When Luca Cordero di Montezemolo took possession of the driver’s seat at Ferrari in 1991, the company was in shambles. The road cars were underachieving, the racing cars hesitant on the track and the finances crashing.

Montezemolo’s leadership is a case study for business management. During his tenure, the supercar brand boosted revenues tenfold as sales more than tripled. He created a magical, red cash machine with record revenues and earnings.

Today, Ferrari is a global monster brand having its own amusement park in Abu Dhabi and showrooms from St Petersburg to Beijing. It is the most popular brand in Formula One by a racing kilometre. And merchandise sales are in pole position.

While they haven’t recently enjoyed the “checkered flag” on the F1 track, under Montezemolo’s leadership Ferrari did win 14 World Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships.

A core part of his turnaround of Ferrari and success in the driver’s seat were two decades of new models of the famed sports cars and GTs — Enzo, 599 GTB, 458 Speciale, and the defining LaFerrari hybrid hypercar.

Given his success, then why was he forcibly asked to exit the Maranello, Italy headquarters? (October 13 will be Montezemolo’s last day to steer the Ferrari company.) Montezemolo wanted to cap sales at about 7,000 cars a year to preserve Ferrari’s exclusive allure. But that is not what Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) had in mind, they wanted to sell more Ferraris, as many as possible.

Sell, sell, sell is the mantra for Montezemolo and Sergio Marchionne, the FCA Chairman. But this is where their agreement ends.

Montezemolo believes it is in Ferrari’s best interest to restrain production, increase rarity and exclusivity, raise residuals and, above all, protect the brand, even if that means leaving money on the table. His near-term plan actually called for lowering production numbers.

Tomorrow’s chairman, Marchionne, is in a drive for revenue and intends to increase Ferrari production numbers to 10,000 vehicles annually, a near 50 per cent increase in production.

The backdrop is Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ planned IPO in October on the New York Stock Exchange. Investor pressures are shaping this executive’s actions. Ruthless capitalists would see nothing amiss here.

But they should! Shifting away from what made the brand great can be a warning sign of coming troubles. We can turn to another company, Pepsi to see how this plays out.

In April 2012, Pepsi Co. CEO Indra Nooyi revealed a strategic “reset” that will see the company invest aggressively in marketing its core products — soft drinks and salty snacks. On the surface there is nothing surprising about investing in your core offering.

But for Pepsi, this was a bit of “eating your words” and raised all sort of questions.

A few years back Pepsi launched a 10-year plan to focus future profit and growth on healthier products. At that time, Pepsi’s CEO said they had no choice but to move in healthier directions as the consumers had gradually defected from the carbonated soft drinks and a cloud of criticism shadowed their largest business — Frito Lays snacks.

Now, this abrupt strategic “reset” was being set in place to cater to investor concerns. Since their core products still sell, perhaps better than investors were lead to believe at the onset of the health focus, Pepsi had to disappointingly change direction and return to historical success.

When Marchionne’s changes end up on the road, what will the future of Ferrari look like? Will it return to shambles like it was in the late 80s?

Well, I certainly hope not and don’t think it will end up with a reputation equalling its parent company’s — Fiat or Chrysler — cars. However, we can speculate what it means when you increase production from 7,000 to 10,000 cars.

This certainly made me ponder, “Getting what you asked for, may not be at all what you wanted”. When changing direction, especially strategic direction, you need to be sure that you do not leave behind what made you successful to begin with.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles may very well achieve the increased production albeit at the expense of brand reputation and potential quality issues — history will let us know. As a leader, try not to crash by making decisions that seem appealing only to realise later after getting what you wanted, that you really didn’t want it.

The writer is a leadership adviser and author of 10 Tips for Leading in the Middle East and other leadership writings. Follow him on Twitter: @tommyweir.