Leadership Style Of Richard Branson And Steve Jobs Commerce Essay

Leadership Style Of Richard Branson And Steve Jobs Commerce EssayThis essay is required to conduct a better judgement of lead styles (transactional and transformational leadership styles) from researching on Richard Branson and Steve Jobs success, and discuss about different types of repositions (incremental and essential changes) may occur in an organisation in order to learn change management methods can be applied to a real case ( perfect(a) chemical group).Although both of the excellent leaders exhibit characteristics of both transactional and transformational leadership styles, this essay volition identify Steve Jobs as a transactional leader and Richard Branson as a transformational leader with three reasons for each statement. falsifys be inevitable for all kinds of organizations and credit line. This essay will trade and identify six examples (incremental and radical) of changes for each leader (three examples each type).At last, this essay will discuss the concep ts of change management and explain Kotters 8-Step Change Model by applying to a real case ( unadulterated Group).Transactional Leadership VS Transformational LeadershipGood leadership is the key to the success of an organization. Transactional leadership is performance-oriented and transformational leadership is people-oriented. To be more specific, transactional leadership involves particular reinforcement to monitor and justify followers performances by using reward and punishment, while transformational leadership tends to inspire and motivate the followers loyalty and concentration by leaders charisma.Steve Jobs as Transactional LeaderTransactional leaders characteristic behaviours are (Bar howevero, 2005)Contingent RewardContingent reward is actually a usual way that intimately of the managers use to motivate teams, create positive competition and improve effectiveness.Steve Jobs had the impressive ability to notice talent and active employees and allocate them to the right place at heart the company. Each year, Jobs took his top 100 people on a retreat. It is not only a reward as a vacation, but also an credit from STEVE JOBSIn my opinion, acknowledgements from successful genius would be the best reward for my hard working.Management by exceptionTransactional leaders take actions based on the exceptions (performance) of the employees. Steve Jobs categorised his followers as either geniuses or bozos, and quickly firing those who fall in the latter camp (Greene-Blose, 2012).Another characteristic of transactional leadership would be the need for control which is typical Steve Jobs style. His favourite presentation tools were a whiteboard and a Magic Marker, which gives him fully control in the conference. by and by his reinventing apple, Jobs had several weeks of product review sessions. finally he run out of patience and shouted the team to stop, grabbed a Magic Marker to the white board and wrote down four words Consumer, Pro., desktop and Port able. Then he saidHere is what we need (Isaacson, 2012)This is Steve Jobs, full of power and passion, who gave clear incentives and strategies to his followers with his wisdom and visions.Richard Branson as Transformational LeaderTransformational leaders characteristic behaviours are (Barbuto, 2005)Idealized influenceRichard Branson has become a role model for his followers inside or outside of his staring(a) Empire by his own aro apply and fearless life style. With his own words, You want to create something you are proud of That has always been my philosophy of business (Branson), Richard Branson broke many world records such as the fastest recorded Atlantic crossing by boat, the first Atlantic crossing by hot-air balloon, etc. He proved that anything is possible to his followers and the counterpoise of the world with real examples. (Ocker, 2008)Inspiration motivationRichard Branson is a visionary leader with dreams and relentless work attitude which make those dreams come true . At the early salute of Virgin Group business, he once saidI want Virgin to be as well-known around the world as Coca-Cola. (Branson) After cristals of time, the brand of Virgin have become world well-known, and covers many different areas of business which Coca-Cola wound not dare to try. Those kinds of ambitions and courage ties his group together and close, and leads him to cargo hold on improving Virgin Group services and productions.Individualized considerationRichard Branson business maxim is staff first, customers second and shareholders third (Locke, 2009). One of his most famous and interesting story would be the lawsuit against British Airways for its protracted libel actions and ended with a settlement of about 600,000 total. After Richard Branson got the m wizardy, he divided it to all his employees for their hard working.On the other hand, the major reason of Richard Bransons business success is that he takes care of customers needs with innovations and considerati on, such as placing a rubber ducky in each bathroom of Virgin-owned hotels in order to make guests feel ate home, putting Listening Posts in their record stores and allowing customers to listen to entire CDs in front purchasing. (Richard Branson Virgin)In general, transformational leadership is considered more friendly and flexible way to organize a company, while transactional leadership is considered more tough and efficient. It is hard to say which one is better. All the good leaders all over the world (include the two above) have the characteristics of the both leadership styles., such as Steve Jobs charismatic characteristics and spiritual do speech skills (Transformational), and Richard Branson strict management ways on the lower level position in the organisation (Transactional). Transformational leadership does not replace transactional leadership but improves the effectiveness of transactional leadership from a different angle. (Bernard, Bass, Riggio, 2005)Incremental C hanges VS Radical ChangesChanges are inevitable in human lives as well as in business operations. Incremental change takes place over a long time period for development purposes, while radical change is more often triggered by a crisis or a business opportunity.thither are several differences listed in the following table.Incremental ChangesRadical ChangesReasonsBusiness developmentExpansion dealings with crisisSeizing a significant business opportunityPeriodLong period of timeShort period of timeExamplesImprovement much(prenominal) as TQM, new system implementationRevolutionary changesSuch as restructuring, coalition, take-overApproaches typesMay be small, slow, on-goingMay be onetime results, quickRespond and effect simply noticed by the management levelImmediately adaptMay cause resistance to changesSteve Jobs Incremental ChangesExample1 PixarIn 1986, Steve Jobs bought The Graphics Group from Lucasfilm for $10 millions, changed the gain to Pixar and started his career in anim ation manufacturing. With his visionary plans and technology support from his computer company NeXT, Pixar developed a software package called RenderMan (which has been widely accepted and used in filmmaking industry). RenderMan was implemented into the existing Pixar production line slowly. After ten old age time, Pixar finally achieved an amazing success in the animation filming industry. It unbroken producing a series of animation films, beginning with Toy Story (1995), which led Pixars worth to over $1.5 billion.It took 10 years to implementing and perfecting the new software into production and transferring Steve Jobs leadership style into Pixars existing operation, and achieves a remarkable improvement at the end. This is an incremental change made by Steve Jobs.Example2 Digital hub strategyAfter Steve Jobs returning to apple in 1997 as an interim CEO, he successfully brought Apple affirm to pro getability with a amazing consumer desktop computer iMac. By facing electrone gative predictions about proclaiming PCS would disappear within a couple of years, Steve Jobs continuously led Apple to keep on perfecting i products with the meaning of internet, individual, instruct, inform and inspire as the same way Apple always do. (Steve Jobs introductory 1998 iMac slide show)In 2001, Steve Jobs unveiled the Digital Hub Strategy to the man and in the next 10 years time he kept on launching a series of new products which extremely changed and led the trade of the entire world. (Kurian, 2012)thither was an interesting event that Steve Jobs called himself as the iCEO of Apple instead of interim CEO humorously which entertained the public very much (Macworld San Francisco 2000). It was also a smart way to promoting i products while teasing with the board of Apple for rehiring him with the temporary executive position.This huge successful change took 10 years to be accomplished followed by Steve Jobs leadership piece by piece. It was a long period on-going proces s of implementing Jobs wisdom into Apple Company.Example3 Retirement from AppleSteve Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, but he kept on denying any serious problem. That is why everyone was surprised when Apple announced that Steve Jobs would not go on stage for the Macworld keynote in 2009, and he took six months off at the same year. Jobs finally resigned as CEO of Apple in 2011 but remained as the Chairman of the companys board, and he passed away after(prenominal) 6 weeks. (Kurian, 2012)There may be some radical changes involved fro restructuring purpose, but in general, Steve Jobs took care of his retirement carefully to avoid negative daze slowly for 3 years time. For instance, he distributed his responsibilities to other executives step by step, and before his final resign, he strongly recommended Tim Cook in written, that letter was released to the public lately. The whole process was carefully planned and implemented in a long time. In my opinion, it can be an incremental change.Steve Jobs Radical ChangesExample1 Macintosh VS LisaIn the early 80s, Apple was creating a business-oriented computer named Lisa under Steve Jobs supervising, but later after that, Steve Jobs thrown out of the Lisa project because of his bad temper. He was so godforsaken and decided to take revenge by developing a small project called Macintosh in order to destroy the sales of Lisa. (Kurian, 2012)It was a radical strategy. Macintosh had user-friendly interface (point-and -click) which inspired other computer manufactories and changed the direction of computer industry since then, but it was not welcome to the market then. At that time, IBMs PC was more compatible with its cheaper price.Because this action was taken rapidly without well planning and careful market researching, Macintosh project failed.Example2 Staging a CoupThere was another revenge taken by Steve Jobs after his removal from Lisa project, he tried to stage a coup. As we all know, he failed ag ain. (Kurian, 2012)It was a restructuring plan, and he took actions rapidly. But without endorsement from Apple board of directors and support from other colleagues, he got fired from his own company.Example3 Reinventing AppleBy 1996, Apple rehired Steve Jobs as an informal consultant to the CEO. At that time, Apple was keeping on losing money and Steve Jobs staged another coup. He successes this time and became an interim CEO in 1997.The first thing he had done after his promotion is cutting off the production lines and focused on four products. This effective decision brought the lost confidence back to the Apple community (Kurian, 2012). In the meantime, Jobs took other actions such as announcing a new slogan Think Different and launched an amazing project which brought Apples resurgence lately, the iMac. (Edwards, 2008)Those actions and decisions above are radical changes (restructuring and redesigning the production processes). They were new strategies to the company for solvi ng a financial crisis in a short time period.Richard Branson Incremental ChangesExample1 Virgin AtlanticThere are some unique features Virgin Atlantic has while other airways may not have can be considered as incremental changes. Such as, serving a cup of ice cream while passengers watching movies during travelling in order to provide a better service. Virgin Atlantic does not provide meals for short distance flight in order to reduce ticket price. This kind of services is provided for improving quality of service.Example2 Virgin GroupBecause Richard Branson received a lot of support from his family and friends during hi early period of business stage (borrowed money from his auntie and supported by John Lennon), the whole Virgin Group services can be considered as a long term process for implementing Richard Bransons plan of giving back to the society and component those people who has ambitious but doesnt have opportunities. Such as, Virgin Money provides a set of formalised doc umentations help people who need loans.Example3 Eco-friendly effortsIn 2007, Richard Branson launched Virgin Earth Challenge dedicating in to environmental issues. He made several decisions that supervised the whole world, such as a $25 millions prize for inventors who comes up with a viable solution for scrubbing carbon gases from atmosphere. He also pledged to reinvest all profits from Virgin transportation business over the decade into developing ecologically benign fuels.This kind of actions may not affect other Virgin companies, but it will improve Virgin Groups reputation, it is also a long time period project.Richard Branson Radical ChangesExample1 Virgin Records ShopAt the beginning, Richard Branson started his records business as mail ordering company in London, and it went well. After a postal strike, the mail order business was crippled. Richard Branson was forced to seek new outlets and he opened his first retail store in Oxford Street in 1971.This was a strategy for de aling with a crisis situation, and operated immediately. It changed Virgin Records business process and structure.Example2 Selling Virgin Music GroupSelling Virgin Music in all probability would be the hardest decision Richard Branson has made in his whole lifetime. This decision was made in order to get money to take Virgin Atlantic back into private ownership. (Vinnedge, 2009)This change was forced by a financial crisis and included restructuring process.Example3 Closing Virgin Money U.S.Richard Branson launched a loan servicing company called Virgin Money U.S. in America in 2007, and began its withdrawal after 2 years (Lepro, 2010). Its social loans were transferred to Graystone Solutions. This time, Richard Branson misjudged the market and had to make the decision in order to go down the damage. Other reasons of this collapse might be the bad economy and different culture in America. This change included restructuring and take-over in a short time.Change Management in Virgin G roupStoryIn 2007, Virgin Group announced the completion of its biggest challenge which brought over 10 million customers and 13,000 employees merger of NTL, Telewest and Virgin Mobile under the Virgin Media brand. It is known as the largest Virgin Company in the world.This operation took more than two years to complete the merger, and Virgin Group handled it carefully, especially on employees resistance.Reasons of employees resistance to this changeFearMostly, employees fear comes from uncertainty about their career whether they are going to loss their job, will they fit the new way or follow the new process probably?No faith in new processComfort personal mouthfulLack of knowledgeLack of trustStrategies for overcoming barriers to changesInvolving employees during the managing changesEstablishing clear processes and proceduresEstablishing Clear StrategiesEffective Communication with EmployeesEfficient LeadershipApplication Kotters Change ModelConclusion