This document summarizes the leadership styles of five automobile company presidents according to Blake and Mouton's Managerial Grid. It analyzes the presidents of Ford, GM, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Fiat-Chrysler. The Ford and Toyota presidents exhibited "Team Management" with high concern for people and production. The GM and Fiat-Chrysler presidents demonstrated "Authority-Compliance" with greater concern for production over people. The Volkswagen president employed "Middle-of-the-Road Management" with balanced concern. It concludes by questioning which concern, people or production, is most important for automobile leaders.

1. Behavior of Company
Presidents: Leadership in the
Automobile Industry
By: Madeleine Cherney

2. Overview of
Articles
All articles used in this presentation are focused
on five different automobile company presidents:
President of Ford
President of General Motors
President of Toyota
President of Volkswagen
President of Fiat-Chrysler

3. Concept
Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid is the
concept of this presentation. The grid can be
found in chapter three of Katherine Miller’s
Organizational Communication textbook.
Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid is now
known as the Leadership Grid. It gauges if a
leader’s concern is more for the people he is
leading or for production. The textbook states that
Blake and Mouton came to the conclusion that
the best leaders have high concern for people as
well as high concern for production.

4. Leadership
Grid

5. Leadership
Grid
Breakdown
Impoverished Management: Low concern for
people as well as for production.
Country Club Management: High concern for
people but low concern for production.
Authority-Compliance: High concern for
production but low concern for people.
Team Management: High concern for people as
well as for production.
Middle-of-the-Road Management: Leader
balances concern for people and production
evenly but does not try to excel in either area.

6. Leadership
Style of Ford’s
President
Mark Fields:
Leadership Style: Team Management

7. Ford’s Mark
Fields
Mark Fields has a high concern for people
and for production. Considering that Ford is one of
the top automobile companies in the world, he
certainly knows how to keep his business on track.
Fields says that surrounding oneself with
great people is important. Also, listening to your
employees and asking feedback from them is
exceedingly vital. This shows your employees that
you care for them.
Besides caring about the opinions and
welfare of his employees, Fields knows production is
a top priority. He believes that taking risks is
important for successful companies. “If you're not
taking calculated risks as a business, you're probably
going to be dying as a business over time.”
(cnbc.com)

8. Leadership
Style of
General
Motors’
President
Dan Ammann
Leadership Style: Authority-Compliance

9. General
Motors’Dan
Ammann
Dan Ammann’s main objective is the
heightening of his company’s production. It is not
that he has zero concern for people, it is just that his
concern for numbers in his company is higher than
for his people.
Ammann boosted GM’s business by quite a
lot after becoming president. The company’s finance
status and production are exceedingly important to
him. GM was in a bad state when he became
president, considering they had filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy protection. He jumpstarted the company’s
recovery by many layoffs and closing of plants,
which indicates little concern for people. He got the
company back on track by November 2010, due to
his leadership style of Authority-Compliance.

10. Leadership
Style of
Toyota’s
President
Akio Toyoda:
Leadership Style: Team Management

11. Toyota’s Akio
Toyoda
A hard worker but kind man, Akio Toyoda
undoubtedly has high concern for people as well as high
concern for production.
His concern for people can be seen in how he cares
about what his customer’s and employees think. “What matters
to Toyota is that more and more people understand what I do
on the roads.” (autonews.com)
Besides his concern for people, Toyoda’s concern for
production is also high. Jobs in all phases of automotive
operations are under his belt. He has done production,
marketing and product development internationally and of
course in Japan where Toyota is located. “Outside Japan, he
served as an executive vice president and board member at
Toyota's production joint venture with General Motors in
California, New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI),
starting in April 1998.” (toyotanews.pressroom.toyota.com)
These examples are prime for exhibiting Toyoda’s concern for
production.

12. Leadership
Style of
Volkswagen’s
President
Hinrich Woebcken
Leadership Style: Middle-of-the-Road
Management

13. Volkswagen’s
Hinrich
Woebcken
Hinrich Woebcken has an equal amount of
concern for people and production without overdoing
anything.
Woebcken’s concern for people shows in
how his employees talk about him. “VW brand chief
Herbert Diess said in a statement issued after the
town hall. "Strengthening the region also means
strengthening leadership and I am confident that
Hinrich J. Woebcken is the right man for the job.”
(autoweek.com) The fact that this employee thinks
well of Woebcken show that he treats his employees
with concern and respect.
His concern for production is seen when he
says: “With the new structure of the North American
Region, we will be empowered to make the decisions
to bring the vehicles that the consumers in the market
are demanding.” (autoweek.com) He understands that
to obtain production, the population must be provided
with desirable automobiles.

14. Leadership
Style of Fiat-
Chrysler’s
President
Sergio Marchionne:
Leadership Style: Authority-Compliance

15. Fiat-Chrysler’s
Sergio
Marchionne
Sergio Marchionne’s concern for
production certainly trumps his concern for
people. Although he constantly talks about his
concern for production, he does not seem to
mention any concern for the people in his
company.
Marchionne’s concern for production is
clear in how he is endorsing the actions of United
States President Donald Trump to cut taxes so
that Fiat-Chrysler’s profits will be raised.
Marchionne is hoping to bring more of Fiat-
Chrysler’s production back into the United States
to appease Donald Trump and also so that his
profits will increase.

16. Concern for
People Verses
Concern for
Production in
the Automobile
Industry
Which concern is better in the
automobile industry or are they equal?

17. Questions
 What are key traits that all automobile
company leaders should possess?
 Does how much money an automobile
company makes determine how excellent
the leader of the company is? Or can a
poor leader still bring in exemplary
revenue?
 In concern of automobile company
presidents, is the Team Management
leadership style always considered to be
the best?

18. Thought for
Solution  A good way to find out what leadership
style is best for automobile company
presidents is to discover the top one of
these leaders and uncover his leadership
style. This uncovered leadership style
would most likely be the best one for all
automobile industry presidents.

20. Works Cited
 Akio Toyoda . (n.d.). In Toyota USA Newsroom. Retrieved from
http://toyotanews.pressroom.toyota.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=2280
 Bryan, B. (2017, January 26). FIAT-CHRYSLER CEO: There's 'no doubt' Trump's economic
plans will be an 'overall positive for us'. In Business Insider. Retrieved from
http://www.businessinsider.com/fiat-chrysler-ceo-sergio-marchionne-trump-economic-plan-is-
a-positive-2017-1
 Greimel, H. (2017, January 2). Akio Toyoda takes the wheel as 'Morizo'. In Automotive News.
Retrieved from http://www.autonews.com/article/20170102/OEM02/301029946/akio-toyoda-
takes-the-wheel-as-morizo
 Hinrich J. Woebcken takes over VW U.S. top spot as diesel deadline looms DIFFICULT
ROAD AHEAD FOR NEW CEO AS SCANDAL CONTINUES TO TAKE A TOLL. (2016,
April 18). In Autoweek. Retrieved from http://autoweek.com/article/vw-diesel-scandal/new-
vw-us-chief-hinrich-j-woebcken-takes-over
 Kockalitcheva, K. (2016, July 9). GM’s President Hopes to Drive the Automaker Into the
Future. In Fortune. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2016/07/09/gm-president-dan-ammann-
car/
 Little, K. (2016, July 7). Ford CEO Mark Fields: 5 things all business leaders should be
doing. In CNBC Make It. Retrieved from http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/07/ford-ceo-mark-
fields-5-things-business-leaders-should-do.html
 Miller, K. (2015). Organizational Communication Approaches and Processes (Seventh ed., pp.
48-50). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.