Aggressive, arrogant, and dictatorial are the words that best describes the way Eddie Antar's leadership. Being a school drop-out, Antar uses it as a motivation to fulfill his ambition of becoming a successful business mogul.
Aggressiveness was the primary factor used by Antar in driving the consumer electronics store he built in 1980. Through his aggressive business ideology, Antar managed to expand the business operation of Crazy Eddie with the company became a famous entity in Wall Street. In addition, the company aggressively opened different stores and branches despite facing financial and operational decline. The management decided to expand the operation and continued to employ pricing control to earn big profits.
Second description to refer Eddie's style of leadership was arrogant. It was very evident in the way the firm tried to defy the economic challenges and to outperformed analysts' expectations in terms of revenues. The company and its owners enlisted Crazy Eddie in the stock market. Despite the suggestion of the underwriter to hire non-family executive as CFO to gain the trust of the investors, Eddie Antar still placed his brother as the head of the company operation. The arrogance of keeping the business controlled by the family members made it difficult for other employees to get a hand over the firm's driver seat. Even when the company began to stumble, Eddie had a difficulty of admitting financial crisis, and instead, resort to fraudulent activities to hide issues from the public.
In line with the arrogance, Eddie also manifested a dictatorial kind of leadership. Despite hiring his brother as the CFO, Eddie still retained the direct control of the business flow. He even directed the manipulation of the financial statements and the alteration of accounting records to flaunt an impressive result of operation. Any objection or negative reaction from the employees could cost their jobs.
Family Members as Company Executives
Crazy Eddie's key executives were primarily composed of the Antar family despite going public. This was because its Chairman decided to retain the leadership within the family circle. Although it could be wise to assign relatives to key position, it also rises ethical issues.
Placing relatives to primary company position could make the decision making process easier. Family members are less likely to question planned actions or decisions, unlike outsiders. Relatives are most likely inclined to achieve greater benefits than balancing the right or wrong.
In addition, an Eddie Antar's selection of relatives for key executive position helped the firm hide anomalies such as alteration of inventory records. His brother willingly helped him design and carry out strategies to manipulate revenues for the satisfaction of the investing public. Since the members of the Board were family members, the check and balance of authority were disregarded. No one questioned the suspicious growth of the performances of the company.
Moreover, placing members of the clan allowed Antar to retain great power of controlling the entire operation. Although the firm was subjected to external audits, the management was able to hide the real picture of company performance because the Board willfully acted and collaborated to deceive auditors about the profitability of Crazy Eddie. The extended and collective effort of the Board made it difficult for the examiners to conceal the crime. Eddie placed direct family members to key executive positions not only to retain the controlling power, but also to prevent easy access on records and direct questioning of the authenticity of the transactions.
