Ask for help
Anne Mulcahy, Chairman and CEO, Xerox
Back in 2000, becoming CEO of Xerox (Charts) was the furthest thing from Anne Mulcahy's mind. One day, as she was preparing for a business trip to Japan, chairman Paul Allaire came to her office and told her he planned to recommend that the Xerox board terminate its current CEO and promote her to COO and eventually CEO. She was so shocked that she asked for the evening to discuss it with her family. The next day she accepted the job.
Mulcahy had always been a consensus leader, and stepping into this top job at a company on the verge of bankruptcy forced her to really reach out for help. With no background in finance, she asked executives in the treasurer's office to tutor her. Though she had never met Warren Buffett, she flew to Omaha and sought his advice over a steak dinner. She also decided to get into customers' offices and ride with field salespeople. "I will go anywhere, anytime, to save a Xerox customer," she told her sales force. Her customer engagement contrasted sharply with that of her predecessor, who had rarely been seen outside the headquarters building.
Asking for help made Mulcahy feel less alone at the top, particularly in her most difficult moments. "One day I came back to the office from Japan and found it had been a dismal day," she recalls. "Around 8:30, on my way home, I pulled over to the side of the Merritt Parkway and said to myself, 'I don't know where to go. I don't want to go home. There's just no place to go.' " She picked up her voicemail and listened to a message from then-chief strategist Jim Firestone. "This may seem like the worst day, but we believe in you. This company will have a great future," Firestone told her in the voicemail. That was all she needed to drive home and get up the next day.
Aligning with her team also helped Mulcahy stave off bankruptcy. She recalls telling Xerox's external advisors, who wanted to file to relieve $18 billion in debt, "You don't understand what it's like to be an employee in this company - to fight and win. Bankruptcy's never a win. I'm not going there until there's no other decision to be made." Mulcahy adds, "I was so angry because they could not comprehend the impact of bankruptcy on the company's employees. Our people believed we were in a war we could win."
Although some view consensus leaders as less powerful, the opposite is the case. Leaders like Mulcahy who have the ability to gain agreement around their point of view have great influence over others. When they ask for help, people are more than willing to respond.
And in the end Mulcahy did win, staving off bankruptcy by cutting billions in operating expenses without touching R&D or field sales.
Be who you are
John Donahoe, President, Ebay Marketplaces
In the fall of 1983, when he was an energetic 23-year-old, John Donahoe was enjoying a relaxing dinner with his fiancée, Eileen, in Boston. Just a year out of college, Donahoe had already earned an excellent reputation as a consulting analyst at Bain. His eyes lit up as he talked about his career prospects.
Yet as dinner wore on, Eileen became worried about the toll John's career could take on his life. She expressed concern about how the long hours, constant travel, and stress might limit his ability to have close relationships. Then she asked him pointedly, "Is that really what you want in life?" John answered adamantly, "No!" He reached into his wallet to find a piece of paper and wrote on the back of a Shawmut Bank receipt, "I will not live the life of a management consultant." He signed his name.
He recalls, "Her challenge to me was, 'Be who you are.' " To Donahoe that meant acting the same whether he was in a personal or professional setting. "The world can shape you, if you let it," Donahoe notes. One of his first tests came during his first year at business school. On the eve of finals, Eileen went into labor with their first child. When Donahoe asked himself what was more important, the birth of his child or his grades, the answer became obvious. As finals approached, he spent more and more time with Eileen. To his surprise, he earned the highest grades possible that quarter - because he was relaxed. "I remember watching the inefficiency that kicked in when people stressed out," he says.
A few years later Donahoe faced another difficult set of choices. After graduating from law school, Eileen received an offer to clerk for a federal judge, but her schedule required John to reduce his travel and take their two kids to school every day. Donahoe went to Tom Tierney, managing director of Bain's San Francisco office, and told him that he had no choice except to quit. Tierney just laughed and said, "John, we can find a way to work around this." He reassigned Donahoe to a local client who, to Donahoe's amazement, was happy to work around his limited schedule. "That was my best year of client work. Our client understood, and I became more relaxed."
Continuing his unusual path to the top, Donahoe one year later became head of Bain's San Francisco office. After six years in that role, he took a three-month sabbatical to spend time with his family. Upon his return, feeling recharged, he got promoted to the No. 1 position at Bain. Donahoe moved to eBay (Charts) in 2005; he now heads eBay's flagship business and is in a prime position to succeed CEO Meg Whitman. Although more than 20 years have passed since their conversation that night in Boston, Eileen Donahoe has not forgotten the signed Shawmut Bank slip. "I still keep it inside my purse," she says.
Excerpted with permission of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons Inc., from True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership. Copyright © 2007 by Bill George. This book is available at all bookstores and from the Wiley Web site at http://www.wiley.com. You can visit the True North Web site at http://www.truenorthleaders.org.