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Robert Morris University
Rafael Esparza
MGT545 – Leadership Practice & Theory Carlos Slim Helu
Professor Wayne Gru

Content
Background
Followers and Situation
Contextual and Operational Leadership
Motivational approach
Theories and models
Social Responsibility and Ethics
Lessons learned

Carlos Slim Helu
Background
Carlos Slim comes from a very modest background and he is a caring man who is helping others not as fortunate as himself by way of empowering them with a skills set and employment. Julian Slim, a Lebanese immigrant and Carlos’ father, began acquiring real estate in Mexico City during the revolution of 1910. As a result, at the young age of 12 Carlos began to exhibit a great interest in numbers and even began buying shares of Banco de Mexico. At the age of 13 his father passed away and Carlos, along with his family, found themselves struggling. Knowing he needed to do something he decided to enroll at the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM) and study civil engineering. After graduation he delved into teaching mathematics and linear programming for a few years. Later he incorporated his first business, a stock brokerage firm called Inversora Burastil. That same year he married Soumaya Domit; in future business ventures he combined the first letters of their names and created his holding company Grupo Carso (Academy of Achievement). Carlos has six children (three sons and three daughters) Carlos Jr., Marco Antonio, Patrick, Soumaya, Vanessa and Johanna. He employs various family members including son-in-laws and confidants. Each of his sons sits at the helm of a different company, which in their own right has added to the wealth of the family business. One unique aspect of the Slims’ is their ability to put everything aside and have Monday night dinner at the Casa de Slim. Everybody attends and participates in the conversations, which usually include a business lesson learned by Carlos from his father. Carlos’ empire includes insurance and telephone companies, the largest wireless company in Latin America, the New York Times, CompUSA, Sanborn’s, and IDEAL( Impulsora del Desarrollo y el Empleo en America Latina); loosely translated it means “Promoter of Development and Employment in Latin America. A Mexico-based company that concentrates on infrastructure development, IDEAL is active in transportation, crude oil and gas, power, water, real estate and technology. Additionally, his family's holdings represent more than 5% of Mexico's 2006 gross domestic product, and Slim-controlled companies make up one-third of the $422 billion Mexican Bolsa, or stock exchange. (Carlos Slim)
Followers and Situation Rudy Giuliani and his consulting firm were contracted by Carlos Slim in 2002 to help develop a plan that would help clean up the historic centre of Mexico City. The plan was very similar to the way Giuliani’s approach that helped clean up New York City when he was still mayor. When Slim met Giuliani in a visit to New York City immediately after the destruction of the World Trade Center, he found just the person – armed with just the program and global legitimacy -- to jump-start this initiative and give it credibility within Mexico. Slim and Giuliani remain friends today. Larry King and Carlos Slim have been friends for years, and Ora.TV stems from conversations the two of them had long ago. Ora.TV is a new on-demand digital television network. Ora.TV The first show that will debut is a Larry King hosted talk show and offers a full slate of talk, comedy entertainment and other unscripted shows. Slim’s Mexico-based telecom firm America Movil is backing Ora.TV. King attended the opening of Carlos Slim’s museum, the Museo Soumaya, in Mexico City in 2011. (FORBES) Bill Clinton recently convinced Slim to donate at least $100 million to his foundation's efforts to reduce poverty in Latin America. "Carlos Slim is one of the world’s most important philanthropists and most people have never heard about his humanitarian activities. He owns stock in more than 200 companies that employ more than 200,000 people in Latin America and beyond. He has used his resources to help develop the communities where his businesses are located.”(Clinton Foundation)
Bill Gates has been the perennial worlds richest man but for the past three years he is second to Carlos Slim. They have met on many occasions at world functions and have parlayed their meetings into a personal relationship. In 2010 Carlos Slim, Bill & Melinda Gates, and the government of Spain each gave $50 million to fund and establish the Salud Meso America 2015. The focus of this group is to reduce health inequities that affect the Central America’s poorest 20% of the population. In an awards ceremony with both Slim and Gates present Slim joked that Gates had once told him “ I will dedicate 100% percent of my time to my foundation and 50% of my time to Microsoft.” Slim slyly remarked “Bill Gates is working time and a half with his two largest organizations.” Also in 2010 Slim partnered up with MIT & Harvard’s Broad Institute to begin collaboration on a study that would focus on the genomic roots of cancer and type-2 diabetes in Mexican and Latin American populations. His foundation has already made payments of $65 million and progress has been made. The researchers have already discovered genes linked to breast cancer, head and neck cancer and diabetes. (Forbes) These people and organizations have partnered up with the worlds richest man not just because of his wealth but also because of his vision. He envisions a world where young people are taught the basics of business and the essentials of life. Hard work, education, good health, and sound mind.

Contextual and Operational Leadership
Contextual
When you look at Carlos Slim he was not the recipient of an inheritance nor did he win the lottery. His vast business empire was achieved by solid business sense and his practical leadership style. In fact Carlos is able to create an organizational structure with simple, minimal hierarchies; provide personal development and in-house training for executives; maintain flexibility and a rapid decision-making capability; leverage the advantages of a small company and use these to grow and excel. (Carlos Slim) The one constant being strong leadership in all his businesses with internal training and development programs for his most trusted and valued personnel. Carlos believes in executive coaching and his businesses thrive from this action. Executive Coaching helps executives deal with their strengths, weaknesses, behavioral issues and effectively cross the hurdles that come in their way. Carlos Slim understands the importance of developing key executives.
Slim believes investing in service industries is the key to turning around the economy, he says that they are the key to reversing the high unemployment rates in his country as well as ours. “Invest in small and medium sized businesses, the engines of job creation, in labor intensive industries, such as tourism, health care, education, and entertainment.” (Forbes)

Operational Leadership A great business opportunity came in 1990 when the government of Mexico started selling its state owned businesses. Through his Grupo Carso Carlos purchased Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex). He had a great idea for the cellular division Telmex in which he could build the customer base for the cell phone service in Mexico’s struggling economy. His idea was to sell cell phones with prepaid service for one month and instead of sending out monthly bills he let customers purchase prepaid phone cards and use the minutes as needed. Executives at Telmex balked at his idea insisting that they should instead implement a huge marketing campaign aimed at the more traditional landline service. As it turned out Carlos’ program was a huge hit with the Mexican public and Telmex’s customer base grew 66% every year for the next 15 years. As it turns out Telmex sells about 250 million phone cards a year in Mexico, which has a population of approximately 115 million people. Fast-forward to today and his investments have grown into $150 billion dollar business-empire turning Carlos into the world’s richest man.
Motivational Approach
Carlos is a wise and compassionate man who knows how to elicit motivation from his employees, whether at the executive level or the warehouse employee level. His approach is really quite simple, as are most of his organizations and his life; he speaks clearly with emotion and implores you to entertain your sense of responsibility. His most important approach is to be a risk taker, his businesses have grown exponentially through shrewd and calculated risks that he has taken throughout his career, often times against the advice of his own trusted personnel. Carlos does not allow negative feelings or emotions to control his mind, he believes that emotional harm is conceived and developed from within our minds and not from others around us. I would categorize his approach as somewhat philosophical as he operates his empire with several core principles, among them are the following, (Carlos Slim) * There is no challenge that we cannot overcome by working together with clear objectives and knowing the tools we have at our disposal * Firm and patient optimism always yields its rewards. * All times are good times for those who know how to work and have the tools to do so.
Theories/ Models
As a graduate of the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM) he studied civil engineering, which in my opinion gave him the vision and acumen to design his vast empire, as an engineer he utilized his civil engineering degree by managing his people and many projects. His teaching of linear programming (which if you’ve ever studied can be quite confusing) allowed him the insight to running his businesses in the best direction. Linear programming is the process of taking various linear inequalities relating to some situation, and finding the best value under those conditions. (Linear Programming) this is exactly what Slim has done when running his businesses. I will also state that his experience as a professor, teaching young minds has had a valuable effect on the way he runs his companies. When you are a teacher you gain valuable insight into the minds of those you teach he has turned his teachings into a successful blueprint into how to run a business. Slim is capable of verbalizing his vision in such a manner that his subordinates can envision it as well. With the leader and the followers on the same page the situation is almost conquered de to the overwhelming support that it is carrying.
Social Responsibilities/ Ethics
As a philanthropist Slim does not believe in giving his fortune to fight poverty. He believes and vehemently states that “in the last fifty years trillions of dollars have been given to charity and they don’t solve anything. To give 50 percent, 40 percent, that does nothing; there is a saying that we should leave a better country to our children. But it’s more important to leave better children to our country.” (Carlos Slim) He has invested heavily in refurbishing Mexico City's Centro Histórico, or downtown. That said he tends to embrace economic development rather than donations as a way of eradicating poverty. "I think the best way to help people is not to give them money but to give them a job, we support education, health, and employment - that's what people need for a better life." (Forbes) Slim caught a lot of flak from the Mexican press and U.S. commentators earlier last year when he was quoted as saying that he had no intention of "going around like Santa Claus" distributing his wealth.
His companies employ more than 200,000 people in North, Central, and South America, and Europe. In Mexico he is helping to build and develop communities near his businesses and has made it possible for 165,000 students to attend university, he has paid for nearly 20,000 surgeries, he has donated 15,000 bicycles to impoverished students who had to walk up to two hours to get to schools, he has donated nearly 100 different specialized medical equipment to hospitals, and nearly 2 million pounds of nutritional candy to rural areas in Mexico. Slim has been a big backer of Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child initiative, and has already donated $4 billion to help promote education and health and he has another $6 billion earmarked for several other programs tied to his Telmex Foundation. Social responsibility is a fundamental part of Carlos Slim Helú business strategy and culture, which is focused on maximizing the positive impact of his companies to benefit the communities where they operate, and contributing to the fight against poverty with nutrition, education and employment through aid programs from various foundations and institutes. (Bill Clinton)
Analysis
Whether you agree or not with Carlos Slim’s philanthropic approach, you have to agree with him on some level. History has shown us that giving away huge sums of money to fight certain causes accomplishes very little and sometimes nothing at all. Case in point the endowments of universities. Yes wealthy business men leave Harvard or Notre Dame $20 million dollars and the only people who get use of that money are faculty, staff, and students, with the addition of a new lab or library. Wouldn’t it be better to offer some of those dollars to students who want to attend those universities instead of the select few who already attend these schools? Chances are high that if the students who are attending these schools have the means to attend their needs are lower than of those who want to attend but can’t. The billions of dollars that Gates, Buffet, Allen, and the other billionaires who have promise half of their fortunes to fight poverty will help many but the poverty will still exist when that cash is depleted. I happen to agree with Slim’s statement that “There is a saying that we should leave a better country to our children. But it’s more important to leave better children to our country.” (Carlos Slim)
Lessons learned In the words of Carlos Slim success is not about doing things well or even very well and being recognized by others. It is not an outside opinion. It’s an internal state. It is the harmony between the soul and your emotions, which requires love, family, friendship, authenticity, integrity. (Carlos Slim)There is no doubt in my mind that if there were more business people with Carlos’ vision the current economy would be in a slightly better place today. The world needs more people who know how to work as opposed to people with more money. His leadership style can be defined as transformational because his ideas are revolutionary, proactive, and he emerges in times of crisis. His transformational leadership skills are second to none. He is a teacher, a good listener, and a model of integrity who emphasizes on empowering the individual.
Sources Cited: Carlos Slim Biography -- Academy of Achievement. Academy of Achievement Main Menu. Web. 15 Oct. 2010.

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