Part- c:

(a)Refer to Hewlett Packard critics says that Fiorina’s weakness as

CEO is that she focused too much on only one particular thing
and is not paying enough attention to?
Answer (a): Carly Fiorina's record as the former CEO of Hewlett
Packard (HP) is being scrutinized as she rises in recent opinion polls
in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Fiorina
herself cites her track record as one of the reasons she was elected
president. Despite the fact that some have dubbed her one of the
worst CEOs of her age. It's hard to tell what's true and what's not,
and what the most valuable takeaways from her tenure as a senior
executive are. I spent time at HP conducting research for my novel,
Rapid Transformation, long before Fiorina entered the Republican
presidential race.
Over 50 executives and mid-level managers who worked for HP
between 2004 and 2007 were interviewed, many of whom reported
to Fiorina and later worked with her successor, Mark Hurd. From the
study, here's what I learned about Fiorina's legacy at HP. When
Fiorina joined HP, the company's culture was very much "target, aim,
aim and burn," a sluggish culture in an era when businesses were
moving very quickly. She embodied what we want our reform
makers to be: courageous and disruptive in that sense. One of her
moves was to purchase Compaq, a company with a fast-paced
"Internet" culture of "shoot, fire, fire, re-aim, fire." Despite the early
success of the merger integration, Fiorina's leadership failed to
achieve crucial mid- and long-term objectives. Her execution and
implementation skills were lacking, an issue that would plague her
time at HP. “She wasn't personally involved in leading
implementation and focused on her senior staff, who regularly
missed the mark,” one executive explained. Another said that during
her first year on the job, she spent a disproportionate amount of
time on the road, speaking out her vision, rather than following
through on implementation. And yet several executives who worked
with her found her to be inspiring “a rock star, and a dazzling
performer on stage.” Fiorina attacked many different aspects of the
company, including reorganization, cost cutting, and vision setting.
As one executive told me, “She was everything HP wasn’t
charismatic, bold, even glamorous.” But, that style, though
attractive, isolated her from many of her senior leaders. It wasn’t the
HP way. She was the disruptive leader she needed to be at the time,
but she missed one key element. She never took the time to develop
rapport with individual employees, and therefore never got buy-in or
support for her initiatives. HP culture at that time was very engineer-
dominated, and relatively male-dominated. As HP’s first female CEO,
Fiorina just didn’t connect well with the engineers. Many of the mid-
level managers and executives I interviewed reported that she
pushed them to deliver on metrics that were not grounded in reality
or data and were not really achievable. Many also felt that she
needed to check her ego. I walked through the halls of HP
headquarters during her tenure, and saw that she’d hung a huge
portrait of herself next to HP founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard.
People found that to be very tacky.

(b) Refer to Hewlett Packard. in doing a better job of

implementing fiorina's strategy for hp, mark Hurd is using
which of form of leadership?

Answer (b) : Mark Hurd is using the Strategic Leadership Model

to help Hewlett Packard do a better job.
Strategic leadership is a form of leadership that has the
potential to persuade others to make decisions that strengthen
the organization's long-term prospects while still ensuring
short-term financial stability. As a change agent, the strategic
leader is critical. Mark Hurd is employing the Strategic
Leadership Model to assist Hewlett Packard in improving its
efficiency. Strategic leadership has the opportunity to convince
others to make decisions that improve the organization's long-
term prospects while maintaining short-term financial stability.
The strategic leader's role as a change agent is crucial.

( c ) Refer to Hewlett Packard. As mark hard began his role as

CEO, what he to improve performance of management?

Answer ( c) : Hurd was also able to communicate with

executives and administrators in ways that she had never been
able to before. I've previously stated that an active middle
management team is critical to any meaningful transition. It is
the single most important determinant of performance, after
the position of senior executives. And, unlike Fiorina, Hurd
could be seen wandering around HP with spreadsheets in his
hands, continuously holding people accountable. As one senior
manager noted, “he knew the operations and its numbers
better than
many business unit heads.”
But Hurd never mentioned the word “strategy,” according to
the HP executives I interviewed –
not in a single memo during his tenure as CEO. He was basically
implementing the strategy that
Fiorina had put in place – and Fiorina had been a brilliant
strategist, putting the company on a
footing to compete with the likes of IBM and Sun
Microsystems. One executive told me, “Carly
was looking so far ahead, you couldn’t keep up with her.”
During Fiorina’s tenure, HP stock dropped 65%, while during
the same period the S&P 500 dropped 15%. During Mark Hurd’s
tenure, HP stock doubled, while during the same period S&P
500 dropped by 8%. Despite her charisma and strategic
acumen, I believe Fiorina ultimately failed in several ways.
She wasn’t able to keep her ego in check or to connect with
people at lower levels within the
organization. But most importantly, she failed in the fact that
she didn’t bring someone like Mark
Hurd on board earlier. Great leaders recognize their own
weaknesses. Had she been more selfaware of her own
shortcomings, she could have brought in a second-in-
command, a COO, to
enable her to focus on what she did best – strategy and vision.
The important question for voters
is: Has she learned from the mistakes she made at HP? Has she
realized what her own
shortcomings are? Since she never took on a comparable CEO
job after HP, conjecture is
difficult.
One important note: blaming Fiorina for HP’s current problems
now is a huge stretch. The board
didn’t manage Fiorina well — her compensation was not tied to
performance, for instance.
Between 2005 and 2011, there were three CEOs who were
fired (including Fiorina and Hurd)
before Meg Whitman became CEO in 2011. This kind of musical
chairs is a clear sign of a dysfunctional board.The bottom line is
that Carly Fiorina is not as good as she says she is, but she’s not
as bad as her critics say. In politics, you’re either good or you’re
terrible. But in business, the picture is often more nuanced.