Adidas’ Choice

In a recent Business Week article, Herbert Hainer discusses his choices about the Adidas/Reebok merger. Herbert acquired Reebok in 2006 and has faced criticism ever since. The initiative to withdraw from such retailers as Wal-Mart and Tesco caused sales to decline for Reebok, combine this with the declining economy and Reebok was headed for disaster. Despite all of the failure Herbert Hainer faced he remained strong in the and continually encouraged workers to openly discuss their concerns about the two companies.

According to the class lectures and Herbert’s reflection on this issues it is clear to see there was an over estimation of Reebok. Leaders need to maintain open communication in their organizations regardless of the current state of business such as growth, decline or maturity. Herbert’s only regret was his inability to manage expectations for this merger.

I feel that leaders as more than the center of organization, they are the heart of motivation. There are several theories that place vast amounts of responsibility on the leader. To name only one would be unfair to the entire leadership structure.

Penned by: Drew Alfrey

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_16/b4224088507393.htm

Challenges in the First Week As Google CEO

Just two days after taking over the reins as CEO for Google, Larry Page has run into several challenges. Though the transition from Eric Schmidt to Page is not surprising, as Beecher Tuttle mentions in his article, Larry Page to Face Several Challenges as Google's New CEO, "it does suggest that Google may be looking to alter its direction and image." Page has several ideas in mind, such as having the top executives of Google make several changes to running meetings in order to be more productive and running meetings in public areas to include lower level "Googlers." Page will also need to face the challenges of the recent failures of several new launches, such as Google Wave, and issues with user privacy.

In order to change the image of Google, Page may need to take a transformational leadership approach. In order to create change, transformational leaders model the way for their followers. Page will need to set examples to the top executives of Google for the way meetings should be held in order to achieve higher productivity and include lower level "Googlers," as well as inspire the vision he sets out for the company that will help to change it's image. As mentioned in our textbook, this vision will provide a conceptual map for where Google will be heading, which can help to deal with the competitive challenges in social networking and issues with user privacy.

The company already has a good approach to enabling employees to act and encouraging over 24,000 employees, by providing many benefits and different perks to the job that many other companies to not have. This great support will help Page through the process of changing the image of Google and coming up with a social network that will be able to compete with Facebook and keep Google as a tech giant. Page will also need to focus improving Google's standing in China, which could be the market that will allow Google to become more innovated and open more growth opportunities. This will require Page to challenge the process, and take it one step at a time in order to make Google stand out for years to come.

Tuttle mentioned in his article, "Many industry analysts have speculated that the return of Page is, in a way, an effort by Google to return to its roots and start to think "big" again." If so, this is Page's chance to use a transformational leadership approach to think big again, and remain a tech giant despite the growing competition and new search engine and social network threats that will be against them.

Article Link: Larry Page to Face Several Challenges as Google's New CEO

Post by: Rebekah Pinson

Nokia CEO Is a Man in a Hurry

Nokia has seen a big shift in the way that they conduct business, mainly due to recent advances in technology. These advances have primarily come from competitors such as Apple and Google, whom are developing smart phone technology that has taken off in recent years. This loss of high end market share leads into why Nokia has to change its strategy; and they must do it soon.
Stephen Elop, who took over as Nokia's CEO last autumn, is in the midst of a major change effort. A recent Wall Street Journal article has outlined that several senior managers within Nokia will be leaving the company. These people are leaving as part of the CEO's plans to revamp the company. This is one step in many that will lead to motivating the entire company to reach a common goal.
The path-goal leadership theory can be applied to this situation in the way that basic ideas of the theory are laid out in the few actions that the CEO has taken thus far. A defined goal is apparent in Nokia, to surpass their close competition in the smart phone industry. A clarified path has been outlined by Elop in the way of far-reaching goals and changes to current strategy, especially in the U.S market. Removing obstacles can be attributed to many top managers leaving the company, whom may have been complacent and resistant to change. Providing support is aided by a fourth-quarter report that posted falling earnings, analysts say that this gives Elop legitimacy to undertake such deep surgery on the company's structure. 

The path-goal theory was developed to explain how leaders motivate subordinates to be productive and satisfied with their work. To do just this, Elop is using directive behaviors to map out instructions to subordinates about their task to regain market share within the smart phone industry. One way they will go about doing this is to hire experienced new heads of operating systems and R&D. This can also be seen as a participative leadership behavior because Elop is allowing executive recruiters to do this new hiring. He will support their decision, another leadership behavior, in hiring people to implement steady change. The last behavior of this theory is achievement-oriented, which deals with the leader challenging subordinates to work at their highest level. This will be seen by the CEO in the far-reaching goals and strategy changes he is to outline.

By: Jon Pieper

http://blogs.wsj.com/source/2011/02/07/nokia-ceo-is-a-man-in-a-hurry/?KEYWORDS=CEO+current+news

Warren Buffett's successor?

Serena Ng and Erik Holm wrote an article about Warren Buffett’s current aide David Sokol in The Wall Street Journal. This article presents the facts about a recent trade Sokol made and the negative impacts it has on his future at Berkshire Hathaway.

Warren Buffett as well as many people close to this situation thought that Sokol would succeed Buffet at Hathaway. However, the trade deals that Sokol performed have led to his resignation from the organization. This is significant because due to the amount of trust Buffett had in Sokol. Leaders of today’s organizations need to be careful with their succession plans, despite Buffett selection it all boils down to the candidate. Sokol is not a bad person but this one decision has negatively affected his future.

I feel that this story relates to the presentation Dave Margers made during his keynote speech. “You can win with integrity,” this appears to be a contradiction but the fact of the matter is that today’s business transactions require more trust and integrity than ever before.

Even a great leader and investor like Warren Buffett was blindsided by this transaction, which imposes an extra degree of caution when key decisions are made. We all are exposed to these decisions everyday and it is never easy to win with integrity but it will lead long –term success. While ethics play into this news story I feel that the actions of Sokol may lead to Buffett being placed under further scrutiny. We shall see how this plays out for Buffett…

Penned by: Drew Alfrey

Article information

Serena Ng and Erik Holm, The Wall Street Journal, "Buffett Jolted as Aide Quits" Page A1 3/31/2011

Are Women Leaders Overlooked for CEO Positions?

An article titled Women Leaders, Overlooked for Chief Executive Positions, written by Cedric Moore Jr., discusses the effect of the glass ceiling in the workplace. Moore also mentions the many different leadership approaches we have discussed in class and how these work together in association with women leaders. It is still evident today that women have a very small stake in the upper management position of companies, and a question posed is do women have the appropriate leadership styles that many companies look for to run their organization? Even though women have proved they are capable of leading organizations and the glass ceiling is slowly breaking down, how long will it be before the leadership gap is more proportional? As Moore mentions about the human services field, "women are more likely to occupy direct care and middle management positions rather than top management positions even though there are more women than men employed in this field."

As we have seen in chapter 13 of Northouse, women tend to lead in a more democratic way than men do and that women also tend to be "devalued when they lead in a more masculine manner, occupy a typically masculine leadership role, and if their evaluators are men" (303). Moore also mentions this as a reason that women are found less in top management positions, saying that women have lower self-efficacy about the positions than men, citing different research studies that show that women who led with masculine traits  received poor evaluations as leaders. This results in women choosing a more democratic model of leadership because it will lead to better evaluations. So how much does self-efficacy play a part in a woman's ability to lead in a CEO position? Are women less confident in their performance that in turn is resulting in more coworkers not identifying them as leaders, or is prejudice still a reason? Moore states in the article that "the correlation between high self-efficacy and masculine traits appears to be a blue print for success as a leader."

 Overall, women and men only have slight differences in leadership style, noting that women have an advantage in a more feminine leadership style and do better with transformational leadership. Still, the leadership gap of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies is immense, where women hold only 3% of the positions. Research shows that family related obligations are one reason to the lack of women CEOs as well as having less work experience and they are more likely to work part time. It is also found in research that "as the number of women at the top increases, so does financial success" for the company (306). The glass ceiling is starting to break, and as more women strive to overcome the prejudice and stereotypes against them and their leadership style, there will be a higher likelihood that the leadership gap will close.

Article link:  Women Leaders, Overlooked For Chief Executive Positions

works cited:
Northouse, Peter Guy. "Women and Leadership." Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2010. 303, 306. Print.

Posted by: Rebekah Pinson

AT&T and T-Mobile Merger? How Will This Change Leadership?

In a recent deal proposed by CEOs from AT&T and T-Mobile there could be a possible merger between these two companies. The fact that there are currently two separate CEOs that will merge into one organization, could present multiple problems for the new company. Before we continue to exam this issue at hand, it is critical to understand that this deal is awaiting approval by Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Two authors from The Wall Street Journal, Ante and Schatz explain in detail some of the complications this deal could be faced with (Ante & Schatz, 2011). The basis of this post is not to examine every possible barrier these two companies could face. This post’s purpose is to examine leadership barriers that may arise from this merger/acquisition.

As discussed in class the complexity leadership theory proposes an idea that “when organizations move away from stability and into a “region of complexity”, adaptive tensions give rise to emergent self-organizations.” This definition and theory is not a simplistic model but it does provide some important indications about how two companies merging into one may respond to change. We can assume that AT&T and T-Mobile are two independent organizations prior to this merger however, after merging the organizational structure may change in a dynamic manner. This will put pressure on the top leaders from both companies so that the newly formed organization can remain profitable. If the leaders from T-Mobile and AT&T fail to guide this change emergent leaders may arise to the challenge. This theory present the idea that when there is any sort of change the expected leaders are not always the “playmakers” that it is the first line support that can actually make the change happen successfully.

So, my question everyone that reads this, if we can examin any major merger within the United States how do you think change actually happens in the leadership change? Is it top down or bottom up? What is the ideal situation baring this deal gets approved by the FCC?

Works Cited

Ante, S. E., & Schatz, A. (2011, March 21). T-Mobile Deal Faces Antitrust Barriers. Retrieved March 21, 2011, from The Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703292304576213050651047200.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_business

Penned by: Drew Alfrey

Harriet Lamb - CEO of Fairtrade Foundation

For the first time I have examined a CEO of a nonprofit organization.  Fairtrade Foundation, based in the U.K., is a company that strives to give farmers in developing countries "sustainable" prices for their crops, which intern improves their overall quality of life.  Harriet Lamb, CEO, is not set out to increase shareholder value or create record profits.  Her job is to make an actually difference in the world through the improvement of people's lives that are less fortunate than many of us. 

It is quoted in the article in the Wall Street Journal, that Ms. Lamb "wants to stress that it isn't charity that tugs at the heart strings.  It's not charity.  It's commercial common sense."  At one point in the article, Ms. Lamb tells a story about how she brought a chief executive of a major cocoa and chocolate manufacturer to some Ghana cocoa producers in 2009.  The chocolate executive saw first hand the poverty farmers where enduring and how it could endanger his business.  To create this sense of urgency and the need for these large profitable companies to invest back in the producers that supply them would be a huge step in the long-term success of this industry and many more. 

In analyzing concepts from out text to this situation, transformational leadership comes to mind.  Ms. Lamb  fits into the definition of this process which changes and transforms people through emotions, values, ethics, standards, and long-term goals.  To further examine her transformations leadership qualities, I will use the four leadership factors that are apart of this process.

The first, idealized influence, is something that describes leaders who act as strong role models for followers.  Ms. Lamb displays this factor by way of ethical marketing.  She wants to do the right thing and give these farmers the right wage for a comfortable and productive life.  In doing the right thing, many have followed her actions, not only in the Fairtrade Foundation, but large companies such as McDonald's and Starbucks.  Consumers have also recognized the need for ethically sourced products and a boost in profits have been recognized.  The second factor, inspirational motivation, is descriptive of leaders who communicate high expectations to followers, inspiring them through motivation to become committed to and a part of the shared vision in the organization.  In this article, Ms. Lamb is quoted with "We have high standards," stating that she is confident and expects results.  Another way she motivated people in and around her company is with the trip that she took the cocoa executive on, showing him first hand the need for these fair trade standards.  The third factor, intellectual stimulation, deals with stimulating followers to be creative and innovative and to challenge their own beliefs and values as well as those of the leader and organization.  Ms. Lamb uses this factor by way of recognizing that commitment to ethical supply will cost businesses more.  This is their obstacle that they have to work together to improve the prices that farmers receive.  She is not shying away from the issue, but challenging people to work at it head on.  The final factor in transformational leadership is individualized consideration, which deals with a supportive climate in which leaders listen carefully to the individual needs of followers.  She gets others to do this first of all because this is a non-profit organization which is set out to improve the lives of others, not to make money.  She then listens to the demand of a growing consumer segment, and strives to give them more fair trade products. 


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704608504576208123457763158.html?KEYWORDS=CEO+news

By: Jon Pieper