Question

For assignment two, you are to research and write about a current female leader.  You can choose any woman listed in the Fortune Magazine's (Links to an external site.) 2017 "Women CEOs Leading Fortune 500 Companies". Specifically, students will explore the leadership traits that their chosen leader found problematic and those that facilitated the achievement of her goals, while overcoming personal, social, or other systemic impediments. 800 words

Answer 1

Mary Barra the women CEO leading a Fortune 500 company , General Motors, has gone through lots of societal and personal impediments before she finally clinched in the position of CEO.

Mary Bara had worked at General Motors from a very young age starting from a small post of checking fender panels and inspecting hoods in order to earn money to pay tuition at her universiy , since she was constantly associated with the company , she subsequently held a variety of other positions at the company like engineering and administrative positions.

Leadership Characteristics of Mary Bara:

Leaders are usually expected to be exuberant, egoistics, aggressive, bold and that is true in most cases but looking at Mara Bara she has come out to be a quiet , humble , friendly, sympathetic, and collaborative leader who uses her charisma to make people admire her. She has her own perspective of looking at things and she believes that " when your team trusts you, you can drive their efforts in any direction" She always tends to give credit to her team rather than stealing limelight herself and makes her team a part of every decision she takes thus building loyalty and commitment.

Bara has come out to be the first CEO of an electronic and engineering company and thus is expected to possess great technical skills. Well that do counts , while talking about her leadership characteristics, she is an analytical thinker and has got a hedgehog for electronics from a very early age.

The most interesting thing for which Mary Bara considers herself very fortunate for, is the quick learning skills, which made her exploit various opportunities through out her carrier and provided a scope to promote herself from one position to the other. Mary Bara started her foundation in engineering ,and worked in the engineering department of the company , then acquired skills in quality control , production , product development, human resource management and supply chain management and so on, thus was shifted from. Lower to a superior position now and then.

Mary Bara believes that her strong association with the company from start made her to affirm her position in the company as a strong woman with vivid thoughts and efficient skills which helped her in overcoming the social Dogma.

Mary believes that her background of engineering helped her a lot in acquiring specialisation in the tasks but she still had to struggle to prove herself better than men at every step ,in which she succeeded flawlessly.

Putting interests of the company at foremost front and making efforts to be exceptional at current job rather than thinking about future , made her develop a knack over the job she performed, she did the job at hand so well that she constantly was promoted to much serious positions.

The personal traits that helped Mary in overcoming all sort of impediments are :

1) Leadership style: Mary has always followed a very encouraging and Democratic leadership style. She believes in providing initiative to the people , encouraging creativity, increasing their contribution and promoting active participation. She believes in walking along with people rather then leading alone. Barra in her approach is collaborative and understanding which makes her to easily gain the confidence of people and earn the trust. Mary has also been very successful in introducing and managing change very efficiently through overcoming resistance as she builds an environment of trust, interdependence and collaboration.

Emotional Intelligence : Mary has been successful in overcoming impediments through her emotional intelligence which has developed in her the attitude of not giving up. She does not get overwhelmed by the situations prevailing and knows how to control the emotions. She has overcome caprices which makes her sorted straight forward, and patient. She believes that introspecting self is very much important to lead others as " If you are not aware of yourself, how can you go understanding others" Emotional intelligence has helped her a lot in understanding perspectives of people and thus trigerring their emotions to make them do what is in their best interest.

Perseverance : Mary has never discharged the behavior of impatience, discouragement, fear or apprehension. She has always been ready to face anything that might come in her way.

It's not like Barra has not faced any setbscks in her role as a CEO , e.g the major setback she faced was the bankruptcy case of 2008. But it is her perseverant nature which made herself along with others survive by coordinating efforts. She follows the principle of "One for all and All for one" . She has never backed from her responsibilities or mistakes, as mistakes are inevitable she has always tried to correct them without making it affect anybody. This trait of perseverance has helped her a lot in overcoming any turmoil.

Decisive :

Marry is a very efficient decision maker. She does not only look for the best choice but analysis that choice in light of its impact on each area of her organization in order to ensure that it does not lead to any anticipated complexities. She analysis the alternativs and makes a choice in a way which ensure weaknesses associated with the alternative are minimized so that they do not act as a hurdle.

Mary is Decisive, and not as womens are expected to be. She has changed the perception of millions of people who look at women's as only being sensitive and vulnerable. Decisiveness has worked a lot for Barra in overcoming all complexities in the process through her problem solving skills and critical thinking approach. She gives attention to details and has an observant nature , these qualities make her an efficient leader and make her shine out from the rest.

The traits which Mary Bara has found problematic , impeding the achievement of her goals :

Mary Bara has been always underestimated throughout her process from being a small employee to holding the position of CEO. Her status in the society as a Women has acted as a major impediment in her success , as she joined the company in 2008 when women were not so prominently emerging in the companies and holding a prominent positions specially in an automotive, engineering company.

Mary had always encountered the situations where people have been putting a doubt on her analytical capabilities but perhaps she always outshined. She was being compared to men who did not even happened to equal her in qualification and job,

Further due to her failure in certain small and big projects she has been many times declared undeserving for holding such position! She had faced the situation where people doubted her capabilities more than others who were underperforming .

Mary has also encountered economical disparity in many situations. Playing the women card has never been the choice of Mary and thus she came out to be stronger than before facing such disparities and finally was included in the Fortune 500 list ranking in top 100, and emerged as a strongest leader.

Mary initially faced issues in adapting rapidly at a faster pace because of her specilaisation in tasks or disturbing the comfort of employees which to her was most important factor to perform productivly , this trait was also criticised by many as she was declared inflexible. And it was then, Mary changed her leadership style and adopted transformational approach and today she is first to adapt to any change in method or technique.

Thank you dear student

Hope I explained well good luck and God bless:)

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