Page 155 - MS Year in Review 2020

turn, changes in metrics used to evaluate performance. This was what was Iacocca

did at Chrysler and Goulb did at American Express.

Leaders Must Model the Cultural Changes Required

Ideally, the leader must model or personify the cultural changes to be made. The

behavior of Lee Iacocca who took a salary if $1 and Harvey Golub are good
examples of this. Golub forbid hidden agendas, and indicated that the political

practice of simply agreeing with the CEO was not acceptable. Golub also took the
position that his visible personal involvement was important to symbolize to the
organization that these projects were high priority.

It Might Be Necessary to Create a New Senior Leadership Team

As part of the resolution of a crisis, a leader might need to create a new senior
leadership team. Lee Iacocca did this at Chrysler. Golub did it at American Express.

Similarly, Eisner added new members to his team, notably Jeffrey Katzenberg, at
Disney.

The late Sanford Sigloff, who was a legendary turnaround expert in his day, told
one of the authors that he always brought his own team into a crisis

situation. 139 Later he would create a new leadership team to manage the
turnaround that he had orchestrated. He also indicated that some of the leaders in
a firm were probably good enough to remain, but that in a crisis he did not have

time to experiment and determine who was a capable manager. Accordingly, they
were all replaced.

LESSONS ABOUT THE UNSUCCESSFUL LEADERSHIP

OF ORGANIZATIONAL CRISES

In addition to the lessons learned about how to lead a crisis successfully, there are
also lessons from these cases about unsuccessful leadership of organizational

139 Personal communication with Eric Flamholtz.

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