Leader Candidate Leadership (Past Present) Struggled Due

¶ … leader candidate leadership (past present) struggled due ineffective management. How / improved / management practices? Please specific practical problems leader faced.

Nokia is certainly one of the best known companies in the world and its past success has made it possible for hundreds of millions of fans to direct their attention toward the company. The company's CEO up until recently (Microsoft purchased Nokia on September 2, 2013), Stephen Elop, is largely responsible for a series of successes that the Nokia saw from 2010 on. However, the fact that he considered that the firm had what it took to compete with companies like Samsung and Apple made it difficult for Nokia to keep its place on the smartphone market. Elop did not realize that the mobile phone industry started to experience rapid progress and that he needed to urge his subordinates to come up with complex strategies in order to prevent Nokia from becoming even more obsolete.

One of Elop's greatest mistakes was the fact that he did not want to take risks and thus focused on developing a connection with Microsoft instead of adopting Android as the operating system for the company's smartphones. Doing so meant that the company would continue to experience a serious decrease in profits as previous Nokia users started to focus on other products on account of the more effective devices that appeared on the market.

Elop's arrival at Nokia should have been accompanied by an act that involved risk, especially considering that Nokia's position on the market had gone down as a result of Android and Apple smartphones becoming more popular. This was not the time for Nokia to continue its previous strategies, but Elop failed to observe this and the fact that he was pressured to get the company out of the predicament it was then in further aggravated his ability to take action and prevent Nokia from becoming what it is today.

Question 2

Leaders need to have a strong connection with the subordinates and with the company as a whole in order for them to be able to effectively put their ideas into practice. In addition to having the same goals as the company, a leader needs to have a complex understanding of what success means, both on a personal level and on a general level, as these two become intertwined. Many individuals who become managers for large companies might feel that it would be wrong for them to express their thinking and make changes immediately after they get the position. This leads to serious problems as the company as a whole is less likely to progress consequent to new managers failing to properly get in control.