Elon Musk’s Leadership Qualities

Leadership plays an important role in managing the overall activities of the company. Without an effective leader it will not be possible for the company to achieve success in the market.  So, in this paper the discussion will be made on the effectiveness of the Musk’s leadership qualities in context to the leadership theories.  The theories that will be discussed in the paper are related to trait and behavioral theories, situational and contingency theory, transformational and transactional leadership, distributed leadership, ethical leadership and critical leadership.

It has been observed that Elon Musk is one of the effective leaders with various different traits of leadership.  He is one of the biggest entrepreneur, investor and also engineer. He is one of the best leaders who know how to manage the overall activities and workers in the workplace.

The qualities which are possessed by the Musk are many in context to leadership. It has been examined that he is passionate towards the activities of the company.  After the sale of PayPal, it has been observed that he has sufficient money to live a lavish life. But still he invested all the funds into Tesla Motors and Solarcity. The personal loans are taken by Musk so that the overall operations can be managed. Also the financial decision which is taken by him resulted in borrowing the money to pay the rennet for a short period of time.  This can be the incident which can proved his entrepreneurial moves and he stated that if I ask from the investors to invest the money then I feel good to put money as well (Bolman and Deal, 2017).

He has given everything to achieve what he wants. In starting Tesla has also remained unprofitable for long time but now it is one of the biggest companies.  So, it can be stated that he is passionate towards his work.  By considering the incident the theory which can be described is related to trait theory. This style of leadership emphasizes on considering the different personality traits or the characteristics that have a connection with different leadership in relation to the different situation. In this style of leadership it can be seen that the leadership traits possessed by Musk is related to intelligence and action oriented judgment.  Like by having sufficient amount he invested and taken loan. He is passionate towards the work and boosts the overall activities of the company. Due to his passionate and intelligence the company is one of the largest company on the global platform (McCleskey,  2014).

Vision is also one of the qualities which are analyzed in Musk.  It has been seen that to be a great leader it is important to have a vision. It has been stated that Musk invested in internet banking from starting and the present day involvement is towards pushing forward the space travel and self-driving cars. So, Musk focused on the future and has the capability to achieve the set goals. Also, it can be stated that there are many leaders who are playing as the checkers but Musk is playing as the StarCraft (Dobbs, 2016). It is important for the leader to communicate its vision with the followers and Musk has done the same and achieves success in the highly competitive market. The theory which can be related to this is situational leadership theory which is considered.  This theory is based on the assumptions. It can be stated that Musk shared the vision with the employees and trusted the team that they will focus on involvement in the activities. So, according to the situation Musk consider the right step which will boost the overall growth in the market (Fairhurst and Connaughton, 2014).

Leadership Theories and their Application

One of the famous leadership theories is behavioral theory which emphasizes on the overall behavior of the leader. This theory emphasizes on the two aspect related to task oriented and people oriented. In task oriented the behavior of the leader is related to organizing, initiating and gathering the data. People orientation is related to encouraging, observing, listening and coaching. Musk focuses on one of the lesson related to leadership in which it has been seen that “put the right people at the right role”. This is one of the approach related to task oriented which is considered by Musk and at the time of appointing the employees the people are placed on the position by considering the qualification of the employees.  So, the leader focuses on the capability of the employees before assigning any work to achieve success in the market (Rimmer, 2018).

Working for the greater good is also one of the leadership quality possessed by Musk. Musk focuses on contributing towards the society and also brings the human race forward so that future can be improved. It has been observed that Musk allowed the automobile manufactures to use the Tesla valuable battery technology as it boost the use of clean energy. Also the statement is given Musk that “Tesla motors was made so that proper advent in context to sustainable transport can be considered. The company will not consider any law for the people who want to use the technology (Hess and Andiola, 2017). So, due to this attitude the company achieved success as the leader focused on inspiring rather than winning. In this context contingency theory is one of the best theory on which the leaders should focus so that effectiveness can be boosted. Musk considered this concept in which it has been stated that the effectiveness of a leader is related with how leader control the situation and how the style of leadership fits according to the situation. So, it can be stated that effectiveness of leadership can be boosted if right decisions are taken by the leaders. Like Musk considered using the technology by the people so that it boost the overall image of the company just because of one correct decision which was taken by him (Thompson and Glasø, 2015).

One of the popular styles of leadership is transformational and transactional. In transformational leadership style it has been seen that the leaders works with the team to search the need of change. They create vision and also guide the employees so that they can give their best.  But in transactional leadership style the focus is given on supervision, organizing and performance. The leaders consider this style to emphasize on the particular tasks and also to consider rewards and punishments to motivate the followers (Donohoe and Kelloway, 2016). Musk considered transactional leadership style in which he focuses on inspiring the employees by motivating them to achieve success in the workplace. To motivate the employees Musk focused on making the policy related to incentive and also related to reduce the noise on the floor so that employees can give their best towards the activities in the workplace (Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2015).

Trait Theory

Also, distributed leadership is related with the conceptual approach that will help to understand the work and also equate the work with shared, collective and extended leadership practices which create the capacity related to change and improvement. So, Musk focused on guiding the employees in the workplace so that they can adapt the change and bring improvisation in the overall activities which are assigned to them in the workplace (Marques, 2017).

One of the leadership theories is related with ethical leadership in which the focus is given on the ethical beliefs and values in context to the rights of the others. So, it is related with trust, honesty and fairness that should be there in the leaders so that positive outcome can be attained. It has been observed that in case of Musk he is honest towards the activities and also guide the employees to work by considering the overall policy in the workplace (Shapiro and Stefkovich, 2016). He follows every laws and ethical framework which is required to manage the overall activities of the company. So, this also states that Musk focused on considering the policies by giving equal rights to the employees so that they feel motivated is the approach which is considered. So, he is honest towards the work and manages the overall activities with proper justification and by emphasizing on critical leadership. So, it can be stated that one of the best quality of Musk related to honest can help him to achieve success in the marke.

Therefore, it can be concluded that leadership is one of the essential factor that should be there in the workplace as it can help in boosting the overall efficiency of the employees in the workplace. It can be seen that Musk is one of the effective leader who motivated its employees and also focused on different aspects so that positive outcome can be attained. Also, the leadership theories are related with the overall quality of the leader possessed. So, it is necessary or the leaders to emphasize on these approaches and theories so that it can be easy to lead the employees in the workplace. Leaders in the workplace are the one who can motivate the employees to be efficient towards work.

References

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Dobbs, M.E., 2016. Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, 21(1), pp.83.

Donohoe, M. and Kelloway, E.K., 2016. Transformational leadership training for managers: effects on employee well-being. In Creating Healthy Workplaces (pp. 231-248). Routledge.

Fairhurst, G.T. and Connaughton, S.L., 2014. Leadership: A communicative perspective. Leadership, 10(1), pp.7-35.

Hess, M.F. and Andiola, L.M., 2017. Fraud Risk Brainstorming at Tesla Motors. Issues in Accounting Education, 33(2), pp.19-34.

Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., Meinecke, A.L., Rowold, J. and Kauffeld, S., 2015. How transformational leadership works during team interactions: A behavioral process analysis. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(6), pp.1017-1033.

Marques, J., 2017. A Mindful Moral Compass for Twenty-First Century Leadership: The Noble Eightfold Path. The Journal of Values-Based Leadership, 10(1), pp.7.

McCleskey, J.A., 2014. Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and leadership development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), pp.117.

Rimmer, M., 2018. Elon Musk’s Open Innovation: Tesla, Intellectual Property, and Climate Change. In Intellectual Property and Clean Energy (pp. 515-551). Springer, Singapore.

Shapiro, J.P. and Stefkovich, J.A., 2016. Ethical leadership and decision making in education: Applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas. Routledge.

Thompson, G. and Glasø, L., 2015. Situational leadership theory: a test from three perspectives. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(5), pp.527-544.