Leadership and Performance Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Leadership and Performance Management - Essay ExampleIn addition to that, recession also added to their demise. Heavy in operation(p) costs allowed other competitors with lower costs to capture northwestern American market which was GMs territory earlier. part assessing some of the decisions taken by GMs leadership, it was found that closure of GMs hybrid cars unit along with layoffs and prior ill-timed acquisitions added to GMs expense list which had no means to be satisfied. 1.1 Key Findings GM has faced problems due(p) to its highly bureaucratic culture and sluggish set about towards development and innovation. Its slow performance in the recent years has its roots in its earlier catastrophic decisions that were taken in 1970s and 80s but had a long-term impact on the organizational performance which ultimately leads to a government bailout in 2009. GM has made several bad investments in the fomite models that were not answering consumers requirements and also were competit ive to each other which further resulted in slow growth of the company. GM had various brands at its portfolio which require major expenses in terms of research and development for proper brand management. Failure to keep up with consumers demands ultimately lead to slow sales of these brands which touch cash inflow in turn (Maynard, 2009). Instead of ensuring that consumers demands for compact and energy-efficient cars is met, GM under the leadership of Wagoner, shut down EV1 electric cars program. With lower vehicle sales, the operating expenses and manufacturing costs increased greatly as a result of which GM was forced to increase its prices. The burden was passed onto the consumer which act as a deterrent for GMs sales. As a result of this programs shutdown, billions were lost in terms of research and development. Furthermore, there was a major recall from the roadstead which made GM compensate the lessees for the losses incurred. The already manufactured models were crushed which not only failed to recover original manufacturing costs but also added to it due to extra expenses incurred in terms of amortization. Failure to capture the niche market on timely basis allowed Japanese cars to capture a major North market share which was the territory of GM earlier (Hartung, 2009). Shutting down hybrid cars program had a major impact on GMs profitability. But most importantly, it affected the brand image greatly. It strengthen GMs persona of being a giant and slow enterprise incompetent of understanding consumers requirement and respond to it accordingly. Due to global recession and GMs series of bad decisions especially poor brand management, faulty investments and shut down of hybrid cars, GM filed a loss of over $ 30 million dollars. These losses include major amounts in terms of take down share prices and also exceptional operational expenses. After filing these losses, GM filed for bankruptcy and was later bailed out by US government. 1.2 Evidences One of the major evidences that indicated GMs catastrophic decision making failures was GMs financial statements and other reports published on the subject matter. According to Hargreaves (2008), General Motors reported a huge second-quarter net loss Friday of $15.5 billion, after restructuring and other charges, as the automakers run of troubles continued. The automaker lost $27.33 per share in the quarter, compared to a