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Carly Fiorina

"The Carly Fiorina way" has it's foundations in the management lessons learnt during the initial formative years of her career. She paved her way to success in leadership through the four key managerial qualities of personality, loyalty, perseverance, and judgement, although sometimes questionable when at HP. Carly completed her MBA and M.S Business, held key positions, was influenced by key people (mostly her superiors and subordinates), and conquered adversities (from dealing with some troublesome peers) that culminated in her unique managerial thought process (1). A person becomes a leader through continuous learning and self development (4), which Carly did through most of her life.
In the beginning: Watch and Reflect
Her early career had a deep impact on her management styles and her way of thinking in the years to come. As a "powerless receptionist" for DJ's Hair Design, she became fascinated with the client's demeaning treatment of "those they perceive as powerless" (including her). As a result, one of her priorities included respecting her subordinates and assuring their integration within the company. This remained so even as CEO of HP. To illustrate, during the merger with Compaq, she practiced cultural due diligence, by acclimatizing Compaq employees into HP.  
Her bottom of the totem pole work as a temporary secretary through Kelly Girls Temp agency reinforced her values for producing quality work; however, she had no sense of what the work was for. This inspired her management practice of keeping her subordinates fully informed about their role and the importance of the job, keeping them motivated to churn out quality work for the company. Consider for instance, when she hired interns at AT&T to work on the billing errors, she made a point to detail them on the importance of the work and their role in it.
It was at Marcus & Millichap where she first began to develop a sense for business and began to learn how to "navigate the business world" (1)....