By: Tyler Wiesemeyer
For the common person giving up your dream job for an opportunity that seemed to be destined to fail would be an easy proposition to turn down. However when Ellen Kullman was presented with just that she hesitantly accepted the proposal. At first Ellen though that it was a suicide mission to start a consulting business around the company’s safety practices because DuPont was an entity that sold products, not services. Also DuPont had been notorious for moving someone out of the executive realm by asking them to “take on a special project,” and furthermore give up on your development as a manager/leader.
Is Helen a Leader or a manager?
This would have been an easy way for Ellen to go about her decision on the proposal, but she took a completely different path. Ellen decided that in order to really prove herself a leader she must spearhead this task. Although her mentors and spouse urged her not to embark on the mission, she did so in hopes of unveiling her conceptual skills. As skills theory sates, there is no doubt that Ellen had high technical and human skills with her previous endeavors as vice president and a successful engineer. But this mission really showed her ability to create a vision and bring to life a multimillion dollar business.
Did the exemplification of Skills and traits slingshot Ellen into the CEO position?
In this example I feel as if skills and traits absolutely legitimized Ellen as the right person for the position of CEO at DuPont. Her bravery, ingenuity, and ability to materialize a highly successful service based project within a product driven company clearly showed that Ellen has personal, technical, and conceptual skills to say the least. Also traits such as intelligence, dertermination, and self-confidence were identified throughout the process. Although there may be some discrepancies with the legitimacy of skills and trait theories respectively, I feel as if they are very good indicators of a successful leader when used correctly and in accordance with the situation.
Please feel free to comment on the article and answer these questions in your own words, as well as sparking some conversation with your own opinions on Ellen’s story if you so desire. Hope you all enjoy this success story as much as I did.
I would definitely agree with you that she is a leader over a manager. She possesses all three of the competencies that would make a great leader. She thinks outside the box and is definitely not a follower as seen when both mentors and her spouse urged against the matter. She has some great problem-solving skills and social judgment skills. Looking back at the decision, she seems to understand that there was a great risk in her future when she made that move to the different segment.
ReplyDeleteI think Ellen is definitely a leader. She states in the article she is good at taking businesses and figuring out the next steps (for the business). She seems to have all the tools to be a great manager with her background and such, however, I get the sense that her boss (CEO) also felt as if she is a leader over a manager. The positioned she was offered was not set in stone and was a new one, so there was really no idea as to what needed to be done. There was nothing to manage. She took the job against all the advice she was given and didn't seem to slow down at all. And even now while she is CEO, she is still leading. She understands where the business is currently and always wants to know how they can get further and keep pushing. I agree with your statement that she has high people skills; being able to manage 6,000 employees must take extremely high people skills.
ReplyDelete- Matt Kester