Mary Barra

Hello, my name is Tanya and I'm here to present Mary Barra's leadership style. Mary Barra is a chairman and chief executive officer of General Motors since 2014. She is the first female chief executive of an automotive company, given that the automotive industry has historically been dominated by men. She is included on Forbes and Fortune's list of the world's most powerful women. She started her career in General Motors when she was 18 years old. She gained her bachelor's degree by General Motors Institute, a college owned by GM at that time. Then the company sent her to Stratford University. After that, she moved through various roles, from quality inspector to vice president of global human resource that gives her the opportunity to develop a unique skill set. Not only that, no one knows more about the inner workings of General Motors, and she has a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities that come with enhancing the company's product line. God's three-skill model can be applied to Mary Barra. According to this model, every successful leader needs three skills—technical, human, and conceptual. She has extensive technical skills in automotive engineering, designing, and manufacturing. She addressed a communication gap between union workers and engineers and corporate executives during the 1998 strike. As general director of internal communications at that time, she solved the problem by placing a communications professional in each GM manufacturing facility to update workers on-site quality, cost, and performance numbers. Mary Barra's biggest challenge is called the switchgate scandal in 2014, a manufacturing issue related to car ignition, which resulted in deaths. Mary Barra dealt with this by acknowledging the problem and initiating an investigation, and she promised that General Motors will solve the problem at any cost. Mary Barra also can be described as a transformational leader. Her leadership is based on transparency, inclusivity, and accountability. Barra changed the culture of the company. She refrained General Motors' core principles and set to work removing barriers that prevent her team from achieving their goals. She is giving employees freedom to make their own decisions, take calculated risks, and make smart choices in order to complete tasks. Moreover, Mary Barra prioritized the needs of her team and the customers by driving the to meet challenging objectives that eventually raise the standard of safety and effectiveness of the automobile globally. In terms of what I have learned about my leadership style, I can say that I have democratic leadership qualities, ability to change and adapt. I have inspired mutual trust and respect, value different points of view, ability to motivate others. In order to improve myself, I have to work on time management skills and practice active listening and practice decisiveness. Also, I need to adapt more autocratic approach. Thank you for your listening.