By Tony Habib
1. Introduction
There
is a big jargon about the definition of “personality”, “charisma” and
“effective leadership”. Looking into the selected approaches, behavior
attitudes, firm decisions, leaps, and way of thinking of two leaders, we will
try to identify the points of strength and weakness in their style and
performance.
2 Backgrounds
2.1 About Carlos Ghosn
“I would say good leader brings results. A
great leader writes a new story,” (15) noted Carlos Ghosn
(pronounced like “phone”), the current CEO and President of Renault of France
and Nissan of Japan. He is considered to be the first outsider to hold such a
position in a Japanese automaker (13).
Coming
from a Lebanese/French parents, and growing up in Brazil, France and Lebanon,
Ghosn acquired a unique multicultural-friendly personality (12). “I’ve always felt different. Because you are
different you try to integrate, and that pushes you to try to understand the
environment in which you find yourself.” These were his words talking to
Detroit News. (12)
After
he successfully managed Michelin, the famous French tiers manufacturer, in
North and South America, Mr. Ghosn moved to Renault as COO in 1996 (12)(10).
The money-losing automaker started to blossom again when he adjusted the
operation processes by cutting unproductive positions, closing Belgium’s
factory and render 3,300 workers unemployed (9)(17).
The 45 years old Ghosn was then to be first
evaluated from his boss, and this was the results: His boss, Renault’s CEO at
that time, found in Ghosn the enough transformational leader traits that
encouraged him to buy 44.4% of the near-closing Nissan and send Ghosn to Japan
as CEO. (9)
The
situation was a bare crisis. Nissan was $17b in debt (13), and only
three models out of 48 were selling profitably. Mr. Carlos didn’t act at once;
instead he began acting CEO by a three-month analysis for every aspect of the
business (9). By the end of these months he had his “Revival Plan”
completed to be shared. He was very sure of his strategy that he was ready to
resign if Nissan didn’t retain profit after one year (9)(13).
He started action by communicating his vision
with the employees vividly. By his large capacity to share the richness of his
vision he boosted their morals about it, and then he didn’t stop elaborating it
more. After that he started executing his well-defined plan, and sealed his
vision/strategy sharing and action plan by highly commitment. That’s why he was
named the 7-11 man (coming early at 7am and going home at 11pm). And as what he
did with Renault again, he did cut the extra fat of the business, from
redundant workers to unprofitable plants and from non-yielding shares to
slow-sale production lines. But not only that, he had a priority as well to
materialize his promise which did happen by the end of the first year; Nissan
net profit jumped to $2.7b from a loss of $6.1b in the previous year (15).
2.2 About Naguib Sawiris
“You know, my view is
that there are no more green-field opportunities left in the world” (22), these are the worlds of Naguib Sawiris, a
pure Egyptian visionary entrepreneur. He was named CEO for Orascom, the family
business, succeeding after his own father. Having a great passion for
telecommunications and backed up with his masters from the Swiss Institute of
Technology, Mr. Sawiris established Orascom Telecom (OT) to be the pioneer
company in its field in Egypt (18)(24).
Soon after being named CEO, he led the
decentralization process of Orascom’s departments to become separate focused
entities: construction, telecom, hotels & development and technology
systems (18).
As the CEO of OT Sawiris made his first breakthrough by winning the
license for the first mobile operator in Egypt – Mobinile (18). His
vision was that every Egyptian (around 65 millions at 1995) would subscribe to
it one day. OT expanded its operations later to more than 12 countries
including Pakistan, Algeria, Tunisia and North Korea. The vision of leading the
business forward didn’t stop at this stage, Sawiris entered a bid for the huge
Italian telecom company “WIND” and bought it for €12b. He was able to convert its loss to profit
and savings as well(28).
He also saw in post-Saddam-Iraq a good land
for seeding and harvest; so he started Iraqna (20) (27) the mobile
operator in Iraq, despite all the security issues running in the country, even
if that costed him $2m a month for security subject (27).
To date, Ot headed by Sawiris bought 19.3%
stakes in Hutchison Telecom to become one of the biggest two telecom providers
in the globe. (24)
Naguib
Sawiris also established a company for movie making and theater management (19).
He launched an Egyptian satellite channel and an Iraqi one (r).
Latest news is revealing that he is pushing investments to develop cheaper GSM
mobile phones for the poor countries (24).
3. Between Ghosn and Sawiris
Ghosn
is a very successful leader who retained unexpected profit for all the
companies he worked for. He is even directing two of the biggest automaker
companies at the same time. Sawiris is a pioneer investor who extended his
vision and business to the whole world. In the comparison here we will discuss
only some leadership aspects and approaches, and not analyzing the detailed
values or beliefs; keeping our confirmed respect for both great men.
3.1 Power (1)(3)
Carlos
Ghosn is a leader who earned his power from his character, legitimate positions
and being an expert executive. Some of his subordinate engineers in France
agreed to move to Japan when he asked them to do it (12), and later
to the USA to operate a plant in Mississippi (12). To that extent he
retains effective relationship with his employees and has influencing power on
them.
His
power also is of a great deal inspirational. He used to set an example of
commitment before asking anyone to do it (16). US Nissan marketing
chief words were: “He’s just the most
disciplined man I’ve ever worked with”, and continue to evaluate his
ability of solving problems as a great decision maker (12).
On
the other side, Naguib Sawiris’ power is coming from his strong and spontaneous
charisma and from being ahead from everyone. Another strength is added to
Sawiris is that he value his employees more than money, this matter made 20,000
workforce being loyal to him. Three times employees from OT-Iraq have been
kidnapped and he was the only one able to get them back safely. He was involved
in every detail in the process of freeing them; he even conducted the
negotiations by himself (knowing that OT-Iraq is hiring security company for
these issues). He willingly paid all required ransoms to bring them back. He used
to call them in the media “our sons”
or “our men” (20).
3.2 Leadership Skills (1)(2)(5)
Talking
about great communications, assertiveness and listening is exactly describing
Mr. Ghosn. When he first went to Japan, this whole new culture, he needed to share
his strategy over and over to make sure all people working with him have the
same passion. Then he was very assertive in taking decisions for the best of
Nissan even if they contradict the Japanese traditions (ex: ending some
workers’ contracts is against Japanese odds) (9) (17). He is well
known of listening carefully before taking any move or conduct in any action (12).
Mr.
Ghosn shows a great expertise in setting goals and when to communicate them. He
set a close target that was both challenging and achievable, and he shared it
consistently. While he has some far goals he knows the business has to reach
but communicating them early will show them like impossible ones. That’s why
not before three years from the “Revival” he launched the “180°” plan, which aimed to increase Nissan’s sales
by one million and reduce debt to zero; he achieved it ahead of schedule as
well (12).
As
an entrepreneur, Mr. Sawiris believes so much in human development. In many
live interviews he stressed on the power of mentored experience and academic
learning. He established a scholarship for MBA studied in Harvard University,
USA, for elected people who will be only tied to work in Egypt for two years
after completing their studies. Nevertheless,
Sawiris is not known to be close to the daily operational employees. His
communication with them is almost illusion. Even his “coaching” concepts he
talk about a lot in the media he doesn’t execute any of them by himself.
Maybe
that’s because Sawiris trust his top management and delegate many
responsibilities to them. For example when he enters a new market with a new
culture, he doesn’t bring his troop along to invade it, in contrast he delegate
the work to the best local candidates, giving them new tools to enhance their
creativity and performance. Like what he said about “WIND” the Italian
telecommunication company he acquired: “We
have only about five Egyptian people (there).” (28)
3.3 Character and charisma (1)(3)(6)
Media
used to get attracted to Mr. Sawiris for his strong charisma, quite voice and
acute perspectives. He shows a lot of interest in media himself. He is famous
of talking about secularism, human rights, politics, and economic solutions.
Sawiris is this kind of people with great capacity of expressing their vision
and dominating by doing so.
It seems like he has the unquestioned answer
for everything even culture-critical issues, he can openly give his opinion
with a huge amount of self-confidence on any topic. In fact, having this strong
charisma made any failure unacceptable and personally related to him not to the
business. That maybe what pushed him to use his relations with the Egyptian
president’s family to gain Mobinile’s license (29), or using other
ways to win bids like in Iraq, Italy and Saudi Arabia. (27)
On
the other hand, Mr. Ghosn had a kind of character that can admit mistakes and
fear. Based on his strategies, code of ethics and search for excellence, Ghosn
took responsibility of Nissan US plant’s failure even when the real problem was
in inexperienced workforce (12). As well when he was first sent to
Nissan to rescue it from debt and closure, he admitted that it’s not an easy
task (9)(12)(17). A mix of
high integrity and inner values gave him an easy ‘access’ to influence his
followers. “I hope I’m more demanding on
myself than I am demanding on people around me”, he stated. (15)
3.4 Mindset (1)(2)(7)(8)
Being
always close from every tiny detail in the operation sheds the light on Ghosn’s
approach of management. He is one of the highly ‘engaged managers’, who by
inspiring his teams and analyzing problems, derives results. Ghosn’s has an
analytical mindset, which enables him to notice, listen and understand the
motives for better performance, and then communicate the derivatives of
success.
On totally the opposite, Mr. Sawiris’ charisma
and personality are pushing him away from people who carry out the operation’s
burdens. He made this complicated hierarchy in OT, where upper levels are like
gods only few people can get close to them. But he is as well a successful
‘worldly manager’, who really has firm steps on experience and multi-cultural
behaviors. His philosophy is that for a foreign investor having foreigner
brand, it’s much difficult to achieve required market penetration. So he
thought of using local brand in local language that reflects the culture of the
country so people feel related to it and proud of it. That’s how OT gained
share market globally in less than 12 years.
4. Conclusion
Despite
being a revolutionary bold business investor, Sawiris don’t have direct
relation with his employees. He is so distracted by his visions, media glow and
directing the Orascom group, than to be a direct leader for his subordinates.
He is far ahead of his followers what makes him detached from them. Only in
time of crisis that he dives inside the problems to give direct solutions and
to gain more credit. He is a great leader for his group of companies but
certainly not for his people.
In
contrast, Ghosn’s concern about people is well shown, while keeping results and
over expected achievements a priority. He sets an example in front of them and
doesn’t take any diplomat ways when it comes to important decisions. He has a
transparent and focused character that he deploys in generating astonishing outcome.
His words are: “You have to understand
the expectation of people and you have to respond to it”, “at the end, results are going to cement
everything, they’re going to give you the credibility.” (15)
5. References
(1) Hughes, R.,
Ginnett, R. and Curphy, G., 2009, Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of
Experience, 6th Edition, McGraw-Hill Irwin, New York.
(2) William W. George, 2003, Authentic leadership: rediscovering the secrets to creating lasting value, Wiley Imprint, Jossey-Bass, USA
(3)
John Adair, 2009, Leadership for
Innovation, Kogan Page, London, UK
(4) De Charon, L.
(2003) A transformational leadership development program: Jungian psychological
types in dynamic flux, Organization Development Journal, 21(3), 9-18.
(5) Bryant, S.E. (2003)
The role of transformational and transactional leadership in creating, sharing
and exploiting organizational knowledge, The Journal of Leadership and Organizational
Studies, 9(4), 32-44.
(6) Sankar, Y. (2003)
Character and not charisma is the critical measure of leadership excellence,
The Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 9(4), 45- 55.
(7) Gosling, J. and
Mintzberg, H. (2003) The five minds of a manager, Harvard Business Review,
November, 54- 63.
(8) Richards, B. (2002)
Rethink or else…! Creating intelligent organizations, The Journal for
Quality and Participation, 25(4), 35-37.
By Tony Habib
By Tony Habib
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