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“Visionary,” “ideology maddened,” “unfairly criticized,” “notorious for a brusque, I-know-best style.” If there’s some disagreement as to how to characterize CEO and President Katharina
Weber, there is little disagreement about the sheer force of her personality or the impact she continues to have on the farm equipment industry in Germany. Weber was, and is, a sharp elbowed, impolitic street fighter with an absolute belief in the rightness of her cause: to transform the Duetz-Fendt farm equipment business. Katharina Weber started working at Duetz-Fendt GmbH, a leader in the distribution and merchandising of replacement parts and accessories for farm equipment on the shop floor, becoming a machine operator and eventually a plant supervisor. Eight years later, she was made a vice president of German plants for Duetz-Fendt GmbH, and put in charge of the company’s Tractor Parts Division. Before she arrived at this division, plant modernization, reengineering, reorganization, and total quality management were doing nothing to help the company turn a profit. The division that was in the company’s original plant, had a culture that was almost as old, and its employees who had just returned to work after an eight-month strike were unhappy. As competitors were
making great headway in the industry, the division was facing tough times. When Katharina was promoted to head the Tractor Parts Division, she had spent the past few years working for, she jumped into the opportunity with a lot of enthusiasm and ideas of how she would like the department to operate under her leadership. However, for many during Katharina’s tenure as a leader and manager at Duetz-Fendt, she had a reputation as a meddlesome, overbearing boss who got in the way of people doing their jobs. She got involved in every detail of the departments, even making decisions on shift changesherself. quality management were doing nothing to help the company turn a profit. The division that was in the company’s original plant, had a culture that was almost as old, and its employees who had just returned to work after an eight-month strike were unhappy. As competitors were making great headway in the industry, the division was facing tough times. When Katharina was promoted to head the Tractor Parts Division, she had spent the past few years working for, she jumped into the opportunity with a lot of enthusiasm and ideas of how she would like the department to operate under her leadership. However, for many during Katharina’s tenure as a leader and manager at Duetz-Fendt, she had a reputation as a meddlesome, overbearing boss who got in the way of people doing their jobs. She got involved in every detail of the departments, even making decisions on shift changes herself.Although she has many employees that respect and treat her as a very important, brave and forward-thinking business executive who led the modernization of the company, others have found her dismissive and confrontational. Given how Weber was career-driven and had her eyes on playing a bigger role in the organization, she was determined to not only prove her ability to lead this department, but to get her former colleagues to view her as executive material, in order to support her efforts to move up in the organization. In no time, Weber was sending out memos detailing new approaches she wanted her former colleagues to employ in order to make things more efficient or efforts more aligned with corporate policy as a way to prove her technical prowess. She used team meetings to inform her direct reports of her interactions with various groups of executives and VPs to highlight her growing familiarity with those at the executive level in order to prove her comfort level with senior executives. Nobody felt committed to and a part of Weber’s vision. Team spirit was not-existent. Katharina wanted to be both a boss and a friend to her employees. Her leadership style stressed teamwork and participation, and she spent a lot of time running ideas by workers on the factory floor. However, the low-skilled workers were more concerned about getting clear direction and consistent standards so they knew what was expected of them. Also some workers started to be more and more absent or late without calling, showed up under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and started fights on the factory floor. Many employees that wanted to a good job were frustrated by Katharina’s approach. “There is no order. She lets people get away with anything,” said one employee. Katharina became so focused on building her rising star status that when one of her team members expressed concern about the growing number of delays in getting vital data from her to complete their work, she dismissed their concerns because it was not a critical issue that those in senior management would care about. After a few more similar instances, the team members gave up because Katharina was not listening to them, and felt little support. Katharina also checked closely on the performance of the plant supervisors. She set demanding objectives for each department, and held weekly meetings to review department performance. She said that she wanted employees to come up with new ways to solve departmental problems that impacted production; however, Katharina insisted that she must approve any deviations from established plans and policies. She challenged data findings her team members presented at department meetings – results the senior VPs had already signed off on – as a way to publicly demonstrate that she was not letting anything get overlooked on her watch.The engineers are professionals, paid well, and did not need direction or support and were doing a good job according to their prior supervisor Marcus Kasner. As Katharina observed the engineers in her usual manner, she realized that all of the engineers did their work differently. So she closely observed their work and looked for good ideas that all her employees could follow. It was not long before she was telling the engineers how to do a better job of designing the custom specifications. Unfortunately for Katharina, she did not understand that in her quest to demonstrate her authority in leading this division, she was also showing her team how little she trusted their ability to understand what matters, not to mention their ability to do things right. It became very clear to everyone in Katharina’s division that she viewed leadership as something one achieves because of their title or position. That she expected people to throw their support behind her simply because she was the boss. “She has an absolute certainty that she’s correct,” said Maren Heinzerling, the vice-president of the harvesting equipment division who has clashed with Ms. Weber over modernization plans. “I guess it’s nice to go through life with that kind of certainty, but I don’t know if it’s appropriate in business.”Inside the company, Ms. Weber developed a reputation as a difficult colleague who resisted oversight, according to current and former managers who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of Duetz-Fendt’s distaste for public discussion of internal business. By the end of her first year as vice-president of the Division, she has a team that is suffering from decreased productivity levels, a recent history of missed deadlines and mistakes, and crumbling lines of communication between the various team members. In her zeal to prove her ability to lead and step up into the executive circle, Katharina ended up making a number of missteps which, though seemingly minor, spoke more about the nature of her leadership than those actions she often tried to put in the limelight. The matter has reached the senior management level. Although they consider Ms. Weber a brilliant innovator with a sharp mind for data and details, senior management have noticed she stumbled repeatedly on influencing her followers to achieve the company’s goals, making errors that, some senior manages fear, threaten her ability to pursue her department’s agenda.
Weber, there is little disagreement about the sheer force of her personality or the impact she continues to have on the farm equipment industry in Germany. Weber was, and is, a sharp elbowed, impolitic street fighter with an absolute belief in the rightness of her cause: to transform the Duetz-Fendt farm equipment business. Katharina Weber started working at Duetz-Fendt GmbH, a leader in the distribution and merchandising of replacement parts and accessories for farm equipment on the shop floor, becoming a machine operator and eventually a plant supervisor. Eight years later, she was made a vice president of German plants for Duetz-Fendt GmbH, and put in charge of the company’s Tractor Parts Division. Before she arrived at this division, plant modernization, reengineering, reorganization, and total quality management were doing nothing to help the company turn a profit. The division that was in the company’s original plant, had a culture that was almost as old, and its employees who had just returned to work after an eight-month strike were unhappy. As competitors were
making great headway in the industry, the division was facing tough times. When Katharina was promoted to head the Tractor Parts Division, she had spent the past few years working for, she jumped into the opportunity with a lot of enthusiasm and ideas of how she would like the department to operate under her leadership. However, for many during Katharina’s tenure as a leader and manager at Duetz-Fendt, she had a reputation as a meddlesome, overbearing boss who got in the way of people doing their jobs. She got involved in every detail of the departments, even making decisions on shift changesherself. quality management were doing nothing to help the company turn a profit. The division that was in the company’s original plant, had a culture that was almost as old, and its employees who had just returned to work after an eight-month strike were unhappy. As competitors were making great headway in the industry, the division was facing tough times. When Katharina was promoted to head the Tractor Parts Division, she had spent the past few years working for, she jumped into the opportunity with a lot of enthusiasm and ideas of how she would like the department to operate under her leadership. However, for many during Katharina’s tenure as a leader and manager at Duetz-Fendt, she had a reputation as a meddlesome, overbearing boss who got in the way of people doing their jobs. She got involved in every detail of the departments, even making decisions on shift changes herself.Although she has many employees that respect and treat her as a very important, brave and forward-thinking business executive who led the modernization of the company, others have found her dismissive and confrontational. Given how Weber was career-driven and had her eyes on playing a bigger role in the organization, she was determined to not only prove her ability to lead this department, but to get her former colleagues to view her as executive material, in order to support her efforts to move up in the organization. In no time, Weber was sending out memos detailing new approaches she wanted her former colleagues to employ in order to make things more efficient or efforts more aligned with corporate policy as a way to prove her technical prowess. She used team meetings to inform her direct reports of her interactions with various groups of executives and VPs to highlight her growing familiarity with those at the executive level in order to prove her comfort level with senior executives. Nobody felt committed to and a part of Weber’s vision. Team spirit was not-existent. Katharina wanted to be both a boss and a friend to her employees. Her leadership style stressed teamwork and participation, and she spent a lot of time running ideas by workers on the factory floor. However, the low-skilled workers were more concerned about getting clear direction and consistent standards so they knew what was expected of them. Also some workers started to be more and more absent or late without calling, showed up under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and started fights on the factory floor. Many employees that wanted to a good job were frustrated by Katharina’s approach. “There is no order. She lets people get away with anything,” said one employee. Katharina became so focused on building her rising star status that when one of her team members expressed concern about the growing number of delays in getting vital data from her to complete their work, she dismissed their concerns because it was not a critical issue that those in senior management would care about. After a few more similar instances, the team members gave up because Katharina was not listening to them, and felt little support. Katharina also checked closely on the performance of the plant supervisors. She set demanding objectives for each department, and held weekly meetings to review department performance. She said that she wanted employees to come up with new ways to solve departmental problems that impacted production; however, Katharina insisted that she must approve any deviations from established plans and policies. She challenged data findings her team members presented at department meetings – results the senior VPs had already signed off on – as a way to publicly demonstrate that she was not letting anything get overlooked on her watch.The engineers are professionals, paid well, and did not need direction or support and were doing a good job according to their prior supervisor Marcus Kasner. As Katharina observed the engineers in her usual manner, she realized that all of the engineers did their work differently. So she closely observed their work and looked for good ideas that all her employees could follow. It was not long before she was telling the engineers how to do a better job of designing the custom specifications. Unfortunately for Katharina, she did not understand that in her quest to demonstrate her authority in leading this division, she was also showing her team how little she trusted their ability to understand what matters, not to mention their ability to do things right. It became very clear to everyone in Katharina’s division that she viewed leadership as something one achieves because of their title or position. That she expected people to throw their support behind her simply because she was the boss. “She has an absolute certainty that she’s correct,” said Maren Heinzerling, the vice-president of the harvesting equipment division who has clashed with Ms. Weber over modernization plans. “I guess it’s nice to go through life with that kind of certainty, but I don’t know if it’s appropriate in business.”Inside the company, Ms. Weber developed a reputation as a difficult colleague who resisted oversight, according to current and former managers who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of Duetz-Fendt’s distaste for public discussion of internal business. By the end of her first year as vice-president of the Division, she has a team that is suffering from decreased productivity levels, a recent history of missed deadlines and mistakes, and crumbling lines of communication between the various team members. In her zeal to prove her ability to lead and step up into the executive circle, Katharina ended up making a number of missteps which, though seemingly minor, spoke more about the nature of her leadership than those actions she often tried to put in the limelight. The matter has reached the senior management level. Although they consider Ms. Weber a brilliant innovator with a sharp mind for data and details, senior management have noticed she stumbled repeatedly on influencing her followers to achieve the company’s goals, making errors that, some senior manages fear, threaten her ability to pursue her department’s agenda.
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