Bernard Ebber Case Study Summary

1. Bernard Ebbers was a transactional leader who managed to influence and garners the support of the employees, the executive members and stimulate high employee performance. Influencing stakeholders to support his initiatives to acquire and merge 70 companies, (Trevino, L. and Brown, M. (2005)), is a great indication of his influence. Unlike transformational leaders who adopt the theory of values, Ebbers was rather a transactional leader, he focused on his personal image creation. He influenced his followers into defiant behaviors: - loaning top executives without putting these loans into writing. This is a sign of favoritism and normally brings resentment among workers especially those at lower level. Another defiant behavior is shunting other executive members who joined the company through mergers and acquisitions. He also influenced the fabrication of profitable numbers and incorrect classification of money.
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As a leader of WorldCom, Ebber had the mandate to ensure that all the stakeholders uphold the values and ethics of the company. However it can be noted that he approved the loans of the executive members without putting it in black and white. For transparency, accountability and for future reference sake, there is need to document all the company’s transactions. Fabricating profitable numbers as a way of exaggerating stock prices is a fraudulent and defiant behavior. As a leader, he was supposed to encourage his subordinates to record and make presentations of the actual figures of performance. This could have assisted the company to take note of all the performance gaps and rectify where