Page 279 - Introduction to Business

CHAPTER 7 Motivating and Leading Employees 253

nication costs keep coming down, making telecommuting even more attractive.
Telepresence could effectively replace physical presence in a number of situations.
In addition to lowering real estate and commuting costs, employers implementing
successful telecommuting programs witness improved employee satisfaction, and
productivity. In addition, employers advocating telecommuting programs will be
able to attract new pools of labor, like senior citizens and disabled workers.
With telecommuting becoming more attractive to employees and employers
alike, it is likely that we will see more workers telecommuting. Telecommuting
employees can accomplish all their work at home with the help of high-speed data
lines, phone lines, faxes, PCs, cell phones, and wireless technologies. Sony,
www.sony.com, is in the forefront of important telecommuting technologies, and it
has redoubled its R&D spending on these technologies since September 11, 2001.
In telecommuting, location becomes less important as employees everywhere con-
duct business with customers anywhere. However, managers face challenges in
monitoring employees’ productivity, work activity, hours spent working, and so
on. Unless an employer embraces clear, fair alternative-work policies, setting
telecommuting guidelines can be challenging. Also, the employee will need to have
a clear understanding of the organization’s goals, to show how telecommuting can
serve and enhance corporate goals.
Even if the employee has the work ethic to be a successful telecommuter, she or
he will still need to muster the courage to submit a proposal. A good place for the
employee to start to draft a proposal is the website run by the International Tele-
work Association and Council, www.workingfromanywhere.org, a research and
advocacy group.

reality What is your perception of work-life programs? Do people abuse the
CH ECK freedom they offer?

What Is Leadership?

LEARNING OBJECTIVE 9
Discuss what leadership is, and summarize the major leadership theories.

Corporate success or failure can be traced to the firm’s leadership. Since 1998, the
Financial Times and PricewaterhouseCoopers (henceforth referred to FT/PwC
respectively) have annually published the “World’s Most Respected Companies
Report.” In its 2003 report, FT/PwC identified the world’s top three most-respected
companies to be General Electric, Microsoft, and Toyota. And, the world’s top three
12
most-respected business leaders were Bill Gates of Microsoft,Warren Buffett of Berk-
shire Hathaway, and Jack Welch (retired) of General Electric. Hiroshi Okuda of Toy-
ota was ranked fifth. Is there a correlation between the world’s most-respected com-
panies and their leaders? Is this a case of “Behind every great company there is a
great leader”? The FT/PwC report also ranks Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard Com-
pac (HPC) as the ninth most-respected business leader in the world. Fiorina was the
only woman to have made it in FT/PwC’s top 50 most-respected business leaders in
world. It appears that more women (Susan Kropf of Avon Products, Colleen Barrett
of Southwest Airlines, Meg Whitman of eBay, Charlene Begley of GE, and Sallie
Krawcheck of Smith Barney) and minority leaders (Fred Hassan of Schering-Plough,
Andrea Jung of Avon, Dick Parsons ofTimeWarner, and Stan O’Neill of Merrill Lynch)
are likely to make it to this prestigious ranking.
The spate of financial scandals that ravaged corporate America since 2000 have
intensified public distrust in capitalism and big corporations in general, and

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