Ricardo Semler

MGT 5100

Halimatu Sadiya Ali

Gina von Hardenberg
 Content
• Semco
• Leadership
• Organisational Culture
• External Factors
• Management Structure
• Empowerment if Employees
• Contingency Theories
• Bowen and Lawler
• Transformational Theories
• Hierarchy of Needs Model
• Blake and Mouton
• Power Source
• CSR
• Conclusion
 Semco
• Brazilian Company
• Founded in 1953 by Antonio Semler
• Focuses on the manuafcturing, professional
services and software sector
• Ricardo Semler became chief executive in
1982
 Leadership
• The art of motivating a group of people to
work together in reaching a common goal

• Authoritarian or autocratic
• Delegative or Free Reign
• Participative or democratic
Organisational Culture

• Employee Participation
• Free flow of Information
• Profit Sharing
 Organisational Culture
• No written policies
• No mission statement
• No HRM department
• Two seats at board meetings open for employees
• Salaries and all financial information is open to
the public
• No dress code
• No plan exceeds six months
 Organisational Culture
• Employees gain control over their work by
participation in design and through
implementation of work procedures
• Availability of information helps employees
understand to improve their work practices
 Organisational Culture
• “They are the best judges to the amount of
time and the proper place necessary to get the
work done... Do we really believe that
responsible adults… would simply not show up
after promising to do so? That a journalist who
understands the urgency of deadlines would
go to the movies while presses are standing
still waiting for his submission?”
 External Factors
• Poor economy in 1990s
• Costs were cut
• Workers proposed solution
• Workforce cross-trained in a variety of skills
• Deep knowledge of business
• Set targets and production goals
 Management Structure
• Began with a funcational structure

• Now, 3 concentric circles:

- Inner Core
- Second Core
- Outer Core
 Empowerment of Employees

• Less senior staff – more responsibility

• Helps people take control of their working
environment
• Opportunities provided for personal growth
and self-fulfillment
 Empowerment of Employees
• “ We have absolute trust in our employees…
we are proving that worker involvement
doesn’t mean that bosses lose power. What
we do is strop away the blind, irrational,
authoritarianism that diminishes productivity.
We’re thrilled that our workers are self-
governing and self-managing. It means that
they care about their jobs and about their
company and that’s good for all of us.”
 Empowerment of Employees
• 2 Fundamental Crisis
• Semler at the age of 25 collapsed and was
diagnosed with having and advanced case of
stress.
• Semco expanded so fast that it lacked an
organisational culture; shared attitudes, values
and beliefs of ist employees.
 Contingency Theories

• Semler is democratic on the Theannenbaum

and Schmidt Continuum of Leadership model.
• He believed he had to change himself before
the company could change
 Transformational Theories
• Semler‘s charismatic leadership effectiveness
brought on by poor economy as well as
trouble at Semco
• Set own sales
• Feelings of equity and work motivation
reinforced
 Personality Model
& Hierarchy of Needs
 Power Source

• Charismatic power

• Delegating: “To increase power, share it”

- Maturity
- Employee centered leadership
 Corporate Social Responsibility

• Semler is part of the Philanthropic Stage of

Responsibility
 Conclusion

• Semler has effective leadership styles because

of employee cooperation and
decentrialisation.
• Leadership methods are flexible
• Created new mentality of freedom within
Semco