Assignment 3 Part I: Leadership Style:

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Assignment 3 Part I: Leadership Style: How Are Leaders Leading in the 21st Century? Arnechia Washington Professor Bess White BUS520 Leadership and Organizational Behavior September 7, 2014 DuPont’s chair of the board of directors and chief executive officer is a native of Wilmington, Delaware. Ellen Kullman has served this position since December 31, 2009. Ellen is the 19th executive to lead the company since it was founded in 1802 and has been named “one of the "50 Most Powerful Women in Business" by Fortune and one of the 50 "World’s Most Powerful Women" by Forbes” (Board of Directors, 2014, 1). Mrs. Kullman holds a Bachelor Science in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University and a Master of Science in Management from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She also received an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Edinburgh in 2013. In 1988, Ellen began her career at DuPont as marketing manager for the DuPont medical imaging business. Before gaining employment with DuPont she worked for Westinghouse and General Electric. Ellen Kullman’s leadership style and philosophy is based on four principles. She implemented these principles to guide DuPont through a financial crisis during October 2008. “The first principle: Focus on what you can control” (Leadership du jour, 2011, 9). Ellen was very aware that she had to change the organization’s focus from what was happening to the prompt work needed to save the company’s financial position as business suddenly decreased. She could see her employees panicking and scared about their jobs. “Last October, I saw a lot of people who looked scared and didn’t know what to do,” she said (DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman’s, 2009, 1). Therefore she determined that management had to do what could be done right now and that’s what they began to do. So, she directed DuPont’s management to “figure
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