬ ‫آپ‬ ‫بالیقین‬ ‫ہیں۔‬ ‫دی‬ ‫کو‬
‫وا‬ ‫دینے‬ ‫سزا‬ ‫جلد‬‫ﻻ‬‫اور‬ ‫ہے‬
‫مغفرت‬ ‫بڑی‬ ‫واقعی‬ ‫وه‬ ‫بالیقین‬
‫وا‬ ‫کرنے‬‫ﻻ‬‫وا‬ ‫کرنے‬ ‫مہربانی‬‫ﻻ‬
‫ہے‬
t(They are) those who, if
We establish them in the
land, establish regular
prayer and give regular
charity, enjoin the right
and forbid wrong: with
Allah rests the end (and
decision) of (all) affairs.
‫زمین‬ ‫ہم‬ ‫اگر‬ ‫کہ‬ ‫ہیں‬ ‫لوگ‬ ‫وه‬ ‫یہ‬
‫کے‬ ‫ان‬ ‫میں‬‫دیں‬ ‫جما‬ ‫پاؤں‬‫یہ‬ ‫تو‬
‫پوری‬‫نمازیں‬ ‫سے‬ ‫پابندی‬‫قائم‬
‫کریں‬‫تیں‬ ٰ‫زکو‬ ‫اور‬‫اور‬ ‫دیں‬‫اچھے‬
‫کریں‬ ‫حکم‬ ‫کا‬ ‫کاموں‬‫اور‬‫برے‬
‫کاموں‬‫تمام‬ ‫کریں۔‬ ‫منع‬ ‫سے‬
‫اختیار‬ ‫کے‬ ‫ہللا‬ ‫انجام‬ ‫کا‬ ‫کاموں‬
‫ہے‬ ‫میں‬

5. Leadership in Hadith
“I order you of five things: to be with Al Jamaah, to listen (to the
leaders), to obey (the leader’s orders), Hijrah (migration) and Jihad .”
(Ahmad , Tirmizi)
“Whenever three of you are traveling, you should elect one as your
leader.”
(Abu Dawood)
“Whosoever obeyed the leader, he obeyed me and whosoever
disobeyed the leader, he disobeyed me.”
(Muslim)
2
3
1

6. Importance of
Islamic Leadership
Every movement has a need for leadership
Importance of leadership is like the engine of
a train
Only Islamic leadership can solve the
problems of humanity . . . .

7. Muslim Leadership
Model

8. Difference between
Secular & Sacred Leadership
• Secular
leadership's
target is self-
establishment.
• Secular
leaderships work
for the respect
of people
• Islamic
Leadership's target
is Jannatul Firdaws
(Highest position in
Paradise)
• Islamic
Leaderships work
for the pleasure of
Allah
SacredSecular
not
connected
with
religious or
spiritual
matters
connected with
God or a god or
dedicated to a
religious
purpose and so
deserving
veneration
‫مقدس‬‫سیکولر‬

9. CEO

10. 1.0 Introduction
2.0 Synopsis of the movie
2.1 Storyline
2.2 Introduction of the
leaders
2.3 Leader’s role
3.0 Incidents
3.1 Contexts of the incidents
3.2 Behavior and
characteristics of the leader
3.2.1 Leader’s characteristics
3.2.2 Leader’s behavior
 4.0 Leadership effectiveness
 4.1 Behavior style of the leadership and
the effectiveness
 4.2 Capabilities as change agent and the
effectiveness
 4.2.1 Concept of the change agent
 4.2.2 Capability as the change agent and
its effectiveness
 4.3 Effectiveness of leadership behavior
 5.0 Decision making incidents
 5.1 Executive summaries of two incidents
 5.2 Analysis on leadership roles
(leadership involvement and decision
making)
 6.0 Incidents analysis
 7.0 Conclusion

12. 1.0 Introduction
I. This essay is mainly about the leadership in the movie named
CEO. It develops a discussion from five major aspects.
II. leader’s background.
III. Incidents referring to the leader’s behavior and characteristics.
IV. leadership effectiveness
I. leadership behaviors based on Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Theory.
II. leader’s role as the change agent.
V. Decision making
VI. Visionary

13. Synopsis of the movie
• 2.1 Storyline
• The movie is named CEO, in which the main character is called Linmin who is the new
director of Qingdao refrigerator factory of China, which is a collectively-owned factory
facing bankrupt. To save the factor, Linmin decided to bring in one of the refrigerator
production line from Liebherr Company in German. After brought in the production line,
Linmin tried every means to train his staff to work professionally. With several years’ hard
work, Haier refrigerator made by Qingdao refrigerator factory won the first golden metal of
high quality products in the Chinese history of refrigerator making. Due to his sharp eyes,
Linmin caught the supportive policy of Chinese central government for collective enterprise
to carry out the diversification strategies and built the later famous Haier industrial park. At
the year 1995, the Haier Industrial Park was completed and put into production. Linmin
came up with the continuous development strategies to enhance the development pace of
this factory.
• At the same time Haier Group whose former name is Qingdao refrigerator factory also
implemented a series of international expansion strategy oriented in European market.
And then after the successful launch in European market, Haier group began to expand to
American market via build its factory in America.
• At the end of the movie, Linmin gave a speech to the Haier employees that it is the
responsibility for all the Chinese people to work hard in order to realize the dream of
revitalizing national industry.

16. • 2.2 Introduction of the leaders
• In the movie, CEO, Linmin is the main role and also the leader of
Haier Group, who got the MBA degree from the Science and
Technology University of China in the year 1995 and holds the title of
senior economist at the present. In the movie, Limning took the role
as the director of the Qingdao Refrigerator Factory and successfully
transformed the small and ailing factory with collective-system-base
into a business giant in China with the fully support from his well
built followership which becomes the major reason why choosing
him as the target people in this essay.

17. • 2.3 Leader’s role
• Leaders, like all individuals, can differ significantly in their
personalities, attitudes, values, and thinking styles and in the book of
‘the leadership experience’ Daft (2008) presented three types
leadership roles such as operational role, collaborative role and
advisory role. Operational role is the closest to a traditional, vertically
oriented management role, in which the leader control over the
working staff and resources directly to achieve business goals. The
collaborative role is more horizontal and includes people such as the
project manager, matrix managers and team leaders in nowadays’
more horizontally organized firms. Leaders in the advisory role often
offer guidance and support to the staff and departments in the
organization.

18. • Based on the above definition of the leadership roles, we can infer
that the leadership role which Linmin plays in the movie is more like
the operational role. For example, he set goals such as the
diversification strategies and international expansion strategies,
established plans such as the plan of building Haier industrial park to
assist the expansion strategies, got things down primarily through
the vertical hierarchy and properly used his position power to direct
the well function of Haier group (Daft 2008).
• Generally speaking, Linmin as a successful operation leader is typical
analytical and knowledgeable, especially he owns the capacity to
translate his knowledge and wisdom into the vision that has attracted
a great many excellent followers to support him, such as the nimble
and competent engineer Xiang Hua, intelligent sales executive Yang
Yang with great courage and passion, the talented chief designer and
other outstanding talents.

19. 3.0 Incidents
• 3.1 Contexts of the incidents
• There are so many incidents indicating Linmin’s leadership style, from which this essay will present two of them in the following.
• One scenario is breaking the 76 refrigerators with quality problems. At that period, refrigerator was nearly the luxury goods for most of the
Chinese customers, but Liming insisted to ask the direct responsible workers to break the 76 refrigerators with quality problems. When all the
workers with tears in their eyes begged him to allow them to buy these refrigerators instead of breaking them, Linmin gave a shocked statement
to these people that we are accustomed to sell the high quality products to the foreign counties but leaving these inferior quality products to
ourselves, whether we are inferior to these foreign people? The high standard should begin with us via the strict requirements on ourselves. All of
the working staff were shocked and moved by his statement and wielded the hammers to break the 76 refrigerators with quality problems. And
after this, all of the workers in the refrigerator factory began to be strict with them so much and there were few quality problems existing in the
products from then on.
• The other scenario is the battle with AE Group, which is the biggest global appliance maker with headquarters in America. Faced with the trick
that the AE Group was planning to hinder the expansion of Chinese products in American market via the way of anti-dumping, Ling was alert
enough and realized it was important for Haier Group to speed up its pace of localization in order to gain more market share in the global market.
Under such guidance, Linmin began to prepare for the new factory construction actively and finally chose the economy most developed country –
South Carolina State of America as the first site of Hailer’s oversea factory even he received several counterviews from the subordinated at the
beginning. And Linmin also presented his special opinion on the case of building oversea factory: the reason why we chose America as the first
site for our oversea factory is because its most developed economy and technology which we can not only gain a considerable foreign currency
income to uphold the future development of Haier Group but also learn the advanced technology to refuel our enterprise to have a better
performance in the products quality.
• Besides the above incidents, there is also another scenario worth mentioning. When one of his capable assistant- the translator was planning to
leave, because he thought Haier Group had no future, Linmin gave him an inspiring statement that you may get a job with high-income by leaving
our group, but you can’t gain the passion and a sense of achievement from starting business by ourselves. Such kind of persuasion finally made
this talent decide to stay in Haier Group.
• In addition, Linmin also successfully encouraged three of his promising subordinates to win their self confidence and achieve their success. For
instance, when two of his designers were lack of confidence to design a large number of high quality refrigerators within a short period, he
encouraged them, “You shouldn’t say I will try, you must say I can do it because you can”, which largely enhance the confidence of the two
talented designers and helped them fulfill the task. And when the fresh employee, Yang Yang, doubted her capability to open up the oversea
market for Haier Group, Linmin said, “ You must believe yourself because you have already receive half a year’s proper train from us.” And the
later fact proved Linmin’s insight in picking his followers and persuasion power that Yang Yang successfully helped Haier Group expand into the
European market.

20. 3.2 Behavior and characteristics of the leader
• Leadership characteristics are the distinguishing characteristics of a
leader including the intelligence, honesty, self-confidence, and even
the appearance (Sugarman n.d) and Daft (2010) advocates six major
characteristics of leadership such as physical characteristics including
the aspect of leaders’ energy and physical stamina, intelligence and
ability including leaders’ intelligence, cognitive ability, knowledge,
judgment and decisiveness, personality including self-confidence,
honesty and integrity, enthusiasm, desire to lead as well we
independence, social characteristics including sociability,
interpersonal skills, cooperativeness, ability to enlist cooperation,
tact and diplomacy of the leaders, work-related characteristics
including achievement to drive, desire to excel, conscientiousness in
pursuit of goals, persistence against obstacles and tenacity of leaders,
and social background including leaders’ education and mobility.

21. • Based on the movie, we can get the characteristics of Linmin can be divided
into four aspects. Referring to the leaders’ characteristics of intelligence and
ability, Linmin well annotate it. He is knowledgeable, visionary and decisive
which were expressed from his decision to break the 76 refrigerators with
quality problems, gather money to expand Haier’s business into
international market on the basis of proper analyzing the broad developing
prospects of Haier Group. In terms of personality, Linmin was full of self-
confidence and enthusiasm, which were disclosed from his belief and
passion about the success of the expansion strategy, as he said only the
dreamers own the opportunities to realize their dreams. Related to the
social characteristics aspect, Linmin has owned well developed interpersonal
skills, for instance he could persuade his subordinates from resisting the plan
of breaking the 76 refrigerators and the expansion plans to fully agree and
devote them to supporting his decision. And in the area of work-related
characteristics, Linmin showed a high degree of conscientiousness in pursuit
goals that he decisively rejected the invitation of merger with AE corporate
under the great temptation of power and money only due to the dream of
revitalizing the national industry of China.

22. 3.2.2 Leader’s behavior
• As Hughes, et al. (2006) advocated the behavior of leaders are a function of
intelligence, personality traits, emotional intelligence, values, attitudes,
interests, knowledge as well as experience. And on the basis of the above
scenario, Linmin’s behaviors as a leader like the following.
• At first, Linmin set clear expectations about the performance of its
subordinates such as he presented challenges to his promising subordinates
via show supportiveness and concern for their development. Secondly, in the
management practice, Linmin successfully create the proper Haier culture
with distinctive Chinese characteristics and the orientation of
competitiveness inside the Haier Group via his deliberate understanding the
essence of traditional Chinese culture as well as the modern western
management thoughts, which shows in the successful expansion Haier’s
business in the European and American market with the maintenance of
distinctive Haier’s culture essence and the successfully promotion the
working morale of his subordinates via the case of breaking 76 refrigerators
and persuading, communicating with the three promising employees.

23. 4.0 Leadership effectiveness
• 4.1 Behavior style of the leadership and the effectiveness
• The situational theory proposed by Hersey and Blanchard focuses on
a great deal of attention on the characteristics of followers in
determining proper leadership behavior as figure 1.0 shows. The
point for this theory is that subordinated vary in their readiness level.
And according to this theory a leader could adopt four types of
leadership behaviors such as telling style, selling style, participating
style and delegating style on the basis of the readiness level of the
subordinates. (Daft 2008, 2010; Hughes, et al. 2006; Clark 2008 )
• Figure 1.0 Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Theory

24. • Based on the above theory and this movie, we can find that the there was a
relatively high readiness level of the subordinates of Linmin, which means
these followers have necessary education, skills and experience, but they
may feel insecure in their abilities and need some guidance from the leader.
Let take some of the incidents of the movie for example. As the above
scenarios mentioned the three subordinated including the two talents
designer and the fresh employee, Yang Yang, are all lack of self confidence
and even doubt their ability to fulfill the tasks given by Linmin. Under such
circumstance, Linmin maximized their creativity and capability by
encouraging participating. He presented the three promising subordinates
with challenges and worked with them to help them figure out the best way
to meet them. that Linmin successfully persuaded his excellent subordinate
namely the translator to stay in Haier Group via digging into the inner feeling
of the translator to make him understand what his really need was and
regain the feeling of safety also disclosed Linmin’s participate behavior style
that giving proper guidance and advice to maximize the real capacity of
employees.
• By and large, we can make a conclusion that leadership behavior adopted by
Linmin is participate leadership.

25. 4.2 Capabilities as change agent and the
effectiveness
• 4.2.1 Concept of the change agent
• Stevenson (2008) defined the change agent as a behavior scientist
who possesses capacity of maximizing the ability of employees and
facilitates the organization’s smoothing development under the
assistance of sufficient knowledge on human behavior and
intervention techniques.
• In the movie, Linmin as the change agent of Haier Group conducted a
fantastic change to make the Qingdao Refrigerator Factory successful
changed into today’s Haier Group with power and promising future

26. 4.2.2 Capability as the change agent and its
effectiveness
• The eight-step change management model proposed by Kotter (1995, 1996 cited in Palmer,
Dunford & Akin 2009) is the proper theory to explain the capacity of Linmin as the change
agent to lead the change of Qingdao Refrigerator Factory, which includes establishing the
need for urgency, ensuring there is a powerful change group to guide the change,
developing a vision, communicating the vision, empowerment, ensuring there are short
term wins, consolidating gains and embedding the change in the culture.
• At first, he had an appropriate making analysis for the former Qingdao Refrigerator Factory
and pointed out the problems and opportunities for that factory that was to bring in one of
the refrigerator production line to save the factory which was on the edge of bankruptcy.
Secondly, he created effective working teams via strict trainings to help drive the change.
Thirdly, he developed a vision that provided a focus for the change which was made up by
the diversification strategies and international expansion strategies. Fourthly, he properly
presented that vision to his subordinates such as proper communication with them via
effective persuasion and clarification the aim of these strategies. Fifthly, he empowered his
staff such as empower Yang Yang as the overseas sales executive Yang Yang to expand
Haier’s European market. Sixthly, he realized the short term win of Haier under the help of
the high quality products by his fantastic management skills and strong followership.
Seventhly, he continued to establish new, related change projects such as building the
factory in America. At last, he well linked the change to organizational performance and his
leadership to reward the outstanding worker and build a good reputation for himself as the
leader.

27. • All of the above change practice conducted by Linmin shows his great
capacity as the change agent. The first one is his intrapersonal skills
or “self-management” competence which requires him to handle
high pressure caused by the change (North Central Regional
Educational Laboratory 2000). It also shows his general consultation
skills which are knowledge about intervention techniques that help
Linmin define the problems and design the changes (Palmer, Dunford
& Akin 2009). The third one is the interpersonal skills by working with
the working teams and obtained their trust to maximize the capacity
of his subordinated to meet the changes (Cummings & Worley 2005).
Moreover, Linmin own a well knowledge of the organization
development theory, which enables him to understand the roles in
the changing process Haier Group (Cummings & Worley 2008).

28. 4.3 Effectiveness of leadership behavior
• Generally speaking, Linmin as the leader who leading the change in
the Haier Group is relatively successful which is reflected from the
success of Haier Industrial Park and expansion strategy. All of the
behaviors he conducted as the leader and change agent are effective.
• At first, he has successfully changed the Qingdao Refrigerator Factory
which is on the edge of bankrupt into a powerful and promising
company. Secondly, he effectively created a united and excellent
working team with full support for him. Thirdly he led Haier Group to
successfully expand the oversea markets and made the Chinese
national enterprise world famous.
• Due to all of the above, we can make the conclusion that Linmin’s
leadership behavior is effective

29. 5.0 Decision making incidents
• One incident is about building Haier Industrial Park. At that time, Haier
Group only owned tens of millions of money, while it required 1.5 billion to
build Haier Industrial Park. And meanwhile, the market for refrigerator in
China was very hot that why the plan to build Haier Industrial Park can’t be
accepted by most of his subordinates. They asked him, “Why not expand the
production line for refrigerators but to spend so big amount of money to
build the high risk industrial park via borrowing.” Faced with these doubts,
Linmin still insisted his view on building the Haier Industrial Park to support
the diversity development strategy due to his capability to penetrate things
on the whole picture that he can predict the bright future of Haier Group
under the assistance of the Haier Industrial Park. And he gave a speech to
these objectors that And he said, I cannot wait until all of you understand
and accept and then began this project, because at that time, opportunity
won’t wait for us when recalling the reform road of China, every step is full
of risk and opportunity. Only meet the challenge can we win the final
success. All of the employees were moved and decided to support such great
task.

30. • The other incident is the scene on negotiation with AE the biggest
global appliance maker with headquarters in America. Due to the
lacking in operation capital and the favorable policy towards joint
venture by Chinese government, cooperation with AE Group may
help Haier Group solve the current problem. Under such great
attraction, Linmin discussed with the senior management of Haier
Group seriously and deliberately by properly analyzing the situation
that if Haier accepted the offer of AE Group, it would lose its brand
forever. And then they made a decision to refuse the offer due to
their great dream of protecting the Chinese national enterprise. Such
kind of action and patriotism were supported by all of the people in
Haier.

31. .2 Analysis on leadership roles (leadership
involvement and decision making)
• Transformational leadership is characterized by the capacity of bringing out significant change in both followers and the
organization (Babou 2008; Daft 2008, McCrimmon 2007). Linmin’s transformational role can be shown by his involvement
in the decision making of the above two incidents. He has the capacity of leading the change in Haier Group’ vision such
as re-energizing the Chinese national enterprise via refusing the offering from AE group, strategy such as the Haier
Industrial Park as one part of the diversification development strategy, culture such as the patriotism inside the enterprise
spirit, and the promotion innovation in products and technologies just as the aim of building Haier Industrial Park was to
diversify Haier’s products via new technology.
• By and large as the transformational leader, Linmin painted a vision of a desired future state and communicated it in a
way that made the pain of change worth the effort (Daft 2008).
• Many transformational leaders have charisma, a seemingly-innate capacity inspires enthusiasm, interest and affection
from their followers just as Linmin does (Daft 2008). He has the ability to inspire and motivate his subordinates to do
more than they would normally do, despite obstacles and personal sacrifice (Daft 2008; Conger & Kanungo1998). Linmin
has the characteristics of a charismatic leader. At first, he has an emotional impact on his subordinates because he
appeals to both the heart and the mind of people. For instance, in the above two scenes, he spoke emotionally to his
subordinates to touch their ambition of doing pioneering work such as the industrial park building to support the
diversification development strategy as well as their patriotism of re-energizing Chinese national enterprise to largely
motivate their working morale and maximize their working capacity to assist the diversification development plan and
expansion development strategy.
• Furthermore, as the charismatic leader, Linmin has the characteristic of trustworthiness. To gain the trust from his
followers, Linmin bears great pressure. For instance, the task of getting operation money of 1.5 billion to invest the Haier
Industrial Park costs him lots of time and energy, but he finally conquered all these problems by his great personal
capacity and won all the support from his subordinates.
• In addition, Linmin also has the characteristics of charismatic leader that his source of influence comes form personal
characteristics instead of s formal position of authority. For instance, one of the reasons why there were so many people
support Linmin on the building plan of Haier Industrial Park and the refusing the offer from AE Group even under great
attraction is that Linmin owns great charisma.
• Generally speaking, Linmin is the leader with the distinct characteristics of charismatic leader as well as the
transformational leader.

32. 6.0 Incidents analysis
• At the beginning of the movie, to enhance the sense of quality of the
workers, Linmin designed a show of breaking the 76 refrigerators
with quality problems. Although it successfully promoted the working
morale and quality sense of workers in Qingdao Refrigerator Factory,
the measures of dealing the broken refrigerators may not be properly
enough, because Linmin ordered the workers to burn out these
refrigerators after broken them by hammers.
• As Crane & Matten (2007) claimed the environment protection
should also be taken into consideration as ethical issues when
organizations are engaged in their business. According to Crane &
Matten (2007), we can make the conclusion that the activity of
burning these refrigerators directed by Linmin may be defined as
unethically behaviors, because it would have bad influence on the
environment around the factory.

33. • Based on this circumstance, it is recommended for Linmin to take the ethical issues into
consideration such as the corporate social responsibility including the protection of environment
issues, financial ethics, ethics in human resource management, ethics in sales and marketing,
ethics in production and so on. Only under the right guide of business ethics, can Linmin direct
Haier Group become more and more competitive in the global market (Crane & Matten2007).
• Another incident happened in Haier’s oversea factory, when Linmin caught one of the America
worker was listening to the music when he was doing his work and another worker refused to
accept the punishment to stand on the “big feet” in the front of other workers to commit his
mistakes, he explained the Haier spirit to them in order to let them recognized their mistakes.
While the first worker said, “listening to music is my hobby which can only assist performance,
and the other workers said, “I hope you can respect my personal right, sir.”
• This scene disclosed the culture difference between American and China. In American, people
emphasize their personal rights so much and in China people may don’t take it to serious (Cascio
2010). Based on this situation, it is suggested for Linmin developing leadership diversity in the
process of leading change of the Haier Group especially the knowledge and capacity of leading
workforce diversity to respect the difference in culture, nationality, race, age, religion,
background, sex orientation, gender and so on in the diverse workforce, which can help Haier
Group establish a heterogeneous workforce to perform to its potential and maximize the
productivity as well as the creativity of its employees to meet the needs of diverse consumer
groups in the global market (Cascio 2010; Millmore, Lewis, Saunders, Thornhill & Morrow 2007,
Leopold, Harris & Watson 2005).
• Generally speaking, Linmin still needs to further develop his leadership in the business ethics
aspect and the capacity of leading change based on the above two incidents in this movie

34. 7.0 Conclusion
• This essay gives a deliberate analysis of the leadership of Linmin in the movie
CEO. It shows the effectiveness of Linmin’s leadership practices as well as the
style in leading Haier Group to the success on the basis of several impressed
incidents from the movie.
• And in the meanwhile, it also objectively analyzes the weakness of Linmin’s
leadership role in this movie and then offers some proper and practical
suggestions to help Linmin improve its leadership effectiveness.
• Generally speaking, from the movie CEO, we found several shining aspects of
Linmin as the leader of Haier Group, and at the same time, there is still some
space for Linmin to further develop its leadership.
• From this essay writing, we can make this conclusion that every thing has
two sides, when we criticize the achievements of leaders, it is important for
us to not only praise their merits but also notice the areas which need
further improvement. Looking things abjectly is very important.