Page 150 - MS Year in Review 2020

Our Select Sample

The companies or case studies included in the sample were some of the
most iconic names of US economic history: American Express, Chrysler,

Disney, Eastman Kodak, International Harvester/Navistar, Osborne
Computer, Sears and United Airlines, and Westfield. These case studies

were selected to illustrate both successful and unsuccessful examples of
leadership responses to crises.

The successful examples were American Express, Chrysler, Disney,
Westfield. The unsuccessful examples were Eastman Kodak, Osborne Computer,

Sears and United Airlines. The case of International Harvester/Navistar had
elements of both success and failure; but on balance we view it as a partial-
success.

Prior articles have examined the individual case examples of successful and

unsuccessful crisis leadership. 135 This issue of the Management Systems Newsletter
provides a summary and synthesis of the key lessons learned about successful and
unsuccessful crisis leadership. Specifically, it focuses upon the leadership

responses to organizational crises, and identifies two different but related sets
of findings and lessons for successful leadership of an organizational crises: 1)

principles of successful leadership of a crisis, and 2) causes of unsuccessful
leadership of a crisis.

This article will describe the overall findings and result of this research. It does not
discus all of the details of each case; the details of each case are discussed in the

135 Eric Flamholtz “CRISIS LEADERSHIP LESSONS: Iacocca Changes the Culture at
Chrysler,” Linkedin, July 1, 2020 and Eric Flamholtz “CRISIS LEADERSHIP LESSONS: Culture Change
at American Express, Linkedin, July 7, 2020; Eric Flamholtz, “Unsuccessful CRISIS LEADERSHIP
LESSONS: The Tragic Downfall of Sears, Linkedin, July 13, 2020; Eric Flamholtz “Michael Eisner’s
Successful Crisis Leadership at Disney,” Linkedin, July 21, 2020; Eric Flamholtz, “Crisis Leadership
lessons: The Downfall of Kodak,” Linkedin, July 30, 2020; Eric Flamholtz, “Is Your Organization
Susceptible to a Crisis”? Linkedin August. 11, 2020.

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