Impacts of Bad Management and Leadership on Volkswagen

LEADERSHIP STYLES- VOLKSWAGEN GROUP SCANDAL
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Introduction
Leadership is defined as the capacity of a firm's management to develop and realise challenging organisational objectives, take decisive and fast actions when necessary, inspire employees to perform, and outperform the available competition. Leadership is critical for any company because it sets out the direction to be followed (Răducan and Răducan 2014). Employees must know the path and direction the company is taking and who and what to follow and accomplish the set goals. Leadership involves directing workers on how to effectively discharge their responsibilities and constantly supervising the completion of tasks. The above explanation indicates that good leadership and management are essential for an organisation to succeed (Sornum, 2010). This paper provides a detailed case study of the impacts of bad management and leadership on Volkswagen by critically discussing the issues against theoretical management and leadership concepts.
Case Overview
Volkswagen Group, commonly referred to as Volkswagen AG, is a Germany Automobile manufacturer founded in 1937 to produce large volumes of low-priced cars for local and the market abroad. The firm has a history of struggling to ascertain its position in global markets. To become the globe's largest automaker and outperform its competition, the company made a series of decisions that resulted in different outcomes than previously expected. Before the appointment of Martin Winterkorn as the firm's CEO in 2007, the entity was lagging in the automobile industry due to poor company-consumer relationships. Its goal under the new management was to challenge the U.S. automobile industry via mainstream mass production of affordable automobiles, increasing the product line by designing new brands, and pushing into the Southeast Asian and Indian markets (Mansouri, 2016). However, these plans failed as the firm still faced marketability issues, especially after the 2015 emission scandal.
The company failed to align shareholders and the top management's goals. It focused on its short-term goal orientation of boosting sales in the American Market at the expense of the long-term goals of developing and sustaining trust with consumers. To meet the sales goals, pressure mounted on the middle managers, who forced engineers to develop software that detects and subsequently reduces the amount of carbon and nitrogen emissions in the atmosphere. The software was faulty, thus providing falsified emission measures. This scandal is linked to the leadership styles and the organisational culture employed by the company in achieving its goals.
The theoretical perspectives used to analyse the scandal based on bad management and leadership comprise classical, behavioural, and modern management theories. These models are comprehensive because they entail all the organisational management issues essential for the success of any business. The chosen theories are also significant in identifying the underlying impacts of bad leadership models applied by Volkswagen AG and what the company would have done to escape the scandal.
Theoretical Perspectiv...