THE EDUCATION OF A CEO: AN ARTICLE REVIEW

"The Education of a CEO" (Mehler 18-22) reviews the activities of a new chief executive officer (CEO) at iXL Enterprises, a new-economy firm that was in danger of crashing along with others such firms in the dot.com bust. Among other steps implanted by the new CEO were (1) a matrix organizational structure for the firm, (2) a reallocation of organizational resources to improve the capacity of the firm to respond to customer demands, and (3) the application of project management processes in the development of customer solutions. This article review focuses on the following points:

The implementation of the matrix organizational structure at the firm

The reallocation of organizational resources at the firm

Qualities affecting leadership effectiveness and the relationship of these qualities to effective project management

Organizational influences on leadership effectiveness

The applicability of the project management professional code of ethics to organizational leadership

Implementation of the Matrix Organizational Structure

When Chris Formant, the new CEO, joined iXL Enterprises, he found an organizational structure in place that provided no coordination between the service lines offered by the firm and the industry groups targeted by the firm. He determined that the solution to this problem was the implementation of a matrix organizational structure (Mehler 21).

Most organizational structures are product/pr

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tomer solutions (Mehler 19). Reallocation of Organizational Resources Another problem present in the firm when the new CEO arrived on the scene was that the firm's business model was "office-centric" (Mehler 20). The firm had several offices at geographically separated locations. When an office received a customer request for proposal (RFP), the office responded based only on the organizational resources available at the office receiving the RFP. The new CEO implemented a system wherein the response to a customer's RFP considered all of the firm's resources. Under this system, when an RFP evolves into a contract, the firm reallocates organizational resources among the firm's offices to support the project fully (Mehler 20). Qualities Affecting Leadership Effectiveness and the Relationship of Such Qualities to Effective Project Management Leadership is the ability of one person to influence a group of persons toward the achievement of common goals. When comparing leadership styles, the focus typically is on the leader's effectiveness. Effectiveness, in turn, typically is the extent to which the leader's group or organization performs its tasks successfully or attains its goals. One way to describe leadership behavior is
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1230
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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