Comparative Analysis of Leadership Styles in Fortune 500 Companies

This report provides a comparative analysis of the leadership styles of Mary Teresa Barra, CEO of General Motors, and Douglas McMillion, CEO of Walmart. The analysis explores their leadership approaches, including transformational and democratic styles, and evaluates their effectiveness based on organizational behavior theories. The report examines their traits, behaviors, and decision-making processes, highlighting the impact of their leadership on their respective companies. The report also discusses the changing landscape of leadership in Fortune 500 companies, and the author reflects on their own preferred leadership style, emphasizing the importance of democratic leadership. The report concludes by comparing the two leaders and evaluating which leadership style is more effective for achieving organizational goals. The report includes references to academic research and analyses of the leaders' actions and decision-making processes.

Running Head: ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOR
ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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1. CEO’s of Fortune companies
Mary Teresa Barra is the current Chief Executive Office of General Motors Company
and Douglas Mc Million is the Chief executive of Walmart since twenty years. He was the
Chief executive officer from February 2009 to 2019 in the company internationally.
2. Leadership Profiles
1. Mary Teresa Barra:
Mary Teresa Barra has a transformational leadership styles. The leader is constantly
motivating the employees to do the task. Mary T. Barra always focused on supporting the
employees to reach towards the goals. She possess a goal oriented leadership strategy to
support their team members. The Chief Executive Officer uses path-goal theory to complete
the task. She focuses on boosting the employees performance, job satisfaction and effort them
to do the work. Therefore, she focuses on contingency theories of leadership because its
effectiveness is depends on the behaviour of leaders and the task present in the company.
Hence, the leadership behaviour is depended on the environment of the work
(researchgate.net 2014). The leadership theory is also originates from the expectancy theory
of leadership. This is because, the employees feel motivated only if the outcome is valuable.
This CEO uses participative, supportive, achievemental and directive style of
leadership in order to complete a task. She has technical, conceptual and human skills of
leadership. She has skills and applies the knowledge to the work. She was working and have
technical skill experience in the manufacturing & engineering sector in the beginning of her
career. She has the ability to help the employees to do the work and accordingly set the goals.
When it comes to Mary Barra’s leadership behaviour, she has task oriented, change-
oriented and relation-oriented behaviour (Lim, 2019). She is always ready in assigning the
works to her group members, she divides the work among the employees.

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2. Douglas Mc Million:
Douglas Mc Million is the Chief Executive Officer of Walmart since 20 years. This
means that, he has an excellent leadership quality in the organisation. He follows both the
democratic and transformational style of leadership. He collaborates its team ideas to develop
the business strategy. He brainstorms and take advice from each member of the team and
develops his strategy. He is also transformational because he also motivates the employees
and push them to perform the task. He uses participative leadership behaviour to add value to
the work and to make decisions for the organisational goals (Uslay & Yeniyurt, 2018). This
has helped him to effectively do the task and give positive results. Mc Million has developed
his leadership style during his graduate level. He has developed his leadership skills from his
education and has gained experience in Wal-Mart since 20 years. He has known his strength
and weakness during the study in order to manage his emotions & adopt himself in the
changing environment. His leadership style is associated with value, ethics and cultural
aspects of the organisation. He also has social aspect of leadership behaviour. He is a
beauracratic leader and made the employees to follow the specific guideline to complete the
task. His leadership behaviour focuses on the organisational needs to do the task.
3. Effective leadership quality
 Mary Teresa Barra: Mary Teresa Barra is the current CEO of the company. Under her
guidance, the team members have felt motivated to do the task. Her traits and
behaviour have an inclusive leadership style, which has ultimately resulted into
improve of business operations. She collaborates all the team members by seeking
regular meetings and on the basis of the meeting, she makes the final decision. She is
also updated with the current trend of the business and is opened to all ideas and
feedbacks. She increased the efficiency of product innovation & development process
in the business.

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 Douglas Mc Million: Douglas Mc Million was an effective leader in the organisation.
He is also updated with the current trends if the changing environment of business. He
makes decisions on the basis of employee concerns and maintains the organisational
culture on making decision. He contributed a lot on building trust within the
organisation (Niqab et al., 2017). He provides health & other benefits to the
employees, provided them good working conditions and good wages to make an
ethical business environment. He uses his knowledge in making an ethical leadership
style in the business.
4. Comparison of the two leaders
Mary Teresa Barra Douglas Mc Million
1. Mary Teresa Barra has a
transformational leadership styles.
1. Douglas Mc Million has both the
democratic and transformational
style of leadership.
2. She is Autocratic leader 2. He is a beauracratic leader
3. She focuses on contingency theories
of leadership because its
effectiveness is depends on the
behaviour of leaders and the task
present in the company.
3. He focuses on transactional theories
of leadership. There is a positive
relationship between the employees
and the CEO.
4. She is more task oriented 4. He is more relation-oriented towards
the work.
Among, both the leaders, Douglas Mc Million is more effective leader than Mary
Teresa Barra. This is because, he uses democratic style of leadership to achieve the
organisational goals. This means that, he involves each and every team members in the

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decision-making process. The employees gives direction to him and accordingly he
brainstorm the activities to find the solutions to the problems. Thus, he also includes lower-
level of employees to his authority process and also provide them opportunity to achieve a
better positions in the future. This means that, he can make better decisions in the
organisational problem through discussions within the employees. They can also find
alternatives to the business solutions to perform the tasks (Arena & Uhl-Bien, 2016). The
leader might also take suggestions and thoughts on the basis of employee survey or vote.
Hence, Douglas is considered as the effective leader as compared to Chief Executive Officer
of General Motors, because autocratic leaders are generally considered as less effective
leaders as compared to the democratic style of leadership.
5. Leadership style in Fortune Company
The leadership styles or management styles has changed in the recent years. Fortune
500 companies have focused on recruiting most of the female CEOs as their leaders. The
attitudes and leadership styles have also been changed in these years. Currently, they focus
more on motivating and creating values to the business environment with their best effort.
The quality of leaders have been changed. Leaders are more expertise in the technical
concepts of the business. They are also focused more on collaborating the business
environment, strategies and tools to perform the business tasks.
6. Leadership Style
In order to take lead on the Fortune 500 companies, I will focus on behaving like a
democratic leader in the organisation. I will engage the employees in the decision-making
process. I will seek ideas and advices from the employees in order to create better business
solutions. I will focus more on discussing and interacting more with the leaders. I will try to

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avoid autocratic leadership style in the business. I will seek feedback from the employees
regarding the areas of development and innovation.
References
Arena, M. J., & Uhl-Bien, M. (2016). Complexity leadership theory: Shifting from human
capital to social capital. People and Strategy, 39(2), 22.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329416366_General_Motors_CEO_Mary_Barra_-
_Leadership_style_analysis_Individual_assignment_-_Critical_essay. (2020). Retrieved 18
March 2020.
Lim, W. Y. (2019). Liquidity of General Motor Company due to their Internal and External
factor.
Niqab, M., Sharma, S., Kannan, S. and Ahmed, A., 2017. PAKISTANI SCHOOLS
POSSESS EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP: PLATITUDE OR REALITY?. MOJEM:
Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Management, 3(4), pp.1-15.
Uslay, C., & Yeniyurt, S. (2018). Executive Insights: An Interview with Evren Ozkaya,
Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Supply Chain Wizard. Rutgers Business
Review, 3(1).

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