Leadership Challenges in Business

Leadership Challenges in Business

Denise M. Laakmann

Keiser University

Miami, FL

April 7, 2013

All of the CEOs profiled in the Case in the News article, How Four Rookie CEOs Handled the Great Recession, faced the very grueling challenges of running companies through a difficult economic period. When John Donahoe took control of eBay, he did so at a time when the entire business model that eBay operated under was under attack. He was sharply criticized for his early performance in the position. "Donahoe has made eBay a miserable debacle and it's getting worse every day." (MacMillan, 2012) James A.C. Kennedy led T. Rowe Price through this same difficult period of time. In the banking industry, the challenges were even greater, as larger banking companies were falling frequently. One of the biggest lessons that the two men learned from this was: "Resist the inclination to hunker down and wait out the trouble." (MacMillan, 2012, p. 34) Donahoe had to face the challenge of running the company, and persevering through the financial crisis. Diane Irvine from Blue Nile took her post as CEO and almost immediately had to inform investors that the sales from the previous years holiday period had struggled below projections. Discovering new ways to increase sales and revenue would be exceptionally challenging. Molson Coors, which was run by Peter Swinburn, had to deal with the massive acquisitions and a re-consolidation. Those acquisitions led to Swinburn having to synchronize the efforts of a large amount of employees spread all over the globe.

When it came to responding to the management challenges, Donahoe demonstrated perseverance, confidence and tenacity in the face of opposition despite his initial slow start at eBay. He also placed incentives on performance to encourage managers to improve customer satisfaction. Kennedy from T. Rowe Price, took matters into his own hands by personally calling investors and clients to ease their worries and restore their faith in the company. Kennedy also made sure to balance his personal life and health with his commitments as CEO. This ensured that he was able to handle these challenges with a balanced approach. Irvine capitalized on the advantages her company had, for example they had little overhead since they were an online company. She made benefit of the economic downturn by going on the offensive and trying to increase market share rather than merely survive the bad economy. Irvine also helped to bring about formality and discipline, which many online companies seemed to lack. Lastly, Swinburn dealt with his difficult synchronization process by seeking input from his employees. This technique of involvement