3. o When situations change, leaders constantly are
required to make new decisions  To do so, they must
be fast learners.
o Fast learneing does not necessarily refer to formal
education or bookish knowledge.

4. o Fast learning is a critical attribute to develop
their own leadership
o The need for rapid learning arises because all
leaders deal with Markets change, new sets
of political or military circumstances.
 because the only constant thing is “change”

5. “I failed in some subjects in exam,
but my friend passed in all. Now
he is an engineer in Microsoft and
I am the owner of Microsoft.”

6. October 28, 1955 (age 57)
Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Founder, Chairman and Chief software architect
of Microsoft
A Self-made billionaire known for his
aggressive business tactics and
confrontational style of management and
also for being the biggest charitable giver in
history

7. In 1968 ( At age 13) Bill Gates discovers his
interest in software and writes his first software
program for playing tic tac toe
In 1973 He Enters Harvard University as a
freshman, where he lives down the hall from
Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft‟s CEO. He later
drops out of Harvard without graduating

8. In 1975, he launches Microsoft (age 20) with childhood
friend Paul Allen. Microsoft has $16,000 in revenues
in its first year
In 1980, Gates, Allen, and Ballmer meet with IBM
executives to license Microsoft software to introduce a
personal computer
In 1986, the company‟s stock goes public

9.  Bill gates is dominating the global software
industry
He‟s a highly directive leader who resolves
problems and issues orders with ease.

10. “I put most of my problems into my group‟s
hands and serve as a catalyst”
Gates means that a leader should always leave all
decisions to an individual or group with far
greater freedom, only if they’re ready.

11. He has a „buy it or bury it’ approach
(criticized by a few competitors for serious
anticompetitive implications)
[Ex. Netscape]
He is capable of quick study and rapid
responding to emerging developments and
sharing them to his advantage 
Internet is a living example of this

12. o He base his moves on fast learning and
speedy action  drove Microsoft to the
Top must position.
o He has the ability of good team building
and has the vision to bring in people and
let them serve the company.

13. o He has a great concern for empowerment
He sees Empoweremnt= Management‟s promise to
employees that will be supported and rewarded for
taking action and finding new ways to contribute.
Decentralization OF Responsibility

14. Bill Gates has to face these environment
pressures
He‟s aware of the fact that pressures
deriving from the organization, the work
group and the pressure of time affect a
leader like him

15. 1st: Bill Gates faced the threat of Anti-trust
Regulators to break up Microsoft into two
separate companies [Software applications
& Operating system company]
Theose regulators also impose big legal and
administrative costs on the company and could
affect how it does business in the future

16.  Setback in 2004 Microsoft was finesed
$ 613M by the European commission (EC).
 Cause MS abused its near-monopoly
power for PC operating systems.
 In the same year an amount of $ 1,600M was
paid by Microsoft to Sun Micro-Systems
to settle antitrust and patent issues.

17. He responded to the rise of the Internet
in three ways.
1.“Microsoft developed the Internet Explorer web browser”
2.“And began to adapt existing products and develop new
products centered on the Internet,…”
3.“And when companies came along that had established a
strong presence in a niche where Microsoft was covering
behind, Gates responded with a new tactic:
 acquisition"

19. Born August 11, 1944 (age 68)
Marks, Mississippi, United States
Founder, chairman,
president, and CEO of FedEx
The first overnight express delivery company in the world,
Participated in Vietnam War
Salary $8.64 million
Net worth $2.1 billion

20. 1959: At age 15, he learns to fly and enters
prep school.
1967: Joins the Marine Corps, serves 4 years
in Vietnam
1971: FedEx is incorporated on
June 18, 1971 in Delaware.
1978: Company lists on the
NY Stock Exchange.

21. A Yale University management
professor in response to student
Fred Smith's Economics Class
paper proposing reliable overnight
delivery service: “The concept is
interesting and well-formed, but in
order to earn better than a 'C', the
idea must be feasible”.

22. He’s a leader who has repeatedly demonstrated his
ability to learn rapidly from observation and
experience.
He‟s fast seizing the opportunity by overnight
innovation.

23. “If Fred lined up all FedEx employees and told them to
jump from a bridge, 99.9% would jump.”
He has a strong motivational skills
that came from his military experience in vietnam,
which developed strong sense of camaraderie with which
he treaths his employees at Fed Ex.

24. Fred Smith had one big idea and it generated an
entire industry, nearly overnight.
Fedex grew faster and became the world‟s 1st
overnight delivery system of time-sensitive packages.

25. Trust  The air freight industry did not have a good
reputation in the past. Fred Smith had to make people
trust him and his company
By creating tracking and traicing capabilities
Fred Smith made customers entrust the company and
faced the challenge to meet their high expectations.

26. Organization The big challenge was that it
had to happen all at once.
To attract customers, a large network had to
be in place from day 1.
How could a system delivering mail all over
the US work from the very beginning?

27. Smith solved this problem by hiring managers from
UPS and basically copying the UPS organizational
system. The backbone of the FedEx system became
the core concept.

28. Despite the demand for the new service, It had
never been tried before and the idea required
huge starting investments
Smith made investment bankers understand the
problems & requirements of the new high tech
industry.
And made them believe that his idea offers a solution
for a real problem.

29. “A miracle! The company should have died 3 to 5
times in the early years. Fred refused to let it go.”
Fred Smith did‟nt give up. He put his personal
wealth online, sacrificed part of his life, his
private life, and he built a great company which
well serves its customers, Benefits its employees,
who cares for them & benefits it‟s Stockholders.

30. Computers are great tools to realize our dreams, but no
machine can replace the human spark of spirit,
compassion, love, and understanding.”

31. March 1, 1942 (age 70)
Mineola, New York, U.S
Former chairman and CEO of IBM
He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School
Known for leading IBM's historic turnaround in „90s
& for inventing the term "e-business"

32. o 1965: Receives MBA from Harvard Business
School.
o 1965: Joins McKinsey & Co. consulting firm,
Became advisor for decision makers.
o 1970-1975: Becomes a principal partner at age
28, the youngest in the firm, and a director,
again the youngest, at 33.
o 1989: Joins RJR Nabisco as chairman and
CEO.

33. o 1993: Is recruited to head IBM, a company in
trouble. [General Electric‟s Jack Welch is among
many candidates who declined the position.]
o 2001: IBM dub the “turnaround of the century”
Annual net income & revenue rises.
o 2002: He retires from IBM in December.

34. He took the risk to shift from a product
led to a services led IBM, which required
that the culture of this once
unmanageable giant become a team-
based, customer-focused and agile
company.

35. Challenge of competition
Challenge of not choosing and
executing good strategies
Challenge of changing the overall
IBM culture

36. Gerstner, the first outsider to
lead IBM, had only a few
months to set Big Blue on the
right track. He quickly put an
end to any talk of breaking
IBM into several little Blues.

37. By the late 1980s, competitors (Ex. Hitachi and
Amdahl) were offering mainframe alternatives at
lower prices, and others (Ex. Dell and Compaq)
were invading the personal computer business.
IBM’s stock value= $43/S(1987) to $12/S(1993)

38. Gerstner moved to transform the company into
an “integrator,” which build, run, and house
systems for customers using its own components
as well as those of its competitors.
Gerstner: “We were getting killed by these
single-point competitors”

39. Instead working together as a team, divisions competed
against each other and worked independantly.
 The entire company was dangerously preoccupied with
itself rather than with customers affected performance
Gerstner: “Managment presided rather
than acted"

40. He flush out a calcified IBM culture
composed of fiefdoms that were out of touch with
each other and with their customers‟ needs.
For him it was fundamental to talk to customers
and actually sell products rather than simply
develop them.

41. Under his guidance, IBM cut billions in
expenses (partly through massive layoffs)
and raised cash by selling assets.
Gerstner: “ Few people even understood
how perilously close the firm was to
running out of cash”.

42. He spent about 40% of his time during his
first 2 years meeting IBM employees
face-to-face, directly and bluntly filling
them with a sense of urgency.

43. All of the three Business leaders discussed are
intensely aware of the forces wich are relevant
to their behavior at any given time.
They truthfully understand the individuals and
groups they are dealing with.

44. Thank you for your attention