Leadership Analysis of Robert Nardelli

Throughout history, the organizational landscape has been highly competitive. Effective leadership aligned with the core corporate strategy can serve as a powerful lever to achieve success in a fast paced business environment. We have seen great leaders taking their businesses to new heights. They knew how to build great companies while treating their employees well, how to improve or change dysfunctional corporate cultures, reinvigorating tired brands and develop new strategic plans. Others proved themselves difficult to work for, stubborn and even out-of-touch. The following report analyzes the leadership of Robert Nardelli who is the chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Chrysler.

Biographical Sketch

This section presents a brief overview of his personal and professional life. Robert L. Nardelli was born on May 17, 1948 in Old Forge, Pennsylvania. He completed his Schooling in the State of Illinois and earned Masters in Business Administration from University of Louisville. Nardelli started his professional career at GE where he worked for 27 years. Nardelli served as the head of GE's Canadian appliance unit. Later, he headed the transportation systems division. He thus rose to become one of the top four executives in GE. A lengthy succession plan ensued when Jack Welch was leaving GE and Nardelli was in the race towards becoming the CEO of the company. However, after losing the CEO spot to Jeff Immelt, he exited the company.

Then, Nardelli took over as CEO of the home retailer Home Depot in 2000. Nardelli brought discipline to Home Depot but the shifting of gears was shocking to a lot of people who were well accustomed to his predecessor Bernie Marcus’ laid-back style. By many benchmarks, including sales, gross margins, and profits, Bob Nardelli did a fairly good job at Home Depot. However, Nardelli came under fire and extreme criticism for his gargantuan compensation package relative to the stock's weak performance, slowing profits and a regulatory probe about its options practices, and his management style. Also, Home Depot had to fight growing competition from Lowe’s and it needed to reinvigorate growth in the U.S. market and boost overseas growth. Finally, Nardelli stepped down and exited the company at the beginning of 2007.

Later, in August of 2007, he was brought on board by Chrysler soon after it was purchased by the private equity firm Cerberus. After the acquisition, the company turned to the leadership of Nardelli as the business required a leader who would follow the plan and stick to the numbers.

Leadership Style

Nardelli’s leadership style can be described as being “task oriented”, “directive” and “autonomous” and “autocratic”. Let us analyze his style when he was the CEO in Home Depot. His tenure at the company was marked with heavy-handedness and inflexibility. Almost immediately after Home Depot snared Nardelli, he embarked on an aggressive plan to centralize control. He neglected the touchy-feely stuff, enthusiasm of his people, a sense of humility before his board, the care of his shareholders. He was maniacal about goals, objectivity, accomplishments within the boundaries of the values of the company. He invested heavily in technology. He also wanted to virtually measure everything in the company and hold top managers strictly accountable for meeting the numbers.

He ran the company efficiently for six years. However, the growth slowed down. At the same time, Lowe's enjoyed a far better reputation. It had a more appealing store design and women shoppers endorsed it. Better customer service, customer experience, and personalized product offerings gave Lowe’s stores the competitive advantage which eventually moved it directly onto Home Depot turf. Nardelli’s reign at Home Depot was characterized by the “callous” and “inflexible” management style. Nardelli was brought in when the company needed to focus on the cost side of the equations when sales were growing. However his reputation suffered when Home Depot's smaller archrival, “Lowe's Companies, soared more than 200% since 2000, while Home Depot's shares declined 6%”, according to Bloomberg data. The retail organization never really embraced his leadership style. The company needed a more innovative and constructive leadership.

Let us now take a close look at his leadership at Chrysler. Chrysler has long been suffering from an undisciplined leadership style and it needs a situational leader to return to a profitable track. Situational leadership suggests that situations call for different leadership styles. Therefore, it installed the leadership of Bob Nardelli with the hope that it will help the company shake up Chrysler. We all know that Chrysler is in need of a painful