Analyzing Leadership and Communication Strategies at Holden Company

This report examines the leadership challenges faced by Holden Company, particularly in the context of its new V6 engine plant, which employed a diverse workforce from 60 different nationalities. The primary issue was communication and conflict arising from cultural differences. The report analyzes the LEAD program, a leadership training initiative designed to address these challenges by promoting emotional intelligence, self-expression, and effective teamwork. The program incorporated modules on communication skills and conflict resolution. The report highlights the importance of transformational leadership, open communication, and understanding the cultural perspectives of employees. It concludes by suggesting strategies for a new manufacturing site to mitigate communication problems, including employing a limited diverse workforce, providing communication training, and adopting transformational leadership to foster strong relationships. The report emphasizes the significance of effective leadership and training programs in overcoming communication and conflict issues within a culturally diverse organization.

Leadership
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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Answer 1......................................................................................................................................................2
Answer 2......................................................................................................................................................3
Answer 3......................................................................................................................................................3
Answer 4......................................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................6
References...................................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
The primary aim of the paper is to evaluate various issues regarding leadership aspects in Holden
Company. Holden invested about $400 million in manufacturing the latest V6 engine at its new
site and aimed at returning around $450 million from the sale of the V6 engine. It will provide
ways to apply the guidelines for the firm on the working team to improve communication skills
and leadership skills within the workplace. The leadership training program will be competent to
solve the problems of communication and conflict at the new plant of Holden. Leadership plays a
vital role in managing conflicts within the team members.
Answer 1
The new plant of Holden consists of a large number of employees from a diverse background. There were
many new employees who had never worked with the firm; many were from outside the company and a
few long-term employees. The employees of the firm were from 60 different nationalities and thus, create
various issues within the workplace. Different employees have a different culture which creates
communication and conflict issues among them (Behfar, Friedman and Brett, 2016). It is noticed that
people from diverse culture brought a diverse set of assumptions to communicate with the other in an
organization. Hence, it becomes a priority for the people of the firm to understand the way of
communicating effectively with the persons from other culture. Individuals from diverse cultures
experience problems like misunderstanding or miscommunication due to various factors such as
language, communication style, and stereotypes (Alhejji et al., 2016). Leader of the team should learn
the way diverse culture people communicate to prevent the occurrence of the issues. Leaders required to
understand the behavior, as well as the beliefs of the workers to solve the cultural diversity issues within
the working environment.
Cultural diversity also provides benefits to the company, but it adds communication issues between the
diverse cultural workers (Zhang, Chen and Sun, 2015). Ineffective communication cause lack of
teamwork, low morale of the employees, and confusion about the work. The issues need to be overcome
to provide benefit to the firm in the long run. In the given case, communication between the groups was
so poor, and less effort has been put by the leader to maintain workplace relationship. Thus, the leader of
the group should arrange programs and provide training to all the workers so that they can communicate
effectively and understand, along with respect for each other cultural perspectives. This would make the
production of V6 engine easy and effective and provide a huge benefit to the firm.

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Answer 2
The director of Holden human resources provided the guidelines through a program to address
the communication issues at the new plant. “LEAD” was the name of the program which stands
for leadership through emotional intelligence, action and developing people. The guidelines, as
stated in the program, consists of establishing a culture of leadership, promote self-expression,
understand others, manage dispute, control emotions, and work efficiently in teams. It can be
applied to overcome and prevent communication barriers within the workplace.
Transformational leadership that is a culture of inspiration should be established by the leader of
the elite team, Sharon Otten, at the new plant of Holden. This culture of leadership operates with
the beliefs of all diverse employees and share the same values with all, which lead to effective
communication. Transformational leadership style helps the leader in encouraging the team
members to work together for accomplishing the same goal of the firm (Choi, Kim and Kang,
2017).
Communication skills and conflict resolution training can be provided to manage conflict
between the employees (Gurung and Prater, 2017). Sharon Otten with transformational
leadership style could develop a reliable communication channel between the workers to
overcome the communication problems. It could also help the team members in creating positive
working relationships between them in the organizations and thus, resolve conflict. The guideline
of working effectively in a team can be applied by making the team able to understand the
strengths and weaknesses of each member and developing a positive attitude of the members
towards each employee. At the new plant of Holden, the team members should develop essential
features required for working effectively in a team to prevent communication and conflicting
barriers within the workplace. Empathy is essential for the employees of Holden as it helps them
in understanding the others feeling and behavior, which could prevent communication issues
(Hopkins and Scott, 2016). By promoting self-expression among employees, the company can
retain the new workers and avoid miscommunication between them.
Answer 3
The LEAD training program was effective in breaking down the communication and conflicting
problems being experienced at the new plant because of the shifting of traditional management
of Holden to more open communication style (Hopkins and Yonker, 2015). The open

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communication style helps the manager to concentrate on teamwork and understand the
culturally diverse nature of the workplace. The program was successful because each employee
accepts the program and take part in it. The involvement of all the workers helps the
management of the firm to provide training to the employees. The acceptance and success of the
LEAD program were highly influenced by the engagement of all the staffs of the firm (Hurrell,
2016). The training program breaks communication and conflicting issues efficiently by
providing training to the employee on various skills. The team members were provided best
communication training as well as conflict resolution training by the leaders to communicate
effectively with each other.
Several characteristics were developed among the group members such as honesty, positive
attitude, good communication skills, fairness, and reliability, which help them in working
efficiently with the team (Kroll and Moynihan, 2015). The training program consists of six
modules which help the staffs in preventing the barriers of conflict and communication. The
training program was launched by 30 senior staffs who took part in the workshops and surveyed
strong workforce at the plant to make the training effective. Sharon Otten was the leader of the
team, who recognized the open style of communication in which management would be prepared
to listen to what the staffs want to say. Communication skills or style makes the program
successful as employees feel that they are more efficient as communicators. The participation of
everyone help in getting the productivity of the plant as well as coordination of the workers in
the manufacture of the V6 engine at the plant (Mikkelson, York and Arritola, 2015).
Answer 4
A person has to start at a new manufacturing site, and for this, he needs to consider issues or
strategies that were experienced by Holden HFV6 plant to prevent the communication problems
from occurring. One of the significant issues is the culturally diversified workforce that needs to
consider at the new site. It is required to employ minimum diverse employees for making
communication effective between them. People with different culture experienced various
problems in the workplace regarding miscommunication or misunderstanding. So, an individual
should employ a limited workforce to the firm and provide communication training to improve
communication skills. It is also required to give less pressure to the new employees in making
the business grow so that they could think freely and communicate independently with other

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group members. Another issue is the leadership that needs to consider at the new manufacturing
site. Transformational leadership should be adopted by the leader to develop a strong relationship
between the members (Trax, Brunow and Suedekum, 2015). Leadership culture should be
established within the firm for sharing the same values and beliefs with all.
An individual will also consider the strategy of emotional intelligence employee training
program that has been taken by Holden Company. The strategy helps in providing adequate
training to the employees who could prevent the communication problem from occurring. There
are six modules of training in the training program which should be conducted before
commencing the production of the product at the new site. It will help the leader as well as the
employees to work efficiently in a team and understand the behavior or feeling of the other and
thus, prevent communication issues. A leader can manage the conflict by providing conflict
resolution training to the staffs and building a stable communication channel between them
(Yahaya and Ebrahim, 2016). A style of open communication can be considered by the
individual or leader of the new manufacturing site for preventing the communication problems
within the workplace.

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Conclusion
It has been concluded from the above that communication skill is crucial for both the leader and
employees to overcome the communication issues within the organization. Cultural diversity is
also important for the firm, but it creates conflicting issues, and it can be prevented by providing
adequate training to the employees. Transformational leadership style could be adopted by the
leader to communicate and understand the beliefs of the workers. The team members required to
work effectively in a team by understanding others feelings, behavior and cultural perspectives.
An effective training program should be launched to train the culturally diverse nature of
employees to overcome the conflicting as well as communication skills.

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