Meg Whitman Influence

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Building Power and Social Influence Throughout her career, Meg Whitman has been able to gain both personal and positional power. Her primary sources of personal power are effort and legitimacy and her primary sources of positional powers are visibility and relevance. A great example of Meg Whitman exhibiting the effort and visibility sources was during eBay’s crash in June 1999. An unexpected crash of the eBay site caused for nearly 22 hours negatively impacting millions of people worldwide. Meg Whitman did what no CEO would do.
The President and CEO of eBay went into the trenches with her staff of fearless and dedicated individuals and from Thursday until that following Monday, they all camped out on cots for short naps and breaks...And their …show more content…

378). Leaders in all organizations will constantly face conflicts in their jobs, whether they are people-based conflicts or issue-based conflicts. What makes a great and competent leader is one that has the ability to resolve tough conflicts properly. One example that shows Meg Whitman, a candidate, dealing with a conflict during California’s Governor’s race in 2010. The conflict was between her and a Hispanic woman who was Meg Whitman’s housekeeper. The woman claimed that she was mistreated and was let go once she asked for citizenship help. It painted Meg Whitman in a bad light for the political race. Whitman attempted an accommodating response wanting “to cast the story in a positive way - careful not to demonize the housekeeper while calling her an extended member of the family” (Young, 2010). It was not enough, so when the people of California voted, Meg Whitman did not make it. I believe I would have responded the same way as Meg Whitman. This situation was playing out into the public and any sense of covering up the truth, would not have helped Meg …show more content…

In this situation, she clearly empowered her team to make the decision without her presence. Her stand is very clear that in order for people to perform, leaders need to let them perform without constraints. She clearly had trust in her team, which is an important factor of empowerment. According to the text, “Empowerment means providing freedom for people to do successfully what they want to do, rather than getting them to do what you want them to do” (Whetten & Cameron, 2014, p. 443). Often in the Army, I empower my subordinates in order to give them a sense of purpose. This has resulted in great outcomes as they feel that they are part of the team and have an important role to play in the success of the

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