Chapter 12 The Positive Discretion of Leadership: Providing Structures for Organizational Transformation and Success

Abstract

After a decade of continuous success within IQ, a $79.9 billion technology company, Duncan Covington faced one of his greatest career challenges. He was tasked with turning around a procurement organization that was underperforming, had a vacancy rate of 45%, and a tarnished internal reputation. Just five years earlier this same organization had been considered an outstanding contributor to the company and had received numerous awards and accolades. He used leadership discretion to redesign the organization and created six new structures to motivate and lead his staff to success: (1) value creation; (2) improving workgroup productivity; (3) succession planning; (4) long-term value for employees; (5) fee-for-service; and (6) contributing to innovation. By using these structures Covington was able to transform and restore the organization to a high performing and a contributing division within the company.

Citation

Billington, C. and Barnett Berg, M. (2007), "Chapter 12 The Positive Discretion of Leadership: Providing Structures for Organizational Transformation and Success", Hooijberg, R., (Jerry) Hunt, J.G., Antonakis, J., Boal, K.B. and Lane, N. (Ed.) Being There Even When You Are Not (Monographs in Leadership and Management, Vol. 4), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 217-227. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1479-3571(07)04011-4