Leadership Description Assignment: A Huge Company Like IBM

IBM Leadership
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Running a huge company like IBM is demanding. It requires the involvement of entire self. The use of both the left and right brain in decision making is one thing that most leaders fail to adopt. The famous adage goes ‘Leaders are born, not made.' Acquisition of leadership skills and qualities is, on the contrary, a learning process. A leader defines the success or the downfall of a company. Since 2002, IBM has had two leaders.
Samuel J. Palmisano took over the leadership of IBM in 2002. He retired in 2012, Ginni Rometty succeeding him. During his reign, he set a goal of making IBM a standard measure of other companies. His mandate was to run businesses uniquely with high innovation potential and profit margins. He purchased Pricewaterhousecoopers Consulting 2002. This was to go beyond just selling computers and software but also be an aid to customers. It would help the customers to use technology to come up with solutions to challenges in their businesses.
IBM got software companies. These companies were a specialty in analytics and data mining. Through them, IBM could help the government and other companies to get partners on internal data and the web. He as well started cloud computing for the company. In 2008, he initiated the launching of IBM's Smarter Planet Initiative. It was despite the impending economic recession and financial crisis the company was facing. He also led the selling of PC to Lenovo because he believed that it would offer few innovation opportunities as it was a low-margin business. After recognizing that disks were more of a commodity, he sold them to Hitachi and signed a deal to buy Hitachi drives for five years.
The above achievements show that Palmisano, as a leader, understood the factors that make a IBM valuable on the financial aspect. He sold the businesses with low returns and put into those with high returns. For instance, the selling of PC to Lenovo and disk drives to Hitachi. With the disks drives, he saw it better to buy than sell them for the prosperity of the company. As a result, IBM’s capital return increased from 4.7% in 2002 to 15.1% by 2011 which is the company’s tremendous achievement (Geoff, 2011).
IBM is ranked top globally for companies for leaders (Geoff, 2011). The creation of Corporate Service Corps shows the commitment on developmental assignments. It also put efforts in inventing new ones. The Corporate Service Corps allow the newcomers and the young up to work with the existing leaders. As a result, the employees develop more. In short, Palmisano was good in decision making, a risk taker and a leader who put the enterprise before himself as an individual.
In 2012, Ginni Rometty took over the leadership of IBM as the first female leader. Her leadership qualities have kept her moving. Some of the leadership qualities expressed by Ginni are risk taking. There is no coexistence of growth and comfort in life. The only way to climb the ladder is to push through hardships and challenge oneself with new things. This is what Ginni believes in. Her ability to align her workforce is another way that has kept her moving. She comes up with a few strategic beliefs that are long-term. Through this, th...