The Abilities of a Great Leader
The Abilities of a Great Leader
MBA 550 Final Project Part II
Introduction
Effective leadership and resilient management are essential elements of any organization. Leadership is an act of leading a group of individuals or an organization. An organization needs to have effective leaders who can inspire, direct, and guide their employees towards the achievement of the company’s goal. An effective leader is an individual focusing on productivity in different layers, including motivation, teamwork, objectives, and communication (Drucker, 2019). Leadership skills for a good leader include strategic thinking, creativity, flexibility, empathy, active listening, communication skill, and persuasive ability. Management is the administration and coordination of tasks for the achievement of the desired goal. Administration activities in management include the setting of a company’s strategy and coordinating the efforts of employees to attain organizational objectives by applying the available resources. According to Indeed (2020), there are five functions of management that contemporary leaders are required to possess. The five functions include the setting of objectives, motivating team members, developing individuals, organizing, and planning in the company (Indeed, 2020). Modern leaders, therefore, need to have both leadership skills and management skills. An example of a leader who possesses these skills in the information technology (IT) industry is Bill Gates. Gates is a successful leader who has utilized different leadership skills and management abilities; thus, he is exemplifying an effective leader in modern times. The leadership and management of Bill Gates at Microsoft Incorporated, including his organizational team, organizational vision, organizational culture, and conflict, are explored in this final project part II paper.
- Teams
A team is a group of individuals with contemporary skills working together to accomplish a shared goal (“The Team and the Organization,” n.d). According to Snyder (2013), and the organizational team is a group of workers who are working on recurring tasks, and they have limited skills and abilities to work on specific duties. Thus, assessing how Gates structured Microsoft Inc., his leadership style, his executive team, and best practices that Gates used to structure his executive team is necessary.
A: How Bill Gates Structured Microsoft Incorporated
At Microsoft Inc., Gates used to manage different employees by allocating resources, controlling, directing, consulting, and communicating. Since Microsoft had many workers, he had to structure his corporation properly and utilize best practices for staffing and planning as a way of organizing his teams. To ensure that all teams participated in decision-making processes, Gates created a decentralized decision-making structure. This structure was developed to reduce delays, enhances product development, and facilitate feedback for innovation and creativity. Decentralized decision-making structured allowed Microsoft’s workers to work as a family to encourage team commitment to tasks and processes. He believes and fosters teamwork by consulting executive managers for ensuring the company is working effectively. In this regard, Gates adopted an effective communication structure to the company’s vision from the executive level to the departmental level. For instance, he had to hold regular executive meetings with top managers for briefing, proposal, reporting, and presentation. These regular meetings were to ensure that the executive is involved as well as all departments (“Leading in an Organization,” 2020). Thus, an effective communication structure helped in enhancing team-building and inter-departmental collaboration in the company.
B: Gates’ Leadership Styles at Microsoft Company
The leadership style that Bill Gates used to organize his team by function was transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is a leadership method in which leaders are encouraging, inspiring, and motivating employees to create and innovate change to help in growing and shaping the future success of the company (White, n.d). By using this leadership style, Gates was able to empower his teams to perform their tasks efficiently by focusing on a common vision.
Gates also utilized a mixture of authoritarian and democratic leadership styles. He was adopting these leadership styles depending on the situation. For example, he would use these methodologies to define the recruitment process and to establish loyalty among workers. Further, Gates employed nix of transactional style and transformation style of leadership to create a workforce, which ability to integrate his vision and Microsoft’s vision to improve organizational performance. Lastly, this leader also included the Star Model in his leadership approach. The Star Model helps companies to develop sustainable business models and proposition values. The leader used this model to create a functional team, which performs specific tasks as specified in the division’s model for the allocation of processes and tasks to different organizational teams.
C: Gates’ Executive Teams
Gates’ executive team is comprised of competent, motivated, and talented individuals. Gates believed that these individuals had the skills to meet his performance expectations. He also assessed their skills to critically examine their capacity and willingness to perform given tasks. Through an examination of personal abilities, he offered individualized support to members of his executive team and allocated equal resources to them. Transformational leadership allowed Gates to assigned obligations to the executive team and give them the authority to accomplish delegated tasks. White (n.d) stipulates that transformational leaders must use their personal power to advance caring leadership. Thus, Gates had to offer caring leadership to the executive team through respect, valuing, and providing a conducive working environment.
Furthermore, transformational leadership is a centered-leadership method in which a leader abstains from influencing his or her employees for them to exercise their power independently (White, n.d). For this reason, he created a power-sharing model with members of his executive team to ensure that each member was exercising power based on the organizational hierarchy’s position. This leader, therefore, organized the executive team into a partnership model. The partnership model promoted a long-term organizational commitment to create, manage, and maintain a dedicated performing functional team. In this model, he encouraged brainstorming with the executive team for a finding of innovative strategies for the creation of new products. This leader has demonstrated best practices, which contemporary leaders can emulate to create highly performing executive teams in their companies.
D: Best Practices that Gates used to Structure his Executive Team
Bill Gates used numerous best practices to structure his team. Some of the best practices he used to include the partnership model, shifting from the tall structure to flat structure, effective communication approach, decentralized decision-making, formulating training programs, and use of a mixture of leadership styles. These practices ensure effective customer service, cross-production coordination, and workforce management for promoting the task-oriented character at Microsoft Incorporated. The best practices adopted by Gates encouraged the creation of operational, organizational culture, organizational structure, functional executive team, and work teams, which promoted effective and effective at the company.
Additionally, best practices that Gates employed at Microsoft allowed workplace relationships that empowered the environment for optimum productivity and performance. This relationship increases workers’ involvement in the management of Microsoft because the company employed training programs for both employees and executive teams. This business has created a system of punishment and rewards that significantly impacted Microsoft culture by creating a “workaholic” culture. Finally, Gates’ best practices permitted the use of interaction theory that build an effective performance-oriented culture among Microsoft’s executive team members.
- Organizational Vision
Organizational vision is an essential leadership element that transforms and builds a business organization. This vision provides a company with direction and purpose. A vision statement is, therefore, a statement of the company’s overreaching aspirations of what it wants to be become or accomplish. In this section, the strategic plan, vision, and method of Microsoft Inc.’s organizational visions are discussed.
Microsoft Incorporated’s strategic plan was developed by Bill Gates, although he consulted his executive team. To formulate this strategic plan at Microsoft, these leaders employed strategic entrepreneurship, strategic vision, exploited his strengths, executive team’s strengths, understand his business environment, and employed existing technologies, such as satellite maps for estimation of populations (Yoffie& Cusumano, 2015). For example, in the planning of an inventive strategic idea to be used for the development of new and high-quality products, he had to brainstorm with his executive team to ensure that the strategy was all-inclusive.
Bill Gates’ organizational vision was the commitment to ensuring Microsoft6 had high-quality products that contributed to the expansion of the company’s operations. This vision was formulated by Bill Gates. On this his vision, Gates highlighted the significance of business and individuals for the success of Microsoft. He developed a decentralized decision-making structure, partnership model, punishment and reward model, and training programs to encourage his employees to align with his vision. Lastly, organizational leaders must use the alignment of strategic planning and real-time strategic methods in their company’s vision. The strategic planning method is based on the proposition on a long-term vision is attained by all people working toward the vision. Real-time strategic planning can benefit people focusing on the dynamic nature of the company for a long period.
III. Organizational Culture
Organizational culture is a collection of expectations, practices, and values guiding and informing the actions of workers in an organization. At Microsoft Inc., Bill Gates used a mix of leadership styles, including transformation leadership, autocratic leadership, and democratic leadership methodologies. Gates’ core belief was that leadership power, whether personal, positional, or political, was not to influence but to create significant organizational culture and values for operative organizational performance (Lombardo, 2017). Gates developed a decentralized decision-making structure in which he was able to distribute political power to the company’s executive team, as well as workers.
Gates also utilized his positional power for the creation of functional teams for workers to understand the working culture at the company. This corporate leader attempted to design a social network in which he could advise and exchange ideas with his employees within the organization. By using this power, the leader created a working culture, which was based on the punishment and reward model, and created on training programs to permit the inclusion of new staff in the vision, culture, and value of his company (Lombardo, 2017). In addition, Gates used the organizational model he established to strive toward achieving his personal power onto his colleagues, particularly junior employees, such as executive team members and other Microsoft’s workers. Effective employee engagement also helped him to retain skilled, talented, and committed workers who he developed and trained. This approach enabled Gates to retain talented employees, unlike other companies he was competing with, which did not care about their workers’ development and training.
Furthermore, Gates used a decentralized decision-making structure power to implement organizational change by allowing proposals from all persons in the company. Thus, these individuals would embrace different changes in the organization since they are aware of it. Based on this evidence, Bill Gates demonstrated that effective use of personal, positional, and political power is essential for an effective leader during organizational change, especially when it is decentralized by the senior leaders in a company. The decentralization of power at Microsoft Inc. enabled Gates to implement organizational change without resistance from his colleagues. Thus, leaders need to use the power they have to create organizational culture and values by delegating it to other people within the organization to permit them to implement other duties.
- Problem-Solving
A: Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Skills from my Professional Self-Assessment
Problem-solving is the act of defining a problem, determining its causes, identifying, selecting, and prioritizing alternatives for a solution, and implementing a solution (Stottler, 2020). Based on the results of my professional self-assessment, I possess problem-solving and decision-making skills, including analytical, strategic, and detail oriented. Analytic skills are abilities and traits, allowing an individual to research, observe, and interpret the problem to develop complex ideas and solutions. Thus, as I possess the analytical skill, I tend to approach problems critically, analytically, and rationally, which imply that this ability is essential for problem-solving and decision-making. Hicks (n.d) specifies that analytical decision-makers are placing significant value on thoroughness and accuracy since they are demanding considerable details and substantiation before they make the final decision. This skill is also essential to problem-solving, requiring critical analysis of an issue because it allows meticulous assessment of available solutions, as well as justifying the selection of an effective solution for resolving the existing problem (Hick, n.d).
Strategic thinking skill is a significant ability for problem-solving and decision-making. Strategically predominant people are known to have grit and are always in touch with issues. According to Ackerman (2020), these individuals exhibit a peculiar ability to identify problems and their solutions. As a strategic thinker, I have come to understand that professional excellence does not emerge without commitment. Thus, I tend to take risks on new innovative ideas, look for solutions, and be prepared for both success and failure, and willing to learn from my mistakes. Another problem-solving and decision-making skill I possess is detail oriented. Being detail-oriented means that I always pay close attention to small particulars when solving conflicts (Stottler, 2020). There are various detail-oriented traits that help me to resolve problems, including being highly observant, focusing on causes instead of effects, incredibly organized, and time-management skills. The detail-oriented skill has assisted me to stand out during problem-solving and decision-making.
B: Bill Gates’ Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Skills and Abilities
Problem-solving and decision-making abilities and skills that Gates must include analytical skill, innovativeness and creativity, teamwork and collaborative ability, persuasive skill, and the ability for learning. Through analytical skills, Gates’ first step was to scrutinize the situation to understand the problem to effectively develop a resolution. According to Haden (2020), the first thing Gates does in problem-solving is to find out individuals who have dealt with the same problem well after assessing the situation and note what can be learned from them. Gates believed that the appropriate method to solve a problem is to find people who have solved the same problem and start from their solution and work backward (Haden, 2020). Gates used this skill in many ways; for instance, he required employees to challenge his decisions by making effective arguments for defending their cases. For this reason, Mcilvaine (2016) states that “Bill Gates often appeared as a bully since he constantly demanded more answers and explanations until an individual could convince him that they have explored all available options or even devised a novel idea.” Analytic skill is an effective problem-solving and decision-making ability, which all corporate leaders need to possess for them to be able to solve different problems in their organization like Bill Gates.
Creativity and innovativeness are helped Bill Gates to solve different problems at Microsoft Company. Innovation is a procedure of turning new conceptions into commercial success or turning new ideas into a concept. Creativity is an act of channeling the idea into something concentrate. Catalyst (n.d) mentions that Gates could stop thinking at least twice in a year. During this time, he was to develop a strategy for solving problems at his company. By taking the time to come up with solutions to help in moving the company forward by embracing the Internet and other related opportunities, Gates was innovative and creative. As a team leader who was creative and innovative, he created an innovative culture at Microsoft Inc. by encouraging the company’s management to strive to develop innovative resolutions to problems that occurred in their departments.
Teamwork and collaborative skill helped Gates in problem-solving and decision-making while working at Microsoft. The team worked with his executive team to brainstorm to find relevant solutions to various problems in the company. Collaborative ability is a behavior that helps an individual to work with other people effectively towards the achievement of a common goal. Gates collaborates with workers at Microsoft Incorporated, in which he allowed them to report various challenges to him. “Collaboration and Teamwork” (n.d) mentions that one approach for building an effective collaborative team environment is through open and effective communication. For example, the creation of Think Week was a way of clearing up misunderstanding timely and accurately at the corporation. Since Gates permitted his employees to pose challenges to him, he seeks to understand the different perspectives of his staff through communication.
C: Skills and Abilities for Problem-Solving and Decision-Making I Emulate Learn from Bill Gates.
I would want to emulate Gates’ two questions approach to solve problems, a collaborative strategy to decide, as well as teamwork skills, and creativity, and innovative skills. The two questions approach would enable me to learn how to solve the problem using knowledge of other individuals how have had the same problem, therefore, allowing me to save time and helping me to develop the right solution. Also, I would evaluate the options I have, as well as other alternative solutions available for the problem.However, I would not use a lot of time like Bill for thinking about the problem even if the approach is right and can produce good results because it might not apply to issues that require urgent solutions.
I would also emulate Gates’ creativity, innovativeness, and teamwork abilities to enable me to make effective decisions and solve problems in a business. Nevertheless, I would try as much as possible to appear bully like Gates because I would want my workers to excessively defend their arguments. The primary reason for avoiding this strategy is to ensure that employees can provide useful opinions and suggestions related to managerial, decision-making, and problem-solving. In addition, I would emulate Gates in setting aside a “Think Week.” This week, I would encourage all employees to write their suggestions for decision-making and problem-solving in the company. After obtaining workers’ suggestions, I would take adequate time to assess their proposals. Through this methodology, I would solve several problems in the company effectively.
- Conflict Management
Conflict management comprises a workplace precluding conflict and a management team, which can successfully resolve and handles various workplace issues. Doyle (2020) stipulates that the aim of professionals in organizations should be to resolve conflict in an effective way but not to avoid it. Professional with resilient conflict resolution skills can effectively manage workplace issues.
A: Conflict Management and Negotiation Skill from my Professional Self-Assessment
The results of my professional self-assessment showed that I possess various abilities, skills, and knowledge related to conflict management and negotiation.Conflict management and negotiation skills and abilities I possess include a positive attitude, collective mindedness, and analytical. A positive attitude is an attitude that helps an individual to see good in other individuals (Sasson, n.d). This skill has enabled me to understand my emotions, as well as other individuals’ emotions. Ameresan (2019) mentions that positive behavior is significant for conflict resolution because it prevents the escalation of the conflict. Since I can effectively interpret my opposition’s sentiments, it is easier for me to communicate with them without provoking them. By possessing this skill, I can eliminate frustration and anger from the conflict, which helps me to focus more on comprising issues. Another skill I possess for conflict management and negotiation is collective mindedness. This ability allows me to see situations from other persons’ perspectives and to understand their motivations, needs, and possible misunderstandings. For this reason, collective mindedness is essential for effective conflict management. Doyle (2020) specifies that collective mindedness can be applied in a work environment when combined with emotional intelligence, critical thinking, and other types of discernment. Through this skill, professionals can handle difficult people, manage emotions, asks feedback, and building trust in a workplace in their process of conflict management and negotiation.
Analytical is also a skill I possess based on my professional self-assessment. Analytical skill is the ability to collect and examine issues, solve problems, and make credible decisions. Doyle (2020) states that employers are looking for workers with the ability to investigate problems and find the ideal solutions in a timely and efficient manner. In conflict management and negotiation, analytical skill is used to detect patterns, brainstorming, interpreting data, observing, theorizing, and making decisions based on several options and factors available (Cornett, 2018; Ameresan, 2019). The ability is, therefore, a prerequisite for all professionals in different working places for them to solve arising problems.
B: Bill Gates’s Conflict Management and Negotiation Techniques and Skills
Bill Gates has various conflict management and negotiation skills based on his career history. Firstly, effective communication and persuasive skills are possessed by Gates. For example, Gates managed to solve a conflict he had with Allen about ownership of Microsoft Company by persuading him on their job-roles percentage (Haden 2020). Secondly, Gates had active listening skills. He used this skill to listen to the opposing party considerately and analyzing what caused the conflict (“Leading in an Organization,” 2020). At times, he would separate the person from a conflict and work together with an individual who is directly involved.
Thirdly, Gates is accommodating, which helped him to resolve problems with some of his partners. For instance, when Gates had differing opinions and directions with Ballmer, he was able to accommodate the conflict between them. Also, workers who had disagreements with the decision made by Ballmer were approaching Gates to raise their concerns since they knew he was accommodative and flexible. This skill is significant to effective conflict management and negotiation because individuals having it can accommodate the views of other people (DuBrin, 2015). Fourthly, Bill has analytical, innovative, and creative skills. These skills abled Gates to resolve other difficult issues at the company by persuading his employees to engage in negotiation when they have differences.
Fifth, Gates used the self-confident conflict solving approach. He encouragedMicrosoft’s employees to speak their minds when they are not satisfied with some decisions made in the company to avoid aggression and for the prevention of conflicts resulting from undefined authority (“Leading in an Organization,” 2020). Through an assertive conflict resolution strategy, Bill ensured that his employees had well-defined leadership. Lastly, Gates understood that conflict is natural, and it can happen in any relationship. Thus, he had to create a culture of openness in his company. He advised employees to speak up for the top management to listen to conflicting opinions and incorporated them in decision making (“Leading in an Organization,” 2020). Thus, suppressing or ignoring conflicting perception was considered an offense by Gates.
C: Conflict Management and Negotiation’s Techniques and Skills I Emulate from Bill Gates
Based on my self-assessment, results indicate that I possess leadership skills, which I can develop to be a good leader like Bill Gates. To continue improving my leadership skills, I will have to adopt various strategies. I will develop my communication skills to be an effective communicator. Effective communication skills helped Bill Gates to solve problems and make appropriate decisions at Microsoft Inc. To an effective communicator like Gates, I will be listening actively, use appropriate body language, speak clearly, and identify my audience. Two, I will involve myself in continuous learning and growth. Like these corporate leaders, my aim will be to focus on improving my self-confidence, public-speaking, and persuasive skills. For instance, I will have to seek counseling from mentors on how I can develop myself-confidence since Gates also searches for help from his mentors for problem-solving problems at Microsoft. Three, I will improve my leadership skills by caring about other people. For instance, like Gates, I will adopt a transformational leadership style to thrive on caring for my workers. Lastly, I will improve both my teamwork and interpersonal skills for me to effectively collaborative with my colleagues, thus becoming continues to an effective manager and leader. To conclude, the exploration of Bill Gates’ leadership in his career provided me with significant lessons, which I will use to build and improve my leadership skills in the future.
- Conclusion
Based on my self-assessment, results indicate that I possess leadership skills, which I can develop to be a good leader like Bill Gates. To continue improving my leadership skills, I will have to adopt various strategies. I will develop my communication skills to be an effective communicator. Effective communication skills helped Bill Gates to solve problems and make appropriate decisions at Microsoft Inc. To an effective communicator like Gates, I will be listening actively, use appropriate body language, speak clearly, and identify my audience. Two, I will involve myself in continuous learning and growth. Like these corporate leaders, my aim will be to focus on improving my self-confidence, public speaking, and persuasive skills. For instance, I will have to seek counseling from mentors on how I can develop my self-confidence since Gates also searches for help from his mentors for problem-solving problems at Microsoft. Three, I will improve my leadership skills by caring about other people. For instance, like Gates, I will adopt a transformational leadership style to thrive on caring for my workers. Lastly, I will improve both my teamwork and interpersonal skills for me to effectively collaborative with my colleagues, thus becoming continues to an effective manager and leader. To conclude, the exploration of Bill Gates’ leadership in his career provided me with significant lessons, which I will use to build and improve my leadership skills in the future.
