Darkest of Days

I’m just finishing the book American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company by Bryce Hoffman.  I found the book very well written and a good solid history (brief) of the Ford Motor Company but really focused on Alan Mulally and his nearly eight years leading Ford as their CEO.

Photo Source: Wikipedia, Ford World Headquarters

Being around and occasionally consulting in the auto industry, I knew many of the stories that Hoffman shares in his book.  But when you start stringing the stories together and when they’re put into the context of the darkest days of the American auto industry it becomes a great story about leadership and teamwork.

Two Pillars of Leadership

Mulally displays several characteristics of great leadership but the two most powerful are humility and endurance.  If you look in my book Trust Me you’ll find these two characteristics as the book-ends of eight leadership styles of great leaders.  If you look in the Jim Collins book Good to Great (written many years before this story occurred) he also points out what he labeled the “Level 5” leader exhibiting humility and a very strong will (endurance).  Mulally seemed to possess and demonstrate these characteristics in spades.

Humility

Mulally always seemed to have a smile on his face, openly greeted any member of the Ford team regardless of their level in the organization and demonstrated a true desire to learn from their point of view.  This was so contrary to the general level of behavior from the auto industry leaders that it often took people a long time before they actually believed that Alan was genuine in his desire to learn from anyone.  I have seen this single characteristic move leaders into a higher class of leadership through the years.  Not only do they actually learn by being genuinely open to others, they develop a dedicated organization around them that strives to accomplish the vision just because they feel the leaders has listened to and understood them.

Endurance

There are many times in the story when the economy is falling away faster than the auto company can react even though they are cutting deeper and faster than the industry had ever seen.  These were terrifying and crushing days.  And yet Alan would constantly check his belief in the process and the goal by always accepting the reality of the situation and then, if he still believed they were on the right track, bear down and continue to pursue the expected results even with the entire industry collapsing around them.  This was not Pollyannaish and there were many times when failure was at their doorstep but they endured through unbelievable pressure.

I’ve had a few of my clients suffer through major changes in their industry and the struggle is real.  Especially if like Ford, they had been a successfully run businesses for decades and even centuries.  I believe there are two very critical conditions that can give companies their best chance of survival, great leadership and pressure-tested teamwork.  In my next blog I’ll talk about some of the team work I discovered in Hoffman’s book and I’ve seen in the market place.

What do you think?  Can great leadership save a company or are market conditions just too much for any leadership style?