Organizational excellence and leadership strategies: principles followed by top multinational executives

Abstract

During the past decade, the environment for multinational corporations has been quite volatile, with numerous challenges for the firms operating in this arena. However, throughout this period there have emerged a number of executive leaders who have been recognized for their contributions to organizational excellence and leadership despite the environmental fluctuations. An analysis of the strategies followed by these executives reflects a limited number of distinct themes. The themes reflect a focus on the care of customers, product innovation, committed people and management leadership. The leadership strategies reflected by these corporate leaders focus on attention through vision, meaning through communication, trust through positioning and confidence through respect. This article focuses on the top multinational executives identified for each year during the decade of the 1990s, and the organizational excellence and leadership strategies that have been at the heart of the practices implemented and followed by these executives.