v> Department of Management Studies

CASE FOR CRITICAL ANALYSIS

How important are excellent leaders to organization? If you were to ask 3M CEO

George Buckley, he'd say extremely important. But he'd also say that excellent leaders

don't just pop out of nowhere. A company has to cultivate leaders who have the

skills and abilities to help it survive and thrive. And like successful baseball team

with strong performance statistics that has a player development plan in place, 3M

has its own farm system. Except its farm system is designed to develop company leaders.

3M's leadership development program is so effective that in 2010 it was

number three on the list of BusinessWeek's "Top 20 Companies for Leadership"

and in 2009, Chief Executive magazine and Hay Consulting Group named the

company the best at developing future leaders. What is 3M's leadership program all

about? About 8 years ago, the company's former CEO (Jim McNerney, who is

now Boeing's CEO) and his top team spend 18 months developing a new leadership

model for the company. After numerous brainstorming sessions and much heated

debate, the group finally agreed on six "leadership attributes" that they believed were

essential for the company to become skilled at executing strategy and being

accountable. Those six attributes included the ability to "chart the course; energize and

inspire others; demonstrate ethics, integrity, and compliance; deliver results; raise the

bar; and innovate resourcefully." And now Buckley's guidance, the company is

continuing and reinforcing its pursuit of leadership excellence with these six

attributes.

When asked about his views on leadership, Buckley say that he believes leaders

differ from managers. "A leader is as much about inspiration as anything else. A

manager is more about process." He believes that the key to developing leaders is to

focus on those things that can be developed - like strategic thinking. Buckley also

believes that leaders should not be promoted up and through the organization too

quickly. They need time to experience failures and what it takes to rebuild.

Finally, when asked about his own leadership style. Buckley responded, "The

absolutely best way for me to be successful is to have people working for me who are

better. Having that kind of emotional self-confidence is vital to leaders. You build

respond in those people because you admire what they do. Having built respect, you

build trust. However hokey it sounds, it works." And it must be working as the

company was named the number one most admired company in the medical and other

precision equipment division of Fortune's most admired ranking for 2009.

Source: Robbins, S.P. & Coulter, M. (2012), Management. 11th edition, Pearson.

Questions

1. Discuss whether you agree about Buckley's statement that leaders and managers

differ. (20 marks)

2. Describe the leadership models/theories/issues that you see in this case. (20 marks)May. - Aug. 2020 Final Assignment BB112 Fundamentals of Management

Page 3 of 3

3. Discuss how the six leadership attributes mentioned in the case study above can be

developed and measured in a company. (20 marks)

4. Discuss what this case taught you about leadership.