Meg Whitman is CEO of eBay, Inc. The particular approaches to developing strategies and her leadership qualities made Whitman one of the most successful CEOs in the market world. Meg Whitman’s leadership depends on the effective combination of methods discussed by Kotter as the ways to create the major change within the company. Whitman contributed to the development of eBay, Inc. with references to using the efficient planning and marketing strategies.
Kotter developed the Eight Step Process for Creating Major Change, and Meg Whitman followed all the steps during her integrating process into the company’s culture.
Thus, the focus on changing the environment in relation to using the eight-step model can be discussed as more effective in comparison with the usage of the strategies to promote the company’s rapid growth. The strategy can be followed successfully when the guiding coalition is created. Whitman demonstrated her abilities as the effective leader and focused on the slow development of the working team.
For example, Meg Whitman used the pattern developed in the company in relation to team-building process previously and improved it basing on the ideas of unity of internal and external community cultures along with encouraging and empowering employees to provide their own opinions and recommendations. Furthermore, Whitman decided to integrate into the company’s culture conducting frequent meetings where the team could solve the issues and interact effectively.
To direct the change effort, Whitman proposed the radical vision as the main goal of the company. She stated that it is important to become the world’s largest person-to-person trading company which operates online. From this point, the long-term perspective became focused on the proclaimed vision. To achieve the vision, Whitman developed strategies to work on such issues as the market and brand positioning.
That is why, the frequent meetings helped communicate the new vision of the company’s development. Whitman focused on the effective communication between the participants of the team using senior managers as role models to demonstrate the elements of behaviors expected from the other employees.
Empowering broad-based action, Whitman changed the structure of the organization. Whitman started to work in the engineering-driven organization. To achieve the significant progress, it was necessary to change the structure of the organization with references to the increasing number of employees. Thus, the organization’s structure was later divided into units or departments.
To generate short-term wins and achieve visible improvements, Whitman concentrated on developing a strategy for the company’s investment, on defining the marketing strategy, and on preparing eBay Inc. for IPO during the first weeks of working in the company. The further wins of the company were associated with overcoming the controversial issue of selling firearms by eBay Inc. To respond to the community’s expectations, it was necessary to improve the working strategies.
The further consolidation of gains and production of more changes was based on supporting the principles of the community’s safety and on developing the partnership relations with many companies, including AOL and Butterfield & Butterfield. Thus, the company focused on the ethical principles of selling to contribute to the community’s safety.
Furthermore, the company’s promotion was based on the cooperation with AOL and developed advertising strategies. The increase in profits was connected with Butterfield & Butterfield’s strategy in relation to eBay Inc. Having hired experienced managers and legal councils, Whitman achieved not only short-term goals but also the main vision of the company.