Assessment 3: Group Mini Case Study (Written)

Executive Profile
Carol B. Tomé, age 60, has worked as Chief Financial Officer since May 2001 and
Executive Vice President of Corporate Services at The Home Depot since January 2007
(Carol B. Tomé: Executive profile & biographyn.d.). She provides leadership in the
areas of real estate, store construction, financial services, strategic business
development and growth initiatives. Her corporate finance duties include financial
reporting and operations, financial planning and analysis, internal audit, investor
relations, treasury and tax (The Home Depot n.d.). Prior to joining The Home Depot,
she worked as Vice President and Treasurer of Riverwood International Corporation.
Besides, she is also a member of the UPS board and board chair of the Federal Reserve
Bank of Atlanta. For academic qualification, she has a Bachelor’s Degree in
Communication from the University of Wyoming and a Master of Business
Administration in Finance from the University of Denver.

Questions
1. What evidence do you find in this story to suggest that Carol Tomé has good
political skills?
Cohen (2017) listed the characteristics of a good political leader are such as: he/she is
an honest and loyal person, have good communication and interpersonal skills, can
withstand different types of temptations, a charismatic person, a good listener, dare to
speak out, and able to make decisions during tough situation.

From the article, Carol is well-known for being friendly with everyone within and
outside Home Depot. She is passionate and always puts others before herself. As said
by her colleagues, she is a down-on-the-ground person who is willing to learn from
the basics. Besides, she has good communication skills and always interacting with
the store associates, and customers.

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2. What does having worked for four different CEOs without being replaced
suggest about the effectiveness of Tomé’s political skills?
Carol is the only senior executive to work for all four of Home Depot CEOs in her 17
years of working with the company. She was a task oriented rather than people
oriented leader earlier in her career. She learned her mistake from an incident which
made her lost her employee within 24 hours. She reflected herself, and since then she
practices servant leadership, which is a philosophy and set of practices that improves
a person's life, builds a better organization and eventually creates a more loving world
(What is servant leadership.), and always puts others first.

Each of the four CEO has different characteristic and management styles，
1) Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank instilled the same values-based culture, for
instance giving back, taking care of each other, respect, creating value and
customer service. According to Blank, "What Tome achieve would be up to her,
we will give every opportunity for Tome to reach highest potentials".
2) Robert Nardelli (the third CEO) turned the pyramid around so that leadership was
at the top and associates at the bottom. That made the associates responsible for
the actions taken. The Home Depot has faced eight quarters of declining profits.
During Nardelli's six-year reign, Tome was promoted from treasurer to CFO, and
her responsibilities expanded to include store operations and customer services.
3) Frank Blake (the 4th CEO) flipped the pyramid back around, so that he was at the
bottom and associates were at the top. He continues to focus on its international
expansion, and recognize top-performers. Carol adapted his Laissez Faire
leadership style and she was named one of his potential successors.

Because of her down-on-the-ground attitude, through years of perseverance in

management changes, and experiences she gained from four CEOs with different
leadership styles, it had helped in branding her personal leadership style.

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We also think that Carol practices Democratic/Participative leadership where she

invites her team to play an important role in decision-making process, though the
ultimate decision-making power rests with the top management. She guides her
employees on what to perform and how to perform. She also creates open
communication with them to share their thoughts and problems where she listens and
accepts good ideas if there is any.

3. Which types of power does Tomé appear to possess?

French and Raven (cited in Mind Tools Editorial Team n.d.) introduced five types of
power which are: legitimate, reward, expert, referent and coercive, and they added
informational power six years later.

We think that Carol uses Referent power, which is also the power of respect. She
takes good care of her team where for more than eleven years, she never lost anyone
on her team that she did not want to lose. She would never want to repeat the mistake
of losing an employee after she conducted a performance review with her over the
phone. Besides, she has a good relationship with her four CEOs.

We also think that Carol uses Expert power. Referring to her profile above, she has
had rich experience, multi-disciplines in her field and she can definitely be recognized
as one of the qualified leader.

Critical Analysis
In accordance with the article, people-oriented is indeed more favourable than
task-oriented leadership style. Pirraglia (n.d.) stated that a leader who practices
people-oriented leadership usually motivates his/her followers. They feel their work is
worthwhile and so they would like to continue working together with their leader.
Thus, job satisfaction levels normally increase. Even so, Larman (cited in Mobbs

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2016) argued that a people-oriented leader is described as a weak leader, and

frequently spend a lot of time into building good work relationships. Gill (2016)
agreed that developing positive relationships is time-consuming, and there might be
people who take advantage of personal relationships, as well as low-productivity
employees could happen if focus too much on personal relationships.

Recommendations
It is never easy for her as a woman leader to get accepted by the male subordinates.
She has to be emotional intelligent, coaching and mentoring instincts, encourage
collaborations and participations and also understand the motivations factors of the
subordinates and manage appropriately their diverse background.

She needs to inspire her subordinates, of course she needs to be a little strict, and else
no one would actually listen to her. However she has to always keep herself in others
shoes before reacting.

Encourage open communication among her team members. She needs to know what
her team members are up to. To win her trust on her team members, sit with them
once in every week and enquire whether they are happy with their current roles or not.

Must maintain the quality of the best of her team members. Set an example for her
subordinates, leading from the front, make them work as a single unit and assure them
that she will always be with them even at the critical time.

Planning intelligently in a long way in overcoming future challenges.

Listen to everyone opinions and come to mutually beneficent solutions. She needs to
win her trust from her subordinates. Do not showing bossy attitude. She also needs to
make them realized that her job is not to rule over them but to work as a team.
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Conclusion
To sum up, leaders in the 21st century have a vital function for example they have to
be a role model for the coming generation. The new generations need to have the
current leader of the business world as role model and hence a holistic approach that
does not put profit people all the time. But the transformative power of business to
solve social problem with the leaders taking the lead, attract and attribute that are
needed from the leaders of 21st century.

In conclusion, the ones who are most likely to succeed are the ones with a "firm grip
on the present, a solid understanding of the past, and a vision for the future" which
means that they are able to look behind, look ahead, and not to fall off the present to
ensure that they indeed, "thrive in chaos".

References
Amy, T. 2008, Passion helps Home Depot CFO weather tough times, Kellogg, viewed
10 August 2017,
<http://ww.envisionkellogg.com/news_articles/2008/caroltome.aspx>

Carol B. Tomé: Executive profile & biography n.d., Bloomberg, viewed 10 August
2017,
<http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=840949&p
rivcapId=278679&previousCapId=874125&previousTitle=CSM>.

Cohen, HY 2017, A Political Leader, Leadership Expert, viewed 14 August

2017,<http://www.leadershipexpert.co.uk/political-leader.html>.

Gill, E 2016, What is relationship-oriented leadership? How supporting people

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promotes teamwork, St. Thomas University, viewed 11 August 2017,

<http://online.stu.edu/relations-oriented-leadership/>.

Kelly S. 2015, How Home Depot overcame adifficult culturalshift: A Q&A with CFO
Carol Tome, Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, viewed 10 August 2017,
<https://www.greenleaf.org/how-home-depot-overcame-a-difficult-cultural-shift-a-qa-
with-cfo-carol-tome/>

Mind Tools Editorial Team n.d., French and Raven's five forms of power, Mind Tools,
viewed 14 August 2017,
<https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_56.htm>.

Mobbs, C 2016, Task-oriented vs people-oriented leadership styles, Innovation for

Growth, viewed 11 August 2017,
<http://www.innovationforgrowth.co.uk/Blog/task-oriented-vs-people-oriented-leader
ship-styles/>.

Pirraglia, W n.d., Advantages & disadvantages of people-oriented leadership styles,

Chron, viewed 10 August 2017,
<http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-disadvantages-peopleoriented-leadership
-styles-10299.html>.

The Home Depot n.d., The Home Depot leadership, The Home Depot, viewed 10
August 2017,
<https://corporate.homedepot.com/leadership/carol-b-tom%C3%A9-chief-financial-of
ficer-executive-vice-president-%E2%80%93-corporate-services>.

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