Leadership Styles and Characteristics
Leaders are often unique. According to Forbes, effective leaders possess the following characteristics: honesty, delegation, communication, confidence, dedication, a positive attitude, creativity, intuition, inspire, and approach. Leaders that do not possess the aforementioned characteristics are referred to as ineffective leaders. The study will compare and contrast Elon Musk, an excellent leader, and Martin Winterkorn, an inept leader. My management style will also be discussed.
Elon Musk vs. Martin Winterkorn
Elon Musk now serves as the CEO of Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and SolarCity. Martin Winterkorn was previously the CEO of Volkswagen AG. Because both leaders are ambitious, they share characteristics. Elon Musk has introduced many strategic plans which are influencing the growth of the companies he is leading. For instance, in March 2016 Elon Musk talked about new products to be introduced by the company such as the building of the gigantic factories. This happened at Tesla Design Studio as he talked about the exhibition of model 3 car (Muller, 2016). As the former leader of Volkswagen, Martin was also ambitious as through his leadership he wanted the company to become the world's largest carmaker. He wanted to achieve his ambition goal by entering the United States market (Glazer, 2016).
Differences in Leadership Styles
The differences between the two leadership are the nature and qualities of their leadership styles. Elon Musk is a transformational leader while Martin Winterkorn is an authoritarian leader. Elon leads by example. As he wants to influence the expansion of the electricity car industry, he allows other interested auto manufacturers to use the company's patents (Muller, 2016). This is an example of him being a transformation and a leading by example leader. Elon is also a trustworthy and honest leader. Most of the people he works with them refer him to as reliable. For instance, when Tesla Inc. was faced by financial crises in 2008, he offered the company $ 300 million as collateral from his personal wealth (Johnson, 2008). On the other hand, Martin Winterkorn authoritarian leadership style was influenced by his ambition to enter the United States market and grow to be the world's largest car maker. This influenced the culture of fear in the company due to his pressure. The company was accused of violation from the Environmental Protection Agency as it had fitted 11 million vehicles with the defeat device to meet the emission requirements in the United States (Glazer, 2016). This shows that Martin is not honesty and his communication was poor. Although it was the culture of the organization that discouraged open dialogues and limited checks and balances, Martin could have changed the culture to influence teamwork in the company and maybe this could not have happened (Kingsley, 2015). In this case, I refer Elon Musk as an effective leader in respect to his leadership style and Martin Winterkorn as an ineffective leader in regard to how he led Volkswagen when he was the CEO.
My Leadership Style
My leadership style is the transformational leadership. This is because in the areas I lead whether for instance a group work or project I encourage team work. I also inspire them to work towards achieving the project goal. This is being committed, being there in case the team needs some guidance and information and also being reliable, honest and time conscious. Being a role model to the team I lead is always my first value and this helps me a lot. Although I try my best to be an effective leader I have a weakness in communication. This is because sometimes I tend to be more emotional and end up not giving the right information needed by the team members. This is a challenge I have been going through but to make the best of me in the future, I focus to be always positive and leave my mind focused towards the project instead of other life things when working. This will help me consider the ethical code of conduct in the healthcare sector, an act which will help me be an effective healthcare leader.
References
Glazer, B. (2016). The Biggest Lesson from Volkswagen: Culture Dictates Behavior. Entrepreneur. Retrieved 8 May 2017, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/254178
Johnson, B. (2008). Electric car manufacturer hit by financial crisis. The Guardian. Retrieved 8 May 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/oct/16/alternativeenergy-usa
Kingsley, J. (2015). Fear in the workplace: Why leaders shouldn't run a business the way Martin Winterkorn did - Real Business. Real Business. Retrieved 8 May 2017, from http://realbusiness.co.uk/hr-and-management/2015/11/23/fear-in-the-workplace-why-leaders-shouldnt-run-a-business-the-way-martin-winterkorn-did/
Muller, J. (2016). Forbes Welcome. Forbes.com. Retrieved 8 May 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2016/07/27/elon-musks-tesla-ambitions-keep-growing-and-so-does-the-price-tag/#1fda11051fda
