Angela DeVarso Angela DeVarso TESC What Makes A Great CEO 1. What developmental activities did Kenneth F reeman use to strengthen the ski lls of Surya Mohapatra (his successor)? List the activiti es and the skills they were designed to improve. What other developmental activities could he have used? Identify t he developmental act ivities and the skills they would be targeted to improve. Kenneth Freeman used some unconve ntional activities to help attain his goal of sculpting Surya Mohapatra into the leader and CEO that he envisions to replace him. Freeman identified Mohapatra’s obviously lacking public speaking skills early on and determined that the best way to conquer this would be “trial by fire”. Over the course of a few months, Mohapatra was required to have meetings with shareholders and employees. These unplanned meetings and conference call helped Mohapatra develop into a more self-assured public speaker. Another skill that was encouraged by Freeman had the goal of allowing Mohapatra to make faster decisions and to al low some of his s ubordinates more authority. This was done by weekend phone conversations between the two that focused on mounting a successful management style. Another developmental activity that Freeman could have used is filling in for him at important meetings or when he was on vacation, and assigning Mohapatra as the entire lead at important meetings (Kraut, 2005). These activities would help improve management and leadership skills that were lacking to Mohapatra and were seen as essential to Freeman. 2. Could a coach help Mohapatra develop the ski lls needed to be an effective CEO? Explain Mohapatra was coached by Freeman in order to develop the skills that Freeman saw lacking in Mohapatra, however the use of a professional executive coach may have resulted in even betterresults then what were attained. A coach would have completed a series of steps that would may have resulted in the desir ed outcomes that the current CEO s ought. Some of the steps t hat would be included are: data gathering, evaluation from peers and coworkers, feedback, goal setting, action planning and implementation and evaluation and continued development (Chung, 2003) Freeman was an example of an “internal” coach, however there are “external” coaches available from outside companies. The coaching relationship can last for months or years, depending on how the progression of skills and goal attainment. Although a career coach may offer more than just the mentoring relationship that Freeman provided, there are some ot her issues to consider before hiring a coach. For example, here are no nationally recognized g uidelines for coaches, nor are there any standards for the training of coaches. Also there is no code of et hics that coaches are held answerable to. When sculpting someone for the top job, CEO, the lack of structured guidelines for career co aches may result in too much risk for the company and deter the use of them.
