Training Leaders...

The September 25th Fortune has an interesting headline..."GE's secret boot camp" that describes how the un-pretentious locomotive business in Erie, Pennsylvania has become a training ground for GE leaders...

Let's put this business and article in perspective.... GE is one of the FEW producers of locomotives in the world...in fact, it was once on the "divestiture" list for the company since General Motor was the dominant leader in this market and had over 75% of the US market, while GE had only 25% and was declining. GM developed the electro-mechanical version and GE was the electric only leader.

But GE was lucky...GM decided to harvest/ divest its non- automotive businesses and so GE was given the opportunity to take control. Fortunately it had strong manufacturing leaders and the business moved from a poor number 2 to the leader.

Over the past decades, GE locomotive continued to make its numbers and its portfolio position moved upward... it became a consistent CASH COW and its management was rewarded.

If GE is using this business to train leaders, it must be training those who can lead mature businesses, where they are the leader in a monopolistic market and have the resources to incrementally innovate and maintain high quality and competitive costs...unfortunately this is a very selective part of the world of business...

I addressed this leadership issue in my fourth book" Risktaker, Caretaker, Surgeon and Undertaker...the four faces of strategic leadership" and stressed the need to recognize that there is no one leadership style or type for all seasons and situations...obviously GE Transportation, which should be called GE LOCOMOTIVE... requires the skilled of a caretaker... and they have been able to provide this type of leader...

If you are interested in learning more about matching LEADERS and TEAMS to strategy, you can purchase my book by visiting my website: http://www.strategyleader.com/

It clearly demonstrates that there is "no leader for all seasons and situations" what it takes to leader a new venture is very different from one whose role it is to just defend and incrementally improve position...if GE needs leaders to lead mature, dominate share businesses..then ERIE is a good proving ground, but if it needs to create new, high risk businesses, which it does if it wants to acheive the Immelt GO BIG strategy...then this is not the right place to train them...this is the dilemna and challenge of Jeff Immelt and the strategy he is articulating..