British Petroleum - Transformational Leadership in a Transnational Organization

Résumé du document

The company BP, in the past named British Petroleum is a British company, of research, extraction and oil refining founded in 1909.

After its merger with Amoco, Atlantic Richfield (Arco) and Burmah Castrol, it became the largest company of The United Kingdom and the third largest oil company in the world. Internationally, BP is present in more than 100 countries.

At the same time by social responsibility and to guarantee its permanence, the company invests for a few years in solar energy.
The choice of the slogan of the company BP, "Beyond Petroleum", would be due to the imminence of oil peak.

Extraits

[...] Horton doesn't use a people management strategy since he don't made employees talk (people can't share their feelings and ideas with the whole company). To sum up, the global BP's strategy is based on change and doesn't take into account employees' point of view. Results/Consequences Horton thus worked in the USA during several years, and this period was a true success; he was recognized for its qualities of leader. However when he becomes CEO in BP in the United Kingdom the things changed. [...]

[...] British Petroleum's global strategy In the beginning Horton based his strategy on the Project 1990 in England in order to make as in the United States and to allow the change based on “OPEN ; Open thinking, Personal impact, Empowering and Networking”. Horton wanted to reduce the head office staff and install an atmosphere of trust. David Simon supported the Project 1990 because according to him, this plan is a true mainstay in the construction and the change of BP. People Management strategy? On the whole, a survey shows that Horton's strategy was not clear and not well-known by its British employees. [...]

[...] Horton's leadership style is based on a hierarchical and autocratic organisational culture to place him like a lord or a prince. Horton's managerial approach forgets to take into account the major systems of beliefs. People, at various levels of existence operate with systems of beliefs, sights of the world and point of views completely different. When they meet on business issues it's as if they came from planets completely different, as if they spoke with different languages. The result is that they communicate without being understood. [...]

[...] Le manager de demain devra être en quelque sorte un Superman chez qui les qualités humaines compteront plus que le côté technique. On the whole, the changes of the society do nothing but increase the number of necessary qualities in the manager. Actually, BP is a transnational corporation too various for only one leadership style. Try to manage this vast diversity by forcing everyone to use an identical approach is what generates most of the conflicts in the economic world. [...]

[...] II) Analysis of the leadership styles Describe first Horton's and then Simon's leadership styles. Identify the differences, if any, between them. How do you perceive these two leaders and, in view of class readings and discussions, how appropriate or inappropriate in your opinion their actions might have been? Horton's and Simon's leadership styles Horton's leadership style: When Horton was BP's CEO in England, the hierarchical pyramid was expressed, and the differences of statute were marked. Horton had a militarist vision and had founded a radical separation between those which think and those which carry out. [...]