o When situations change, leaders constantly are required to make new decisions To do so, they must

be fast learners.

o Fast learneing does not necessarily refer to formal education or bookish knowledge.

o Fast learning is a critical attribute to develop their own leadership

o The need for rapid learning arises because all leaders deal with Markets change, new sets

of political or military circumstances.

because the only constant thing is “change”

“I failed in some subjects in exam, but my friend passed in all. Now

he is an engineer in Microsoft and I am the owner of Microsoft.”

October 28, 1955 (age 57)Seattle, Washington, U.S.

Founder, Chairman and Chief software architect of Microsoft

A Self-made billionaire known for hisaggressive business tactics and

confrontational style of management and also for being the biggest charitable giver in

history

In 1973 He Enters Harvard University as a freshman, where he lives down the hall from Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft‟s CEO. He later

drops out of Harvard without graduating

In 1968 ( At age 13) Bill Gates discovers his interest in software and writes his first software

program for playing tic tac toe

In 1975, he launches Microsoft (age 20) with childhood friend Paul Allen. Microsoft has $16,000 in revenues

in its first year

In 1980, Gates, Allen, and Ballmer meet with IBM executives to license Microsoft software to introduce a

personal computer

In 1986, the company‟s stock goes public

Bill gates is dominating the global software industry

He‟s a highly directive leader who resolves problems and issues orders with ease.

“I put most of my problems into my group‟s hands and serve as a catalyst”

Gates means that a leader should always leave all decisions to an individual or group with far

greater freedom, only if they’re ready.

He has a „buy it or bury it’ approach

(criticized by a few competitors for serious anticompetitive implications)

[Ex. Netscape]

He is capable of quick study and rapid responding to emerging developments and

sharing them to his advantageInternet is a living example of this

o He base his moves on fast learning and speedy action drove Microsoft to the

Top must position.

o He has the ability of good team building and has the vision to bring in people and

let them serve the company.

o He has a great concern for empowerment

He sees Empoweremnt= Management‟s promise to employees that will be supported and rewarded for taking action and finding new ways to contribute.

Decentralization ResponsibilityOF

Bill Gates has to face these environment pressures

He‟s aware of the fact that pressures deriving from the organization, the work group and the pressure of time affect a

leader like him

1st: Bill Gates faced the threat of Anti-trust Regulators to break up Microsoft into two

separate companies [Software applications & Operating system company]

Theose regulators also impose big legal and administrative costs on the company and could

affect how it does business in the future

Setback in 2004Microsoft was finesed $ 613M by the European commission (EC).

Cause MS abused its near-monopoly power for PC operating systems.

In the same year an amount of $ 1,600M was paid by Microsoft to Sun Micro-Systems

to settle antitrust and patent issues.

He responded to the rise of the Internet

in three ways.

1.“Microsoft developed the Internet Explorer web browser”

2.“And began to adapt existing products and develop new products centered on the Internet,…”

3.“And when companies came along that had established a strong presence in a niche where Microsoft was covering behind, Gates responded with a new tactic:

acquisition"

Born August 11, 1944 (age 68)

Marks, Mississippi, United States

Founder, chairman,

president, and CEO of FedEx

The first overnight express delivery company in the world,

Participated in Vietnam War

Salary $8.64 million

Net worth $2.1 billion

1959: At age 15, he learns to fly and enters

prep school.

1967: Joins the Marine Corps, serves 4 years

in Vietnam

1971: FedEx is incorporated on June 18, 1971 in Delaware.

1978: Company lists on the NY Stock Exchange.

A Yale University management

professor in response to student

Fred Smith's Economics Class

paper proposing reliable overnight

delivery service: “The concept is

interesting and well-formed, but in

order to earn better than a 'C', the

idea must be feasible”.

He’s a leader who has repeatedly demonstrated his ability to learn rapidly from observation and

experience.

He‟s fast seizing the opportunity by overnight innovation.

“If Fred lined up all FedEx employees and told them to jump from a bridge, 99.9% would jump.”

He has a strong motivational skills

that came from his military experience in vietnam,

which developed strong sense of camaraderie with which he treaths his employees at Fed Ex.

Fred Smith had one big idea and it generated an entire industry, nearly overnight.

Fedex grew faster and became the world‟s 1st

overnight delivery system of time-sensitive packages.

Trust The air freight industry did not have a good reputation in the past. Fred Smith had to make people

trust him and his company

By creating tracking and traicing capabilities

Fred Smith made customers entrust the company and faced the challenge to meet their high expectations.

Organization The big challenge was that it

had to happen all at once.

To attract customers, a large network had to

be in place from day 1.

How could a system delivering mail all over

the US work from the very beginning?

Smith solved this problem by hiring managers from UPS and basically copying the UPS organizational system. The backbone of the FedEx system became

the core concept.

Despite the demand for the new service, It had

never been tried before and the idea required huge starting investments

Smith made investment bankers understand the problems & requirements of the new high tech

industry.

And made them believe that his idea offers a solution for a real problem.

“A miracle! The company should have died 3 to 5 times in the early years. Fred refused to let it go.”

Fred Smith did‟nt give up. He put his personal wealth online, sacrificed part of his life, his

private life, and he built a great company which well serves its customers, Benefits its employees, who cares for them & benefits it‟s Stockholders.

Computers are great tools to realize our dreams, but no

machine can replace the human spark of spirit,

compassion, love, and understanding.”

March 1, 1942 (age 70)

Mineola, New York, U.S

Former chairman and CEO of IBM

He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School

Known for leading IBM's historic turnaround in „90s

& for inventing the term "e-business"

o 1965: Receives MBA from Harvard Business School.

o 1965: Joins McKinsey & Co. consulting firm,

Became advisor for decision makers.

o 1970-1975: Becomes a principal partner at age 28, the youngest in the firm, and a director,

again the youngest, at 33.

o 1989: Joins RJR Nabisco as chairman and CEO.

o 1993: Is recruited to head IBM, a company in trouble. [General Electric‟s Jack Welch is among

many candidates who declined the position.]

o 2001: IBM dub the “turnaround of the century” Annual net income & revenue rises.

o 2002: He retires from IBM in December.

He took the risk to shift from a product led to a services led IBM, which required

that the culture of this once unmanageable giant become a team-

based, customer-focused and agile company.

Challenge of competition

Challenge of not choosing and executing good strategies

Challenge of changing the overall IBM culture

Gerstner, the first outsider to lead IBM, had only a few

months to set Big Blue on the right track. He quickly put an

end to any talk of breaking IBM into several little Blues.

By the late 1980s, competitors (Ex. Hitachi andAmdahl) were offering mainframe alternatives atlower prices, and others (Ex. Dell and Compaq)were invading the personal computer business.

IBM’s stock value= $43/S(1987) to $12/S(1993)

Gerstner: “We were getting killed by these single-point competitors”

Gerstner moved to transform the company into

an “integrator,” which build, run, and house

systems for customers using its own components as well as those of its competitors.

Instead working together as a team, divisions competed

against each other and worked independantly.

The entire company was dangerously preoccupied with

itself rather than with customers affected performance

Gerstner: “Managment presided rather than acted"

He flush out a calcified IBM culture

composed of fiefdoms that were out of touch with each other and with their customers‟ needs.

For him it was fundamental to talk to customers and actually sell products rather than simply

develop them.

Under his guidance, IBM cut billions in expenses (partly through massive layoffs)

and raised cash by selling assets.

Gerstner: “ Few people even understood how perilously close the firm was to

running out of cash”.

He spent about 40% of his time during his first 2 years meeting IBM employees

face-to-face, directly and bluntly filling them with a sense of urgency.

All of the three Business leaders discussed are intensely aware of the forces wich are relevant

to their behavior at any given time.

They truthfully understand the individuals and groups they are dealing with.

Thank you for your attention