Transformational Leadership as Shown by Meg Whitman at HP

Meg Whitman Leadership Style

Admirable leadership style is an essential requirement in individual holding influential managerial position within a company. It is the interaction process between the leader and the other employees, influencing them toward workplace objectives and accomplishment. Leadership is the ability to offer direction toward recommended future ambitions and tune the followers toward goal accomplishment. Leadership theories will be used to explain the effectiveness, performance, and style used by Meg Whitman, to attain the goals and objectives at HP.

There are different styles of leadership that work within companies. They include participative, supportive, directive, achievement-oriented, and transformational. There is a notion that people must be born with the necessary characteristics, to become an effective leader, but this is wrong. However, some of the leadership characteristics are difficult to improve or change if your character does not fit. This does not mean you can be an effective leader if you do not have all of these characteristics. Meg Whitman has developed leadership skills throughout her life (Nicholas, 2013).

One of her leadership styles would be regarded transactional leadership as this design is known for its rewards and motivations, clear command chain, and leader's design structures for employees. Whitman's choice to allow new workers to observe and study the organization's objective for three several weeks is impressive, to say the least. Most companies would not be brave enough to allow such trainings to take place in their premises. The inspiration behind this is to ensure that employees understand all they can and later generate good results from whatever they have learnt. The strategy is impractical because the conventional way of initiating new workers to the workforce would be orientation and few days of coaching, and you are required to understand everything and work at the same time. Employees will know their supervisor besides adhering to instructions when the appropriate management chain is adopted (Darling & Beebe, 2007).

Meg Whitman is a strong believer in influencing connections with her workers and not controlling them. Whitman uses three leadership strands at her CEO position. First, she understands she cannot control the sellers and buyers of HP. Secondly, she believes that people are good in whatever they do.. This reveals that Whitman is a helpful/supportive leader. One who psychologically supports her workers and treats them with proper care and regard. Whitman says, "Our Business is designed and managed on validation" (Nothhaft & Kline, 2011). Third, people should not think they know it all. In addition, Whitman is a successful participative leader. She believes in listening and allowing her workers to contribute in important decisions and meetings within the organization. Whitman also believes people must learn from and travel to diverse countries as people can never learn too much. This shows she is a knowledgeable leader (Longenecker, 2009).

What makes Whitman stand out from other leaders is that she is willing to take a stand apart from the others. This does not mean that group thinking is bad, but group thinking can lead to mob psychology that can be damaging to the growth of an organization or even just the individual. For satisfactory progress to be realized, one may have to rise above the crowd. That is what Whitman has done with HP, and she has confirmed that this idea works. Someone cannot just be contrary to the crowd because of the desire to be different. It is important to consider all conditions to see if getting away from the crowd seems reasonable. For Whitman, it did not appear sensible for HP to contest with smart phones or tablets. It did was sensible to create their own way to serve a large market of clients that she felt were underserved in the market. She could have taken the wrong move, but she did not (Holm-Nielsen, Crawford & Saliba, 2006).

As a transformational leader, Whitman motivates and empowers the employees by including them in decision-making. This motivates them to contribute to the vision and feel that they belong to the group leading to the achievements of the company. Whitman encourages the employees by rewarding them for excellence and superiority work performed. Consequently, Whitman has employees who illustrate top quality efficiency, dedication and job fulfillment (Kuratko & Hodgetts, 2011). In most cases, transformational leaders have some unique but common features. They include the capability to instill a feeling of capability in employees, inspire trust, offer vision, execute all projects on time, take risks, take, and manage action properly during times of crises, and communicate successfully.

From a transformational leadership perspective, Whitman treats all employees in a supportive way, equally and with perfect communication abilities appropriate to all of them. This results in building a trusting relationship between her and the employees. Leaders are always concerned about the needs and values of workers below them (Greenberg & Wilson, 2011). She regularly keeps individual meetings with each employee in her office, inquiring about their problems, needs, and feelings and tries to solve them. Moreover, she shares many obligations and power with the staff: employees feel accountable by working harder and successfully. This causes all employees to be more motivated and do their best to achieve the objectives and projects of the company. Whitman holds common meetings with all employees regularly discussing with them decision-making, business strategies, and any other new concepts from the employees. As a result, all employees are motivated to be part of the group, working hard and successfully for the vision of the company (Smilor & Sexton, 2006).

Meg Whitman is a primary example of a leader who developed her leadership characteristics during her career, becoming an effective leader in a top organization on the globe. She is a charismatic leader who influenced subordinates rather than pushing them to show up at work, daily (Cleveland, 2012). This has earned Whitman popularity and respect as a leader of HP. While developing your leadership abilities, it is important to learn from Meg Whitman's focus on confidence. When people not sure about the destination, nobody will follow them. With confidence in all actions undertaken, the leader can confirm that they are right, and employees can follow them without fear. This is a perfect example of Meg Whitman's leadership style.