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Fred Smith Fedex

While at college Fred Smith, founder of FedEx (formerly Federal Express), developed a business case which would contain the seeds of the idea that would germinate into what is today the world’s largest express transportation company with “more than 145,000 employees worldwide, delivering more than 3.2 million packages daily, in command of a fleet of 634 aircraft and more than 42,500 vehicles, with 1998 revenues of $14 billion” (Crofoot, 1999, 1). Through innovation and people-first principles, Fred Smith has become a leader respected world-wide for his ability to innovate, please people (customers and employees) and profit at the same time. This case study will provide a description of Fred Smith as well as key points regarding his leadership of FedEx. Also included will be a leadership analysis of Fred Smith, using a contingency model of leadership: the Path-Goal Theory. While leadership styles cannot be fully explained by behavioral models, this model does attempt to understand the relationship between style and situation. A summary will discuss the future scenario at FedEx under the leadership of Fred Smith.

FedEx began operation in April, 1973, the brainchild of a college student named Fred Smith. At the time, there were no overnight package express services in operation. Now 57, the taciturn ex-Marine can laugh about the grade “C” he was awarded by Yale University as a junior for the hub-and-spoke concept thesis that would revolutionize air freight shipping and make Smith a multi-millionaire. Born in Marks, Mississippi, in 1944, Frederick Wallace Smith was the son of a wealthy businessman who has experienced success in shipping of another kind of freight than the type that would make his son wealthy. Smith’s father had made his fortune through the Greyhound Bus line.

Smith’s Memphis, Tennessee-based delivery service was originally known as Federal Express (later FedEx). With a computer-directed net...

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Fred Smith Fedex. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:41, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1685528.html