Bernie Ebbers
A Review of Bernie Ebbers and His Leadership
Bernie Ebbers had an amazing rise to power followed by a catastrophic fall. Early in his rise many saw him as a great leader. TIME magazine described Bernie during that time as “It was Ebbers who gave LDDS its mojo --and a mission to democratize U.S. long-distance service. ” (Padgett & Jackson, 2002). His charism and aggressive business made him a leader that many wanted to follow. Eventually he was seen very differently, during his trial one writer said “Ebbers was portrayed as one helluva lousy leader, distrusting of employees and micromanaging ridiculous details.” (FCS, 2005). Here we will review some of the positive and negative aspects of his leadership.
Discussion
Bernie Ebbers first big business opportunity came with the breakup of the telephone companies and his part in creating the telecom company LDDS (Trevino & Brown, 2005, p. 90). It was during that time that people saw the charismatic leader that they wanted to follow, Trevino and …show more content…
So should we expect the same behavior from the rest of the employees, according to Trevino and Brown we should because “If leaders are observed “cooking the books,” enriching themselves at the expense of others, or lying to customers or suppliers, followers learn that such behavior is expected.” (2005, p. 72). Probably without knowing it Ebbers was setting the example for the rest of the company to act the same way, hold onto the power, micromanage and don’t worry if our personal ethics and your business ethics are different. In the after math of the WorldCom collapse reports showed that the accounting fraud occurred at the executive level and was clearly allowed by and caused by the culture that Ebbers had created in the staff (Ackman, 2003)
Bernie Ebbers had an amazing rise to power followed by a catastrophic fall. Early in his rise many saw him as a great leader. TIME magazine described Bernie during that time as “It was Ebbers who gave LDDS its mojo --and a mission to democratize U.S. long-distance service. ” (Padgett & Jackson, 2002). His charism and aggressive business made him a leader that many wanted to follow. Eventually he was seen very differently, during his trial one writer said “Ebbers was portrayed as one helluva lousy leader, distrusting of employees and micromanaging ridiculous details.” (FCS, 2005). Here we will review some of the positive and negative aspects of his leadership.
Discussion
Bernie Ebbers first big business opportunity came with the breakup of the telephone companies and his part in creating the telecom company LDDS (Trevino & Brown, 2005, p. 90). It was during that time that people saw the charismatic leader that they wanted to follow, Trevino and …show more content…
So should we expect the same behavior from the rest of the employees, according to Trevino and Brown we should because “If leaders are observed “cooking the books,” enriching themselves at the expense of others, or lying to customers or suppliers, followers learn that such behavior is expected.” (2005, p. 72). Probably without knowing it Ebbers was setting the example for the rest of the company to act the same way, hold onto the power, micromanage and don’t worry if our personal ethics and your business ethics are different. In the after math of the WorldCom collapse reports showed that the accounting fraud occurred at the executive level and was clearly allowed by and caused by the culture that Ebbers had created in the staff (Ackman, 2003)