Leaders and their Roles
Leaders are people who guide themselves and others to doing the right thing. They set direction on how things should run and also build a vision that people they lead can connect to and work to achieve the purposes of the concept. Leaders are the ones who map up the way to the destination of an organization and also create the mood for the team. Management skills are valuable to ensure the team stays focused and the objectives are achieved (Marques, 2016). Leaders can be classified as charismatic, depending on their commitment and persuasiveness towards their cause, transformational or transactional.
Charismatic Leadership
Travis Kalanick can be considered a charismatic leader. Travis would invest in one's business if he liked the owner. If he believed that somebody had a great idea, he would show up at their office to work one or two days for free. Travis is very passionate about his company and is willing to go an extra mile to make his firm succeed. His friends say that Travis was full of ideas and spoke convincingly like a salesperson. He supervised the making of the company’s logo despite him not being a designer. Travis has been sometimes seen editing press statements in a time of crisis (Fast Co, 2015). Travis is said to have closed the companies beer taps at certain hours to promote discipline in the firm. Indeed, this means that despite the many scandals that have faced the company, Travis is still willing to make the status quo better. During one incident Travis released a statement saying that he was ready to ‘grow up.' (Somerville, 2017). Meaning that he was prepared to defend the reputation of his firm.
Travis is willing to make the status quo look better which is evident from his tireless efforts. Travis has been able to demonstrate excellent ability to keep the company growing and thriving despite the problematic ethical challenges facing him. He has in the past exhibited constant growth of the company and seemed to have a clear vision for the business hence the continual growth and increase in profitability. Notably, Travis has been faced out as the company's CEO yet he has continuously maintained influence on the firm's decisions thus demonstrating his power in convincing others. Despite his negative publicity of berating drivers and allegedly abusing a female staff, Travis Kalanick can be considered a charismatic leader.
Transformational Leadership
Despite Kalanick being a charismatic leader, he cannot be considered a transformational leader. Based on the characteristics of a transformational leader Travis is not known to motivate his subordinates and instead seems to be doing the opposite. Therefore, he cannot be regarded as a transformative leader. Travis rejected the Uber Eats logo and immediately the designer resigned. Travis is said to have refused the Uber Eats logo because he was not consulted while making the design (Somerville, 2017). Indeed, this shows that he had not given them the freedom to buy into his vision and bring it to accomplishment. Undoubtedly, this is a clear illustration that the designer was not appreciated or corrected in the right way and therefore resigning from the company.
Uber’s CEO, Travis, has a renown reputation of demeaning his drivers and other employees an aspect that is unlike for transformative leaders who not only ensure that employees are encouraged and motivated but also provides support and recognition. One of the female staff reported abuse which shows the level of disrespect that Travis held for his employees. Even though the firm has continually grown and has been able to push for its growth, Travis has failed to stir the emotions of the workers towards affection to the vision of the company but instead adopted a capitalist mentality. As a capitalist, he fails to set up a model of fairness and integrity. Travis continually maintains a small circle of power by keeping four board seats vacant and inequitably sharing voting rights. By refusing to distribute the voting rights, Travis intended to stay and run his self-interest which is unlike transformative leaders who get people to look beyond their self-interest (Martin, 2018). Travis fails to recognize that he cannot achieve his vision alone and needs to build strong relationships with people. Also, supervising the making of the firm's logo and yet Travis was not a designer shows his level of mistrust in the people he had employed. The constant scandals surrounding Kalanick prove that he is not an integral person and therefore cannot be considered a transformative leader.
Transactional Leadership
Transactional leadership involves an organized system with rewards for excellent performance and penalties for failures in the system. Such leaders usually set criteria for their workers based on some requirements that are defined. Based on such definition Travis Kalanick does not fit in as a transactional leader. Travis failed to incorporate the reward-penalty system into the company and thus affirming the cause of the numerous issues that have continuously faced his firm. In the past, Travis was noted to pay keen attention to details such as office décor at the expense of other pressing matters (Somerville, 2017). Instead of being involved in minor details he could have delegated duties and then reward good performance. The same should have applied when he went supervising the making of the logo or rejected the Uber Eats logo just because he was not involved (Somerville, 2017). Most of the people who were approached to work as the COO for Travis say that they would feel as if they worked with one of the hands tied. Transactional leader let workers become self-driven but in turn, make a system with requirement and expectations for each employee. By creating a reward/penalties system, workers will most definitely do their best to meet the set targets to get rewarded (Marques, 2016). Penalties reduce gross misconduct in the company and ensure discipline is maintained. Travis should have been able to bargain for good rewards for the subordinates achievements and give them a free and fair working environment hence promoting growth without burdening himself so much regarding management.
Overview of Travis Kalanick’s Leadership
Travis Kalanick is a leader who despite all the negative publicity has achieved much. Travis has a charisma that allows him to believe in what he wants to make and irrespective of all odds he has accomplished. He can convince people what he wants thus swaying them to buy into his ideas. Travis is said to speak like a salesperson. He has been able to keep the company's investors even in the midlist of massive criticism due to ethical issues that face the company. His determination has helped the firm grow in spite of all the challenges. However, his attitude toward his employees is terrible and would continue to hurt the company's reputation. Travis has insecurity which makes him want to make all the decisions and therefore locking out possible better ideas than his.
Recommendations
Kalanick needs to change the way he addresses his subordinates and the general public so that he can gain respect as a leader. He must be able to entrust duties and responsibilities to people who are experts in every department and probably develop a reward and penalties system where employees can be more self-driven to reach the preset requirements. It is essential that Travis realizes that he needs people to achieve his goals and therefore empowering them is the only way he will get there. He should embrace transformational leadership where he should create an evident vision, motivate people or his subordinates to buy into his idea, manage the plan and the people. As a result, he will adequately build stronger trust-based relationships with workers (Martin, 2018). It is essential that Travis overcomes his insecurity and expand the circle of power to incorporate new ideas into the company.
Conclusion
Although Uber is a successful multi-billion corporation, its success may not be long-lived due to ineffectiveness in leadership. Travis Kalanick's inappropriate behavior may soon ruin the reputation of the company which will most definitely affect its operations and profitability. It is essential that the firm embraces transactional and transformational leadership which would keep the staff not only motivated but also happy, thus attaining the set goals. Despite Travis being faced off as the CEO, he still needs a radical change in his leadership skills since he is still an influential stakeholder of the company.
References
Fast Co
(2015). Travis Kalanick, the fall and spectacular rise of the man behind Uber. Retrieved from https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1860723/travis-kalanick-fall-and-spectacular-rise-man-behind-uber
Marques, J. (2016). Leadership. Taylor and Francis.
Martin, M. (2018). Transformational leadership becoming an inspirational leader. Retrieved from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/transformational-leadership.htm
Somerville, H. (2017). Uber CEO's iron grip poses a challenge in COO search. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-governance/uber-ceos-iron-grip-poses-challenge-in-coo-search-idUSKBN17F1CO?il=0
