Bill Gates As A Business Leader
Business leadership can either be positive or negative. In the world of business, there are a few success stories that have shown long-term leadership strategies. But in general, it is poorly led and managed businesses which grab headlines. In this essay, we will discuss the leadership qualities and styles that Bill Gates has adopted to be successful in the corporate world. William Henry Gates, an American businessman, software developer and investor, is also a humanitarian. Best known as a co-founder at Microsoft Corporation, he is also a humanitarian.
Bill Gates has many leadership traits that have led to his success. They include: focusing on the overall picture, communication clarity, creativity and people-orientedness. The two things that made his organization successful were his good communication skills and his goal-oriented behaviour. As a great leader leads a group of people towards a common goal, his communication creates the necessary understanding for employees to decide on the right path of action. Bill’s skill in communicating clearly helped to unite the team to reach the organizational goals. His task-oriented approach makes him focus on goal-achieving and clearly define communication patterns. Employees who work together to complete a project or task are expected to share the same psychological contract in a task-based organization culture (Tabernero et al., 2009). He was a task-oriented person who focused on every aspect and step of success in the IT industry by creating Microsoft products.
Second, leaders can demonstrate several styles. Bill Gates’ leadership style is transformational and authentic. Bill Gates shares four characteristics with authentic leaders: Self-awareness; Relational Transparency; Balanced Processing and Internalized Moral Perspective Purwanto (Wijayanti Hyun and Asbari 2019). Alavi et al. (2018, p. 3) stated that the authenticity of leadership style can be a great asset to an organization. This is due to its ability to make changes in a variety of ways. Transformational Leaders are recognized by their unique ability to infuse innovation and change within the organization. Bill Gates not only brought innovation and a change to his business, but the world as a whole. After developing “Windows”, Bill Gates continued his quest and developed numerous new products to meet the ever-changing challenges of the world. This proved his ability as a transformational leader. He has the ability, as a transformative leader, to inspire confidence, pride, and admiration in his subordinates.
Bill Gates possesses several traits that have pushed him to the success gate. He focuses on the future and the lessons he has learned in the past. Gates said, ‘It’s okay to be happy about success but more important is to focus on the lessons from failure.’ The success or failure of an organization is dependent on its leader’s ability and willingness to make important decisions. It doesn’t always go according to plan. Sometimes, failure, disappointments or breakdowns in an organisation are inevitable. During this period of failure, the decision made can make or break the organization’s future. Bill Gates did not feel helpless or regretful during these times. He instead focused on past mistakes, learned from them, and took decisive action to move forward. Bill’s preference for the culture of the company over its products is another quality that has led to his success. As organizational culture is the entire basic assumptions that a given group has invented, revealed or developed while learning to solve problems of adoption to the environment and internal incorporation (Szczepanska-Woszczyna 2014). Bill Gates changed his organization’s culture from “Know it All” to “Learn it all”. He didn’t force his employees or team members to know everything about his organization but encouraged them to keep learning and to be successful in their role. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft Corporation, introduced a new culture where innovation is valued and everyone strives to be creative. He also introduced an openness to the organization, allowing employees to reach out to the upper management and discuss their ideas and concerns. Bill introduced diversity, inclusion, and Microsoft Organization. He used a variety of communication channels to try to spread the message about diversity and inclusion.
The conclusion is that leadership skills are inborn and that culture and environment nourish and cultivate this talent. In the end, a person becomes a great leader through learning from his mistakes and experience. He can also change the entire course of an organization. Leaders who never give up and are persistent lead their organizations to success.
Bibliography
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Szczepanska-Woszczyna, K., 2014, September. The importance for organizational culture in innovation. In Forum Scientiae Oeconomia (Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 27-39).
Tabernero C.J. Chambel M.J. Curral L. Arana J.M. The role of task-oriented versus relationship-oriented leadership on normative contract and group performance. Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 37(10).
