There's certainly some "CEO-speak" in his comments, but still just in these brief comments, it surely sounds like he would be leaps and bounds better than Ginni.
https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2019/09/20/if-red-hats-jim-whitehurst-ever-became-ibms-ceo.html
By David Purtell – Digital Producer, Triangle Business Journal
Sep 20, 2019, 2:28pm EDT Updated Sep 20, 2019, 7:50pm EDT
The man at the top of one of the Raleigh-Durham area's largest tech companies shared his thoughts on how business leaders can open up their companies to creativity.
Speaking at the annual meeting of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst spent most of his time on stage talking about establishing a management tone and a company culture.
Just two months removed from the closing of IBM’s (NYSE: IBM) $34 billion dollar buyout of Red Hat, Whitehurst talked about leadership in the digital age, and began with the concept of how disruption is affecting the business environment.
“Are you planning for that in your strategy?” Whitehurst said, referencing a story from a recent board meeting of a large health care company. “I realized it’s not only a fair question; in many ways it is one of the most important fundamental questions that we all need to ask ourselves.”
Following the merger, Whitehurst joined the IBM senior management team reporting to Big Blue CEO Ginni Rometty. Many in the tech industry believe Whitehurst could be one of the candidates to be up for the CEO's job in the future.
Whitehurst said too many CEOs today are using leadership skills from the previous generation — skills and models that aren’t able to keep up in the modern business world.
What happens in a world where business plans are potentially out of date within weeks or months, Whitehurst asked. “I can't tell you how many CEOs I talk to who sit there and complain, 'My culture is just not innovative,'” Whitehurst said.
"... Culture is an output of your management system and your leadership style; the messages you are sending," Whitehurst said is his reply.
“If you want a different level of agility, you have to fundamentally change how you operate," he said.
It’s not necessarily about the amount of work needed to be done, he said, it’s about the creative ability allowed to handle the work.
Allow your employees to experiment, and don’t focus too heavily on predicating the future. “I have no idea what’s going to happen in six months,” he said.
Talking about how a company can capitalize on new innovation, Whitehurst said nobody is good at identifying what new innovation is going to make a large impact — it’s about being able to figure out a way to get on board when something new does begin to grow in the marketplace.
“I would argue that if you look at great companies, starting off with motivation is important,” he said about how executives should understand what drives their employees. “My job is to create the context for my people to do their best work,” he said.
Hire smart people and provide them with the right training, and they'll figure out the best way to do the job, he said
"That’s how you enable people to be successful: give them the right tools and give them the ability to try new things, and make sure that the consequences are set up appropriately for that to happen," Whitehurst said.