The Generals of Industry
The leadership of American business has been taking it on the chin during the past couple of months. Media portrayals of how U.S. business giants operate has been slanted toward those who have not done it appropriately. The leaders of Enron, WorldCom, Martha Stewart or the Rigas family at Adelphia have attracted media attention while the majority of CEOs, who do things honestly and energetically, have been ignored. This month, we are focusing on a woman who did her job above board for a number of years while being the CEO of one of the world's largest tech companies, Hewlett Packard.
Carly Fiorina's time at HP wasn't without controversy, especially her decision to acquire and merge Compaq into the corporate fold. But, that's why the CEO is so important to the corporate structure. Sometimes they have to know what's best for the company even before others see can it and many times struggles develop. It's up to the leadership to hold things together until the resistance is either controlled or appeased.
The entire attitude of the company is based on the inspirational goals set by the company leadership. We have examined various companies throughout the years in the pages of this magazine that have been successful in creating a corporate machine that works. One that immediately comes to mind is Southwest Airlines. We featured Gary Kelly, the Southwest CEO, on a cover of this magazine last year. The company has a great customer satisfaction level based on the foundation laid by its founder, Herb Kelleher and perpetuated by its current CEO, Kelly. They not only possess a solid, structured company direction, but that direction is affected by the vision that comes directly from the top. Vision is important and a definite direction carries out the vision.
In the military, we were trained to lead by example and I employ that form of leadership to this day. I will never ask anyone in my company to do anything that I wouldn't personally do. The leader needs to lead the group, not stand back and follow where the group decides to go. Many leaders wait for that consensus and fail to provide direction. The leader also must always remember that the greatest asset he or she has are the people because that's how the business moves forward. I'm very careful when it comes to the hiring process and make sure that the people who work for PremiereTrade® are here because they believe in the dream and strive each day to make things better than they found them at the start of each work day.
Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, used this kind of leadership strategy to guide her company for six years. She made some tough decisions and had to live with both failure and success. But she said that her goal on a daily basis is to "make a positive difference" to those around her - customers and employees. The creation of a successful business requires efficient leadership to fully use the skills of each member of the team. This isn't just a requirement for big businesses, like Hewlett-Packard, but even a micro-business that employs one or two people needs to make sure that the most is made of the abilities and aptitudes of the people.
You have to be able to motivate and develop the team, to communicate and to build a successful business strategy that allows each individual to perform to the best of their abilities. I hope you enjoy and learn from this month's issue of The James Dicks Magazine and use this important information to direct your personal business structure to success by becoming a general of American business.
Originally published in James Dicks: Buy*Sell*Hold magazine.