Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
OGDEN — Leaders advocate for change within organizations, while those who are simply "managers" maintain the status quo, Carly Fiorina — former presidential candidate and the first woman to lead a top 20 company in the Fortune 500 — told students at Weber State University on Tuesday.
"Managers color inside the lines, and there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes that's necessary," Fiorina said, adding that managers have their place in the corporate structure but are not the kind of personality to institute or push for change. "Leaders change constraints and conditions, and leaders say, 'The way we've been doing things doesn't serve us anymore.'"
Fiorina began her position as HP's CEO in 1999 and remained in her position until she was persuaded to resign in 2005 after disagreements between her and the company's board of directors about corporate strategy.
Fiorina's presentation to students and staff members at the university's Lindquist Hall on Tuesday focused on resisting the current and standing up for your ideas.
"Criticism is the price of leadership, and you're never going to make everyone happy when you change the order of things. People will put you down, so courage is the first requirement," Fiorina said, listing two critical characteristics of being a successful leader as courage and the willingness to keep going when others disagree.
Under Fiorina's leadership, HP grew as the company merged with one of the biggest producers of personal computers at the time, Compaq, in 2001.
Fiorina distinguished a leader from a manager by a leader's ability to institute change when it best serves the corporate structure. She reiterated that when doing this, leaders are often met with pushback from those who are already acclimated to a company's preexisting corporate structure and want to resist change even when it would benefit the company.
"The one constant in things getting better is leadership — leadership is the essential catalyst to solve a problem that has festered," Fiorina said, adding that anyone can lead and that their ability to do so isn't predicated on the way they look, their title or their background.
Collaboration, Fiorina said, is also a tool that leaders should use when they are trying to effect change. She explained that "leveraging the potential of others" is essential to institute-lasting change in a corporate structure, and it's the best way to combat situations in which groupthink is protecting or creating policies that negatively affect the overall trajectory of a company.
"The most successful change comes when different people gather together with different points of view," Fiorina said.
Fiorina summarized the attributes that make a good leader as being willing to work with others and work relentlessly toward enacting substantial change — adding, once more, that leadership has nothing to do with the superficial characteristics of a person but everything to do with a person's drive and courage.
"Leadership is about the impact you have. Leadership is about changing the order of things for the better," Fiorina said.
Students said after the lecture they enjoyed hearing from the business leader.
"The advice she gave was really applicable to real life," said Brigham Smith, a business administration student. "Overall, the presentation was easily palpable and included great topics of discussion."
