Margaret Thatcher Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

Problem Statement

Margaret Thatcher, the first female prime minister of Great Britain emerged as a leader from being an outsider to become and insider. However, her entire political career has been a rough patch and has faced many issues during her entire political life. Her emergence as a leader is not something that can be defined easily and some of her decisions have been criticized drastically. Multiple issues have arisen which need to be addressed and the paper will analyze those issues and will suggest alternative course of actions that could have been taken.

Issues Analysis

During the early part of her life Margaret Thatcher was brought up by her father to become unusual and stand out from the rest. She was taken to political meetings, seminars and other social forums because her father was also a politician. She was very focused and organized while she was growing and was determined to take a ministry position with the Conservative Party. She was a successful politician who served as the leader of the Conservative party and was nicknamed as “Iron Lady”.

Though she was a successful Prime Minister and a good servant of the British people, but during her emergence as the National leader, she made some strategic mistakes which actually hindered her progress and even stopped for some time. The first strategic problem that she encountered which could have been tackled in a better is her strategy of cutting the budget for milk. Basically, she ended $19 million free milk program for primary school children aged 7 to 11.

Her view was to invest in the education of children rather than providing with milk. This move by Margaret was criticized by all circles of life. In fact was called “Thatcher, Milk Snatcher”. She was taken very badly by students NGO’s and all public forums, but Margaret was convinced with their idea of making education free. This was a strategic flaw by Margaret and could have handled her in a much better way.

Secondly, once she decided to stand against Heath as the leader for Conservative Party she did not take people to the party in confidence and in fact confronted Heath directly. This was a bold move and many back benchers and MPs in the party took it as a negative approach and it took more than extra time for Margaret to actually convince them with her ideas behind this move.

She was a hard working lady rather a charismatic person like some of the other United Kingdom leaders, therefore all her views were initially rejected and she had to convince the public for all decisions. To her mistake was the way she backed off from supporting Heath to actually oppose him.

Initially, Heath was the one who took her to the highest ranks in the party and appointed her to a better position, but Margaret did not take into account his favor and in fact stood against him for the leadership post within the Conservative Party. However, she could have joined hands with him and served as his deputy until the next elections. Another strategic mistake Margaret made during a speech in the Cabinet was the business towards male colleagues. In fact, she was rather open with her views against male society.

Margaret Thatcher Case Solution

This was again a strategic move because United Kingdom population mostly comprised of young male individuals who were the voters for the party and eventually Margaret wanted their votes too. She was tough and a courageous lady with devotion and dedication towards her work, but along the way to the Cabinet and Ministry she never made friends and was most of the times alone and lost. This was a strategic mistake by her because to become a leader one has to be charismatic and interacting with people around them.

She was over dependant on Neave and took decisions he actually wanted her to take, although Neave was loyal to Margaret but being a leader, she should have the courage to take decisions and implement rather than being dictated by her subordinates. Despite all the strategic mistakes and lacking that she has shown in her entire political career, Margaret Thatcher is still the most successful and influential female politician in the United Kingdom ever...............

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