Carly Fiorina's leadership at AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and HP

Carly Fiorina and Followership

How Carly Fiorina Influenced an Organization

Prior to joining the giant company, HP, Carly Fiorina had served in AT&T and Lucent Technologies, in the senior leadership ranks for around two decades. She successfully led to the growth of AT&T and led the execution of Lucent Technologies from its spinoff from AT&T. In so doing, she managed to find favor from the HP's board of directors, and given a chance to revive the company, which was gradually declining. On joining HP, she changed the company's mission statement, together with its culture. She managed to change this, but some employees felt she was heading the wrong way. Although this person depicts success in the beginning, she later finds her downfall in HP.

Fiorina's educational background is impressive, she holds a degree in mediaeval history and philosophy from Stanford University, an MBA from University of Maryland and a Master of Science degree from MIT's Sloan School. Firorina stands out an outstanding business executive an aspect she demonstrates in the sales and marketing companies she worked. However, when she managed a company in an area she was not an expert in, she failed dramatically. This is apparent in the case of HP. A comparison in her achievements between AT&T and HP will support my notion. Overall, she demonstrates the qualities of both a good and bad leader.

Background

Cara Carleton was born in Austin in the year 1954. Owing to her father's numerous job relocations, she had the opportunity to live in numerous different places as she grew up. She attended five high schools, including one in Africa, specifically in Ghana, but later joined Stanford University where she studied medieval history and philosophy. She successfully pursued her Bachelor's degree, and opted to study law at UCLA, a course that she later dropped only after one year. When her father, a law professor learnt of it, he expressed his opinion, which he felt that his daughter would not amount to anything from law.

After dropping the course, she got into a marriage, which later ended in divorce, experienced some career changes. In the year 1980, Carly worked for AT&T as a sales representative, and during her first few years, she married the executive of the company Frank J. Fiorina (Burrows, 2007). In the organization, she showed interest in establishing a network of communications, which surprised her colleagues because she joined the male-dominated Network Systems Division. In addition, this was among the ways she made history, by being the first female officer heading the Network Systems division. Few years later, she managed to secure the managerial position of North American sales.

It was as if success was always following her because she later became the leader of the AT&T, as an effort by the board of directors to create a new company, Lucent, under her leadership. While being the leader of Lucent, she became the top of Fortune Magazine's list of the most powerful women in business in the year 1998. She managed to hold this title until the year 2004. However, her time in Lucent was ticking, but she remained its leader until she managed to get an acceptance as a CEO with the renowned global company, Hewlett-Packard (Anders, 2003).

Cara Carleton as a follower

Followers refer to people who are under other people. For instance, in an organization, one can comment that the workforce is a group of followers. The people who lead them will either make them follow them or perceive them differently. In most cases, leaders who depict good qualities find favor from the workforce, and will likely enjoy their leadership if they continue serving them in a fair manner (Kellerman, 2008). In such a setting, one can see good communication channels, fairness in the allocation of duties, and equality regardless of gender, race or ethnic affiliations. The followers are likely to perform their best, which will translate into profits for the concerned company.

Before Carly Fiorina achieved her leadership status, it is apparent that she worked, meaning she was once a follower. She worked for AT&T, HP, Lucent, and her exceptional results are evident, but on the case of HP, her failure is also apparent. When she worked with AT&T, she managed to join the Network division, a department dominated by men. In this department, she managed to do so well, and many of her colleagues perceived her as outstanding because she worked among males, and managed to do a good job. In so doing, she drew the attention of the top management who later offered her a managerial position.

Unfortunately, in many cases, Carly Fiorina, serves as either the president, or a topmost manager in the organizations she worked. Therefore, it becomes complicated trying to access her qualities as an employee, but one thing is for sure, when one is a follower, they always depict humility. However, when they achieve a higher rank, the humility slowly fades away and converts into pride and arrogance. This is evident in the case of HP. One cannot conclude that she was arrogant, but the aspect is clear. She did not take advice, an element that represents her in a different view.

How she became a leader

According to Fiorina, a leader does not aim to control others, but rather understand them. Additionally, people judge leaders according to their actions. Currently, the high profile people regarded as leaders make speeches and presentations to their followers, shareholders, and the public (Stone, 2005). However, many leaders may sound impressive, but they may undermine their credibility because their actions fail to reflect their words. In some instances, the leader's actions may contrast their company's mission, which may further result to confusion in the organization. In simple terms, their deeds, or personal actions may tarnish the organization's culture, including their individual credibility.

Leadership involves power, wisdom and influence. There are numerous traits, which make someone qualify as a leader. People expect leaders to behave morally and depict qualities such as care, honesty, fair, sympathetic, empathetic and principled. The case of Carly Firiona is one full of surprises as one begins the journey of her success, at first, she is very successful, but later on, and her downfall is inevitable. In the first instant, she completes school and achieves a bachelor's degree in medieval history and philosophy. Although she drops her law course only after one year, one can suggest that her father was forcing her into doing something she did not want.

This is conclusive because her father was a law professor. In this case, one can see the making of a leader. One who is determined to do what she wants because that is what she feels is right. She abandoned the path of becoming a lawyer and earned a Masters in Business Administration in Maryland University. Once she settled on her first appointment in the business field, she promptly became a figure to reckon. Her leadership journey is an enviable one because when she made her way into AT&T as a low-level sales manager, with no time she managed to draw the attention of the administration.

In the organization, she single-handedly handled tough assignments and with no time, she became one of the greatest salespersons of the industry. In addition, it was as if she was a born leader because she instantly rose to become the president of North American sales. She was focused on anything she did, evident in the role she played in AT&T's transition of Lucent Technologies, which was later named Lucent's Sales and Marketing Group. During her time in the company, the revenue and stock value rose notably, which, she named in Fortune's Magazine, The Most Powerful Female American Executive (Burrows, 2003). She continued holding this rank even when hired by HP.

Her leadership journey was one full of success and failure at the same time. At the same time Lucent stock was doing badly, HP was losing stock of its luster. HP was the first company to offer benefits such as profit sharing, flex time, insurance on catastrophes', and assisted their employees on tuition. The founders believed that their company made profits because they were fair to their consumers and followers. Additionally, the company operated via a culture they referred to as the "HP Way." The principles included respecting everyone, sound finances, building trust in their employees, technical excellence, working together as a team, humility, and working hard (Malone, 2007).

However, the hiring of Carly Fiorina, led to complete change of this culture. This is where her leadership journey ends. Her acceptance in the HP company was one women enjoyed because they saw Carly Fiorina as a role model. She comes out from a completely different organization, which dealt with sales and marketing, but borrowed greatly from the organization and implemented some concepts in the engineering filed, which led to her downfall as a leader. In a bid to transform the company, she treated employees who clung to the traditional HP Way as opposition, and suggested that no one who resisted change would leave the company.

She did not pay attention to opinions, and changed almost everything including bonuses for the employees. Instead, she aimed at making profits with the company, and forgot simple rules, which her predecessors recognized. Employees constantly complained of poor communication and poor implementation of decisions. This was a reverse of what the company was popular about; employee satisfaction. In meetings, several employees booed her and the company shut down its electronic bulletin after the workforce used it to attack Carly Fiorina. This was clear that the employees were not in favor of the CEO, and it was a wakeup call for Carly Fiorina. The employees further reacted to the situation through an active resistance expressing their dissatisfaction in the year 2002.

Carly made her leadership journey worse when she opted to merger Compaq and HP, a move that faced opposition from some of the board members. However, she successfully implemented the move, leading to cut down of jobs. The merger led to loss of profits by HP, and Dell began eating away HP's profits. This story of her success then failure is one of surprises because one cannot expect success to precede failure. This only suggests that when people or managers are on the pathway to success, they often forget the efforts they put to achieve the levels they are currently. After doing this, they relax and allow negative qualities to control their once good leadership qualities, which leads them to decline.

How she failed as a leader

Carly Fiorina managed to bring change to the HP's culture of leadership, which was against what the company had practiced for so many years. The founders of the company had an engineering background, who managed to instill a different management technique, which managed to attract praise from all over the globe (Kellerman, 2012). This is because the company had set the standards, which were the points of reference for other high tech companies. However, Fiorina altered with the company's vision, as well as changed it from a company that provides stand-alone products to one that offers customers a wide variety of information appliances, reliable IT products and e-services.

She realigned the company's organizational structure, but unlike the company's founders, she lacked expertise in the engineering field. Her expertise was in sales and marketing, and deliberately disregarded the company's established practices. This was her path to her drastic downfall. She suggested a merger between Compaq and HP, a move that some board directors did not favor, but she managed to implement. This merging put many of her followers at stake because it meant that it would cut down jobs and reorganize the organization into four large systems (Burrows, 2003). Traditionally, men feel that it is suitable for them to head big corporations; therefore, she faced gender bias. This meant that although she was a powerful businessperson, it was very hard for her to survive in a world dominated by men.

Firoina comes out as a selfish executive because she centralized her decision-making process, which the company earlier had decentralized, and many insiders aspired for explicit reasoning behind every decision she made. Although she had channels to communicate with her followers, her followers felt that it was a way to avoid them. Therefore, they felt she was distant and out of touch. Earlier on, she manages to portray success throughout her work; however, in this organization, she only portrays failure because of her overconfidence in her capacity to run the company on her own (Kellerman, 2004). She ignored other members including her followers, who later perceived her differently leading to her downfall. The co-founders accused her of trying to link herself to success she was not part of, when she took a photo before the garage, which the founders used as their path to building the company.

In the year 2004, she finally ended her tenure with the giant corporation. It marked the end of her leadership in the company because HP had lost almost half of its market value. The company, Compaq, which merged with HP, had begun eating away HP's influential and profitable printer business (Elgin, 2005). On the other hand, the business press, which had earlier supported or portrayed Fiorina as a powerful businessperson, began complaining concerning her lack of proficiency in operations and failure to provide a coherent path for the company. This representation in the media made her look bad and a failure.

The company's employees began to show signs of dissatisfaction with their jobs. Additionally, she and her board disagreed concerning appointments to lead various departments of the company, plans for re-organization, and comments that she appoints a chief operating officer. The company failed to realize earning projections, and she fired some officials on the phone because they failed to realize the numbers. All the arising issues, instigated the board to act, and in 2005, the board removed Carly from office.