HP's Process of Corporate Becoming -- Why Strategic Leadership Matters

Abstract

This paper shows how the study of the integral process of HP's becoming and the differential contributions of successive CEOs to that process can be combined to create an evolutionary framework of the role of strategic leadership in corporate becoming. This conceptual framework reflects the paradox of corporate becoming and the conditions that govern it, highlights the existential situation facing successive CEOs chartered with sustaining the process, and indicates that strategic leadership of long-lived companies involves an imperfect across-CEO tenures learning process. It offers strategic leadership advice for founders of new companies as well as for CEOs and boards of directors of existing companies who intend to create, run or oversee long-lived companies.