Company Executives: Our Company Needs a Leader like Jack Welch

“I’m a leader like Huh Joon but a company needs a leader like Jack Welch.”

It was found that corporate executives categorize themselves as a “Huh Joon type of leader,” as skilled “doctors” who exactly diagnose a problem and suggest an appropriate solution, like the famous sixteenth-century physician.

However, regarding a leader style that is needed by a company, they chose a Jack Welch (former president of the U.S. General Electric) type of leader, who proposes a powerful vision and leads an organization.

On May 26, the Samsung Economic Research Institute (SERI) announced that 28.4 percent of the respondents in its recent survey selected Huh Joon as a leader type similar to their current leadership style. This online survey was conducted among 345 people through a charged information site named SERICEO (www.sericeo.org).

In addition, 23.2 percent of the respondents said that they were leaders like Jack Welch, 19.7 percent answered that they were a Yi Soon-shin type of leader, who overcomes a difficult situation with a prominent strategy, 19.4 percent said that they were more like Jimmy Carter, who effectively arbitrates confrontation and tension within a group, and 9.3 percent chose Bill Gates, who creates value with original ideas and initiative, as their current leadership type.

When asked what they deemed to be “the most urgently needed type of leader in the company,” Jack Welch came in first with 33.9 percent, followed by Yi Soon-shin (27.8 percent), Bill Gates (20.0 percent), Huh Joon (12.2 percent), and Jimmy Carter (6.1 percent).

Sang-Soo Kim ssoo@donga.com