Leaders who make a difference

This article addresses the question of contributing factors that make for vanguard companies. Effective leadership is considered a determining factor in creating high performance organizations. In making this happen, leaders take on two roles: a charismatic and an architectural one. Envisioning, empowering and energizing are characteristics of the charismatic role. In the architectural role the leader plays the role of organizational designer putting into place appropriate structures and systems. To illustrate the various factors that make for vanguard companies, three CEOs are presented who have received considerable notoriety because of the successful way they have been running their respective organizations. Richard Branson's Virgin gives the opportunity to look at a fast growing entrepreneurial company. Jack Welch of General Electric has been hailed by the press as being one of the few leaders who has been able to transform a corporation suffering from organizational arteriosclerosis. Finally, Percy Barnevik of ABB has taken up the challenge to create a truly global organization integrating numerous companies and national cultures. In spite of having very different histories, these three companies, however, have many characteristics in common. The way these companies are run can be viewed as a paradigm of what companies are going to look like in the twenty-first century. In this article, a number of the characteristics of the high performance organization are listed. For example, the design of high performing organizations tends to be of a more horizontal, not hierarchical nature. As creativity and innovation necessitates transitional space, these kinds of companies don't have command/control structures. The focus is on self-managed teams. The leitmotif in these companies is that 'small is beautiful' as such a design helps develop a sense of ownership and creates accountability. These organizations are also customer centered, maximizing supplier and customer contact with everybody in the organization. They recognize the importance of speed. Furthermore, these companies have a learning culture, are very adaptive to change, and value good corporate citizenship behavior.