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Ineffective Management
When discussing poor leadership, one may remember the infamous former CEO of Volkswagen, Martin Winterkorn. Winterkorn was in charge of the company when it faced the major crisis, the echoes of which are still causing issues. “The Volkswagen Diesel Fraud” as the world knows it, was a major scandal that Winterkorn authorized and has failed to face the consequences. In 2014, Volkswagen faced charges with emission levels being much higher than the company claimed them to be. It was found out that Volkswagen engineers installed specific equipment to mask the emissions during tests in order to have a productive marketing campaign.
Winterkorn has made serious strategic mistakes in this matter. Firstly, by authorizing such act, he violated one of the fundamental principles of management – integrity. Violation of consumers’ trust is a serious strategic miscalculation and Volkswagen involvement with the fraudulent schemes placed a huge stain on the company’s reputation. It appears that a mistake was made due to the lack of vision of the bigger picture or economic perspective. In the short term, Winterkorn managed to save company’s resources on major technological research and upgrades but forgot about the long-term outcomes. Secondly, known as a micro-manager who is used to supervise every process in his company, he still tried to plead ignorant of this incident. This was found highly unlikely, and Winterkorn’s image as a CEO received even more damage. According to Rothenberg (2011), leaders are typically more informed and usually have subordinates who have less information.
Winterkorn’s lack of strategic thinking and the use of fraudulent competition methods seem to be the spheres for improvement. He should have closely considered the long-term effects of his decisions. In addition, his media conflict management also needs revision. He could be more sincere and apologetic to try to restore the company’s image.
Communicating a Vision
Vision is an essential attribute of leadership that to some degree allows foreseeing the future of the company. Without proper vision, it is hard to adapt and evolve as a company because there should always be knowledge or, at least, an image of what should it become in a few years or a decade. Vision also allows to focus attention on certain activities and connect the company to the present realities. Periodically, as the goals change, so should the vision as misleading and outdated concepts of the future and present could seriously undermine the organization’s success on the market.
In the public sector where leaders, countries and its structures are under constant supervision of people, communicating a vision becomes a priority. Depending on how clear a leader can identify and explain the ‘path’ that lays ahead of the citizens, final outcomes may vary significantly. Winston Churchill, for instance, motivated his countrymen to combat Nazism by explaining why and what will happen if what he proposes is ignored.
An example that illustrates the power of communication and its destructive force for a public leader that cannot manage it can be drawn from the present events. The current president of the United States, Donald Trump multiple times announced his wish to build the wall separating Mexico from the U.S. His vision to address the popular problem with illegal immigration and jobs was poorly communicated as it was built over hatred for one particular nation and was seen as counterproductive (Stanley-Becker & Clement, 2017). Despite Trump has won the elections, the international and domestic controversy for him as an impulsive and aggressive leader. This vision has also brought a decline in the US-Mexico international relationships.
Technology and Its Impact on Public Administration
Public administration has certainly benefitted from technology in various aspects. Firstly, the services and information have now become more available as information technologies provide easier access to knowledge. Election technologies had to adapt to the emergence of the internet and by doing so attracted new layers of the population to political activities. The competition that results from the fact of total availability is proved to have an effect on managerial practices in the public sector (Bloom, Genakos, Sadun, & Van Reenen, 2012). The speed with which information can travel nowadays is astounding. On the one hand, it creates a range of possibilities for leaders to influence the public and promote any idea faster than 20 years ago.
However, any scandal that would otherwise be known to the limited amount of local citizens becomes an international issue in a matter of hours and have the potential to bring down world leaders. This imposes new challenges for information management within the structure of Public Administration. Deeper level security is in order also to protect the information from the vile intent of foreign hackers.
The Internet as one of the major technological achievements in the last 20 years has also revolutionized the storage of data. Every politician’s word, statement, the action is being documented and stored in the global web, and the ease of access to this evidence is impressive. In the past, some cases when politicians and administrations pretended that that did not say such things, proof could be gathered in a few mouse clicks.
References
Bloom, N., Genakos, C., Sadun, R., & Van Reenen, J. (2012). Management practices across firms and countries. Academy of Management Perspectives, 26(1), 12–33.
Rothenberg, N. R. (2011). Teams, leaders, and performance measures. Contemporary Accounting Research, 28(4), 1123–1140.
Stanley-Becker, I. & Clement, S. (2017). Poll shows U.S. tumbling in world’s regard under Trump. Washington Post. Web.
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