Most executives were not ready for change when Fiorina Carly appointed as the CEO in HP Company. Immediately she was named as the CEO, she availed comprehensive plans to reorganize the company (King, 2010). Top executive believed that major reorganization that the company needed would take at least a year. Carly demonstrated her job-centered leadership style by ensuring that reorganization was done in six months. Fiorina’s move was later termed as the “Fiorina Shakeup.” She focused so much on jobs to an extent that employees could testify that there was no much “sleep going on.” without a doubt, the leadership style that did not work well for Carly was the authority-compliance style of leadership. The company experienced a high rate of employee turnover citing cases of Fiorina exerting too much authority as CEO. As she was working as the CEO, Carly attracted many positive praises as the best female CEO for being able to change HP in a span of six years (Tommy, 2013). She was also considered the CEO who neglected fostering the needs of her employees.
Fiorina had three major changes when she took over as the CEO of HP. The major changes included alteration of reward metrics that was initially used by HP (Ian, 2013). she changed profit sharing method of reward to incentive method where bonus was to be given when the company target was hit. Those employees who managed to hit their targets were given commission, which highly improved the level of sales. The second change by Fiorina was altering the organization’s structure. The company hard 83 units when Carly joined, but she reduced them to only four units, which improved person’s center of the firm. She only had two backend units used for manufacturing computer, imaging equipment and printers (King, 2010). The third change that HP went through under the leadership of Carly was shifting from maturing employees to a priority of financial performance. The founders of the company believed that under promising were better than over delivering. When Fiorina joined, she started promising sales at a double-digit which saw the revenue increase even during the economic downturn.
The other thing that made Fiorina the best CEO was her decisive character. She was very decisive, and when she made up her mind, she would not turn back but move to see the decision implemented and the result achieved. Through her decisive nature, Fiorina made a decision to go for the merger with Compaq a move that attracted serious opposition from various executive members such as Hewlett (King, 2010). She went against the resistance and ensured that Compaq and HP had a merger a move that though was not of great success, showed her real determination a virtue that is required from a leader (King, 2010). Fiorina was able to notice that the problem at HP was not about the people neither was it the problem with the strategy but the problem was with the inward-looking culture. With such deduction, she managed to assemble strong and competent team that helps restructure the organization and change the backward culture that was affecting the organization. Fiorina as CEO also had leadership character of making strategic decision-making and one on the strategic decision that people remembered with is the move for a merger with the Compaq.
During Fiorina’s term as the CEO, she had a number of changes that she undertook. One of the remarkable decisions that Carley made was to restructure the company by creating a merger with Compaq. She worked so hard to manage the change that was brought by the manager and even if it fell below the expectation of many, she was able to do a lot to see things change to the better. Fiorina also had to revamp the backward culture and bring in a different culture that was considered more contemporary compared to the first culture. This for sure brought real change in the organization which she hard to manage to ensure that the set goals of the firm are not altered by the changes (Tommy, 2013). Apart from the culture of the organization that was changed, she also had to alter the organization structure to ensure that the structure was fit for the strategies and projects of the company.
With a changed structure, she had to face problems associated with the new organization structure, which would way down the operations of the firm, but she was able to balance the needs for the new structure and employees to ensure that everything moves on in line with both long-term and short-term strategies (King, 2010). With the merger be and HP culture, which was a very challenging task but to a level that would be considered a success, she was able to bring the two cultures and manage the change brought by the merger. Most of the reorganizations that were carried out by Fiorina as the CEO of HP were very successful, and at the time of her stepping down, she ensured that the right pieces were in the right squares.
Reference
King, J. (2010). Leadership is Always about Tough Choices: Carly Fiorina. New York: Cornel University Press.
Tommy, C. (2013). Leadership and Management in the Contemporary World. California: San Francisco.
Ian, B. (2013). Organizational Behavior: Individuals, Groups and Organization (4th Ed.). New York: PR.
