Leading with Emotional Intelligence: Hands-On ... - always yours

34 LEADING WITH EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
paign that repositioned them from a maker of phone equipment to
an Internet company. She landed on Fortune’s cover in 1998 with
the caption, “The Most Powerful Woman in American Business.”
“Affable and strikingly confident, she is a natural leader. At Lucent,
she is said to have won the hearts as well as the minds of her staff,”
(Confidence and Leadership) said Louise Kehoe of the Financial
Times. 34 Fiorina always said leadership was gender-neutral.
She was selected out of 300 potential CEOs for her ability to:
• Conceptualize and communicate new strategies
• Deliver on quarterly fi nancial goals with operational savvy
• Bring urgency to the organization with powerful vision
• Drive a new net vision through the company with strong
management skills (Leadership, Change Catalyst, Influence,
and Communication)
She is very customer-focused and understands that what the
customer needs is not always what he or she asks for (Service Orientation).
She is up at 4 A.M. to feed her birds and work out. “It’s a
good thinking time,” she says. (Self-Management)
Fiorina’s father is a federal court judge and law professor. Her
mother was a painter and was the strongest person she knew.
Fiorina has a B.A. from Stanford and went to law school at UCLA,
before dropping out. As a child, Fiorina moved frequently. “I always
landed in a whole new place . . . You learn to be self-reliant. It didn’t
scare me anymore.” 35
Fiorina spends a lot of time boating with her husband of 17 years,
who is retired, and she has two stepdaughters and a 3-year-old
granddaughter.
Key Strengths/Competencies
• Developing others
• Empathy
• Confidence
• Change catalyst