He was resistant to new technology and famously refused to use e-mail to communicate with his employees. Ebbers, who was regularly seen in cowboy boots and a 10-gallon hat, led his close-knit staff in a “shoot from the hip” style. However, many of WorldCom’s executives had worked with Ebbers since his start as CEO 2 decades before. Growing to over 80,000 employees through multiple acquisitions of other telecom businesses, WorldCom became the overwhelming industry leader. WorldCom’s roots stem from a Mississippi telecom company called LDDS where Ebbers was CEO. Ebbers was a difficult man to work for.” Under Ebbers, WorldCom’s $9 billion accounting fraud grew in order to avoid facing its worsening economic reality. A 2002 Economist article describes Ebbers as “parochial, stubborn, preoccupied with penny-pinching.…Mr. Notorious for his temper, employees were reluctant to present Ebbers with company information that he didn’t like. As CEO, Ebbers avoided internal company conflict at all costs, and he ultimately avoided the reality that WorldCom, once the dominant company in the telecommunications industry, was in serious economic trouble. You could argue that Bernard Ebbers, of the now defunct WorldCom, was one of the biggest conflict avoiders in corporate history.
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