What happens when the world's most successful companies start believing they're too successful to fail?
Ujjwal Kumar, President of Siemens Automation Americas, has seen the warning signs firsthand at two of the world's most powerful industrial companies: General Motors and GE.
Early in his career at GM, Ujjwal was part of a failed Buick launch in China. Most of his team lost their jobs. He was one of the few who survived.
That failure taught him a leadership lesson that changed his career: Being intellectually right means nothing if you can't adapt to your customers.
Years later, he began noticing something troubling at GM. The company was losing its urgency to innovate and adapt. He left in 2005, just a few years before GM entered bankruptcy.
Then he began recognizing familiar warning signs at GE.
Today, Ujjwal leads Siemens Automation Americas, following senior leadership roles at GM, GE, Honeywell, and Teradyne Robotics.
In this episode of Lead the Team, Ujjwal shares how leaders can recognize complacency before it becomes a crisis, build teams that learn from failure, and maintain the urgency to keep improving—even when they're winning.
You'll also discover:
- The leadership warning signs Ujjwal witnessed at GM and GE
- Why he survived a major failure that cost colleagues their jobs
- The two things leaders should never do during a crisis
- Why high performers can lose motivation even when they're succeeding
- His 30-minute morning routine for becoming a more effective leader
- How he uses AI to challenge his thinking on major business decisions
“The day you start feeling like you are on the top, the only way forward is down.” — Ujjwal Kumar
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Lead the Team is a Top 2% global podcast featuring candid conversations with CEOs and C-suite leaders. Host Ben Fanning has had 700+ conversations with leaders from Honeywell, IBM, HP, Zoom, ESPN, Home Depot, Lockheed Martin, Savannah Bananas and more.
