Analyzing Leadership Mistakes at Webasto Roof Systems

The report delves into the leadership errors at Webasto Roof Systems, exploring their impact on company policies and employee morale. Despite financial challenges, initiatives were taken to address operational and cultural issues with help from SATURN and McKinsey. However, autocratic leadership styles led to dissatisfaction and a lack of innovation. The analysis concludes that these leadership mistakes significantly hindered the company's growth, urging new strategies for improvement.

Running head: LEADERSHIP MISTAKES
LEADERSHIP MISTAKES
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Executive Summary
This report aims to discuss the effect of common leadership traits that make difference in the
company’s policy and employees. Its purpose is to analyze the common mistakes of the leaders
and their effects on the future of the company. The leaders of Webasto roof system have made
some mistakes that had great impact on the progress of the company and employees.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Discussion:.......................................................................................................................................3
Autocratic leadership:..................................................................................................................3
Impact on the company:...............................................................................................................4
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................5
References:......................................................................................................................................5

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Introduction:
The report discusses the major mistakes that the leaders of any company do and the effect
of those mistakes on the growth of the company. Here the case study is the leadership traits of
Webasto Roof Systems. This company provides the most inclusive portfolio of roof systems all
over the world but going through a tremendous financial problem. Therefore, some important
initiatives were taken to solve the crisis. The report discusses the changes that the company
brought in its policies, the mistakes done by the company’s leaders and its effect.
Discussion:
Webasto’s Founder CEO Paul Deitrich and CFO and Treasurer Phillip Schramm in the
summit have found a positive energy prevailing on the employees and they are engaging in their
works ("Webasto: Heating, cooling and roof systems from the world market leader", 2017). The
company has been going through a challenge in both operational and financial aspects as well as
employee engagement and work-culture of the organization. In order to solve these problems, the
organization has taken assistance from SATURN to solve operational issues. To solve the
difficulties in the work culture and effect of mood in work place, the company has engaged
McKinsey for operations and obtaining work streams (Ghemawat, 2012).
Autocratic leadership:
Autocratic style of leadership has been proved to be beneficial sometimes but there are
various instances where the style of the leaders has created problems in the company’s growth.
In despotic style of leadership, the leaders often viewed as dictatorial, bossy and authoritative.
This may result to indignation among the employees or group members (Buble, 2012). They do

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not ask others to contribute ideas or views therefore, results in non-creative solutions to
difficulties. Authoritative leaders mostly overlook the expertise as well as knowledge that the
team members possess and bring to the circumstance. As the leaders do not consult with the
expert group, this may add problems in the group (Fullan, 2014). People feel satisfied and
perform better if they feel that they are part of the contribution to the future of their
organizations. Since the leaders do not welcome the innovative inputs from the employees, the
workers tend to feel dissatisfied. One of the most striking examples of autocratic leadership in
corporate world was of Leona Helmsley in the Helmsley hotel chain, whose iron-fisted style
resulted in the company’s failure.
Impact on the company:
The process of excel the team from ordinary to an extraordinary position, needs to
understand and embrace the gap between leadership and management. Leadership is about doing
right things and management is to do things right. The leadership development in a company has
a greater impact on their business performance than anything else. This impact transcends when
the CEO is replaced and the time consumed by the new CEO to handle the situation (Johansen,
2012). The leaders of Webasto decided to revise projections, which proved not to be very
fruitful. Beside this, there was a change in management team and the selected members were not
apt to handle the financial crisis that the company was going through. The company leaders also
failed to minimize the gap between the employees (Favaro, 2013). It was clear that there was no
engagement, no trust and no teamwork mentality among the workers. Despite the fact that the
company has been sharing profits to everyone and arranged all needed programs to avoid
employee layoff, a large number of workers were quitting the company. The leaders of the
company have failed to realize the importance of quality professional suggestions. Webasto is a

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company that requires innovation. It is completely the leaders’ fault if they cannot select and
retain the apt worker. The founder of Best Buy, Richard M. Schulze made the same mistake
and Amazon bulldozed his company eventually. In the company, there was a vast
communication gap within the management. It acted as mere administrators. They did not realize
that managing a company in this ever-changing business world is solely about accepting and
trusting on change. The cultural problems within the organization were the chief bothering issues
needed to be solved but the leaders were not prioritizing it. Schramm was not sure whether the
company spreadsheet and plans were enough to solve all the problems of the company.
Therefore, some measures had been taken.
Conclusion:
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be deducted that Webasto Roof System has
been affected due to the weak policies followed by the leaders. The mistakes made by the
managers had left a deep impact on the company’s financial and cultural growth. However, the
leaders have taken new initiatives that can change the scenario.

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References:
Buble, M. (2012). Interdependence of organizational culture and leadership styles in large
firms. Management: Journal of Contemporary Management Issues, 17(2), 85-97.
Favaro, K. (2013). How leaders mistake execution for strategy (and why that damages
both). Strategy+ Business.
Fullan, M. (2014). Leading in a culture of change personal action guide and workbook. John
Wiley & Sons.
Ghemawat, P. (2012). Developing global leaders. McKinsey Quarterly, 3(1), 100-109.
Johansen, R. (2012). Leaders make the future: Ten new leadership skills for an uncertain world.
Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Webasto.com. (2017). Webasto: Heating, cooling and roof systems from the world market
leader. Webasto.com. Retrieved 16 October 2017, from https://www.webasto.com/int/