Analysis

A leader guides the organization and helps the members in achieving their goals. Any organization with an efficient leader will be successfully able to achieve all its goals and objectives and may also be able to achieve s sustainable competitive advantage in the long run. Hence, in order to be successful in the long run, it is very successful for an individual to adopt the traits which are present in a leader as these traits go a long way in assisting an individual to achieve success (Anderson & Sun 2017). The primary aim of the given report is to highlight the journey of one such leader named Jack Ma. Jack Ma is the founder and the executive chairperson of the Ali Baba enterprise. The report will be highlighting the journey of the leader and cover areas like the challenges being faced by them, the strengths and weaknesses of the leader, the risks Jack Ma has undertaken and the different lessons which can be learnt about the leader.

Analysis

Jack Ma is a Chinese business philanthropist. He is the founder and executive chairperson of the Alibaba Group. According to a poll on August 2018, Jack Ma is one of the richest men in China with a net worth of more than US$ 38.6 billion (Financialpost.com. 2018). The Chinese business is at its present state because of Ma and has been defined to be one of the most powerful personalities in the globe. Recently, he announced his retirement and will be continuing charity work from September 10. His reign as the head of Alibaba has taken the business as well as the Chinese economy to new heights. Co-incidentally Jack Ma was born on 10th of September in 1964 and began studying English at an early age and practiced it with foreign tourists. He was nicknamed Jack by them because his original name was difficult to pronounce (Tsui, Zhang & Chen 2017). With a degree in English, from an early age Jack showed various signs of progress and later on became a lecturer at a prominent university. According to Telegraph.co.uk. (2018), his consistent hard work and vision for Alibaba has made the company one of the largest e-commerce companies around the globe. The leadership style of Jack Ma can be taken to be as influential and inspiring.

In the 45th World Economic forum annual meeting, Jack Ma stated that his vision for Alibaba has been greatly inspired from the different leaders around the globe and that it greatly relies on providing service to the 2 billion customers of Alibaba. According to Jack Ma, this shall have a double effect as it will help the 10 million small businesses which function outside China to sell their products through the e-commerce portal (Entreprenuermag.co.za 2018).  There are more than 300 million people transacting through the internet and with the help of Alibaba the 10 million small businesses have been greatly impacted by this and this has contributed to the welfare of the Chinese economy. Moreover, instead of just ensuring that Alibaba becomes the largest e-commerce website in terms of customer base as well as annual sales, the vision lies in ensuring that Alibaba becomes a global platform for the different small businesses not only in China but in other parts of the globe as well like in Norway, Argentina, and Switzerland (Yahaya & Ebrahim 2016). It is his goal to build up an e-WTO and make use of the medium of internet to extend the operations of the business. Moreover, Jack Ma states that along with the achievement of this vision, Jack Ma also wants to ensure that the team lives up to public trust and ensure successful operations. He wants to set an example for the young people in China and help them in understanding their duty towards the country. According to Antonakis & and Day (2017), various Hollywood movies have also been an inspiration to him and help him to understand that he should never give up.

About Jack Ma

The leader, Jack Ma`s journey has not been a simple one and he has faced various hardships in his life which expanded his horizons and helped him to become a better individual (Telegraph.co.uk. 2018). From a very young age, Jack Ma valued education and hence, wanted to study in a good university but could not complete this dream immediately as he was continuously rejected by schools and universities. The different challenges as faced by him have been stated as follows:

Failed various exams in school: Jack ma had a hard luck in school as well as University. This is because he failed various exams in school and because of this he had to undergo the same studies many times which was quite demotivating in nature but he learnt his lesson and never gave up. At last, he was successfully able to pass all his examinations (Arnold et al. 2015).

Rejected from Harvard University: Moreover, the second challenge which was faced by Jack Ma was that he was rejected by the prestigious Harvard University many times in his tenure. He applied around 10 times to get an admission at the school and was rejected all the times (Financialpost.com. 2018). Moreover, this portrayed that Jack Ma was a man of persistence and in spite of being rejected high number of times, he kept applying for the admission and never gave up.

Was turned down from various jobs: Due to his short stature and not very pleasant looks, Jack Ma was rejected for over thirty jobs and in spite of this, he never lost hope and remained positive throughout. According to Entreprenuermag.co.za (2018), he believes in hard works and is often heard giving speeches in relation to the same. He also states that, today and tomorrow may not seem to be a good day, but the day after tomorrow, will be better in terms of positivity and success. He remained optimistic irrespective of the various challenges and ultimately found success.

Got no initial funding for Alibaba: Although Jack Ma had started Alibaba, he got no funding for it and was unable to convince Silicon Valley to fund for the enterprise and the organization suffered various losses during the first three years of its operations (Raelin 2016).

Hence, it can be stated that, Jack ma faced various challenges in pursuit of becoming a better leader, but none of these challenges could bring him down.

Strengths and weakness of the leader 

A leader is someone who can be looked up to and various aspects of their life can be used in order to learn the manner in which they have achieved success (Entreprenuermag.co.za 2018). Hence, this section of the report will be undertaking the different strengths as well as the weaknesses of a leader in order to understand his leadership style in general.

The various strengths of Jack Ma as a leader are as follows:

Signature leadership style: Jack ma has an inspiring and influential leadership. Through this leadership style, Jack Ma has been successful in changing the business dynamics of China and has bought about a revolution in the domain of e-commerce industry (DuBrin 2015). His whacky sense of leadership style has been praised by various critics.

Visions the leader has for the organization

Democratic management: Jack Ma believes in democratic management, which is based on the fact that he believes in letting his board members take the different decisions in order to ensure an environment of innovation in the workplace.

Understanding of people: According to Kang, Solomon  and  Choi (2015), Jack Ma has an excellent understanding of people and has the best people management skills which are required in order to run a large enterprise (Ojha 2016). He understands that the different people in an organization are required to be respected adequately in order to ensure success in the long run.

Respecting choice and opinion of the different consumers: Jack ma believes in the power of the consumers and understands that their feedback goes a long way enabling the different aspects of the company to improve in various dimensions.

Charity: Jack Ma believes in social work and charity. Moreover, he also believes that in order to be successful in the long run he will be required to ensure that the social responsibility of the organization is fulfilled.

Shortcomings

However, all the leaders in the business also possess certain shortcomings which can be used as an example to improve one’s leadership skills.

Lack of computer knowledge: The primary shortcoming of Jack Ma is that he lacked relevant technology with respect to technology (DuBrin 2015). If he had proper knowledge in the remaining field then he would have been able to successfully improve the business model.

Lack of contacts: He lacked contacts in his initial days of business which made him face various difficulties while conducting business.

The journey of Jack Ma has not been an easy one and he has undertaken various risks throughout his journey as the company head of Jack Ma. Some of these risks undertaken by the leader have been stated as follows:

1. Undertaking e-commerce even when it was not popular:E-commerce was not a popular concept back when Jack Ma began his journey in this domain back when e-commerce was not very popular and hence, due to this, he undertook a huge risk in this aspect and staked all his reputation and years of hard work in this venture (Moore 2016). However, he was determined to become successful and hence, was able to achieve his long term goals.
2. Continuation despite lack of funding: Although Ali baba was on the verge of bankruptcy, Jack Ma did not lose out on hopes and continued the operations on the business enterprise. This aspect went a long way in assisting him to achieve success and was also able to ensure that the business achieves its objectives.

A successful business is all about risk taking and by portraying capabilities to take these risks, Jack Ma was highly successful in taking these risks and this is the reason, his organization was successful in its endeavors (Ward 2016).

As a leader, Jack Ma has been very inspirational and hence, for this reason, there are various lessons which can be learnt from his endeavors and actions:

Persistence: Jack Ma reflects persistence. Although he had been rejected many times in his life from the different universities and schools, he did not lose out on hope and was able to achieve success. According to Asrar-ul-Haq and Kuchinke (2016), his continuous trials portrayed that he was very persistent in nature and this aspect bought him success in the long run.

Hard work: Jack Ma was quite handwriting as well. As he wanted to learn English from the time he was quite young, he engaged in several activities to do so which required extensive travelling. Moreover, he worked vey heard on his startup which made him successful in the long run.

Learning from mistakes: Jack ma has been often heard saying that Alibaba has made various mistakes and that they try to improve daily (Northouse 2018). Hence, it can be rightfully stated that Jack Ma has taken continuous efforts to learn from these mistakes and this has assisted him in achieving success in the long run.

Conclusion

Hence, from the given analysis on Jack Ma as a leader, it can be stated that he portrays the style and signs of a true leader and that it is due to his own efforts and steps being taken that Alibaba has been able to achieve success to this extent. The essay outlined the journey of Jack Ma as a leader and outlined the different lessons which can be taken from him, Risks he undertook, his strengths and weaknesses, vision of the leader and challenges being faced by him.

References

Anderson, M.H. & Sun, P.Y., 2017. Reviewing leadership styles: Overlaps and the need for a new ‘full?range’theory. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19(1), pp.76-96.

Antonakis, J. & Day, D.V. eds., 2017. The nature of leadership. Sage publications.

Arnold, K.A., Connelly, C.E., Walsh, M.M. & Martin Ginis, K.A., 2015. Leadership styles, emotion regulation, and burnout. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 20(4), p.481.

Asrar-ul-Haq, M. & Kuchinke, K.P., 2016. Impact of leadership styles on employees’ attitude towards their leader and performance: Empirical evidence from Pakistani banks. Future Business Journal, 2(1), pp.54-64.

DuBrin, A.J., 2015. Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. Nelson Education.

Entreprenuermag.co.za 2018. Success stories. [Online]  Available at:  https://www.entrepreneurmag.co.za/advice/success-stories/lessons-learnt/20-crazy-things-weve-learned-about-alibaba-billionaire-jack-ma/ [Accessed on: 09. Sept. 2018].

Financialpost.com. 2018. Alibaba. [Online]  Available at:  https://business.financialpost.com/technology/alibabas-jack-ma-talks-opportunity-risk-and-chickens-as-he-woos-canadian-business [Accessed on: 09. Sept. 2018].

Kang, J.H., Solomon, G.T. & Choi, D.Y., 2015. CEOs’ leadership styles and managers’ innovative behaviour: Investigation of intervening effects in an entrepreneurial context. Journal of Management Studies, 52(4), pp.531-554.

Moore, J.F., 2016. The death of competition: leadership and strategy in the age of business ecosystems. HarperCollins.

Northouse, P.G., 2018. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.

Ojha, C., 2016. A study on the comparative influence of Jack Ma and Jeff Bezos on the employer brand attractiveness of Alibaba. com and Amazon. com (Doctoral dissertation, School of Management and Labour Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai).

Raelin, J.A., 2016. Imagine there are no leaders: Reframing leadership as collaborative agency. Leadership, 12(2), pp.131-158.

Telegraph.co.uk. 2018. China- a threat take some risks like Jack Ma. [Online]  Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11529914/China-a-threat-Take-some-risks-like-Jack-Ma.html. [Accessed on: 09. Sept. 2018].

Tsui, A.S., Zhang, Y. & Chen, X.P., 2017. Its Corporate Cultural Value System Is the Lifeline of Alibaba. In Leadership of Chinese Private Enterprises (pp. 201-222). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Ward, J., 2016. Keeping the family business healthy: How to plan for continuing growth, profitability, and family leadership. Springer.

Yahaya, R. & Ebrahim, F., 2016. Leadership styles and organizational commitment: literature review. Journal of Management Development, 35(2), pp.190-216.