Leadership Business Studies on Elon Reeves Musk
Elon Reeve Musk was born in South Africa and is currently a Canadian American based business magnate, an engineer, an investor and an inventor in the business world. He is also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Technical Officer (CTO) of SpaceX, CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors as well as the chairperson of SolarCity. Furthermore, Musk is the founder of SpaceX and a cofounder of Zip2, PayPal, and Tesla Motors. He is also the brains behind the conceptual high-speed transportation system, commonly referred to as the Hyperloop. At a tender age of 10, Musk was able to discover computing with VIC020 and teach himself computer programming. Despite his success, Musk experienced challenges in his early life, particularly in school. In his early years in school, he came across bullying and at one point, he was admitted in hospital when a group of boys threw him down the stairs and beat him to unconscious level. Initially, Musk attended Waterklook House Preparatory School before moving to Pretoria and graduated later on to Canada in 1989 where he gained a Canadian citizenship through the help of his mother. In these achievements, it is apparent that Musk was a visionary person with leadership concepts as well as exceptional potentials. In understanding the leadership concepts and theories of Musk, this essay shall focus on his achievements
Firstly, Musk represents a social architect leader in all capacities that he has served. In several instances, Musk encouraged his followers to work hard and exercise patience. He was a source of inspiration to his employees. This was evident in most of his ventures, for instance, the Tesla Model electric car in addition to launching SpaceX Falcon. In all these initiatives, he succeeded in mobilizing the workforces and other individuals in accepting his philosophy (Northouse 197). Musk’s leadership role in these values was enhancing exceptional morals of distinction and venturing in opportunities that involved bigger problems and risks. For instance, the case that Dolly Singh narrated regarding Musk’s message to his employees at SpaceX following the unsuccessful initial launch attempt. This was one of the significant moments for Sign and other employees and he acknowledged the significance of visionary leadership that saved the invention. Singh affirms that Musk displayed exemplary leadership that had not been witnessed before through his motivation of employees with courage and ferocity and his statement of never giving up (Sign). This is a big lesson to leaders who need to understand the fact that great opportunities in life come from overcoming bigger problems through vision and resilience.
Another leadership model that Musk demonstrated is trust. In all his engagements and organizational management, Musk was constantly in the forefront to earn the trust of his factions, particularly through being predictable and consistent, notwithstanding any condition or situations that seemed indefinite (Northouse 197). For instance, when Tesla writhed through several financial constraint challenges, Musk continued to provide funds to the organization from his own budget, eventually capitalizing more than $100 million into the electric car organization. they must demonstrate act of having confidence in their organizations they lead, which establishes an opportunity for them to build trust from other employees. This makes employees and other stakeholders to search for the leader’s strategy in addressing the situations.
Musk is a leader with the character of creative deployment of self. He represents the hybrid of transformational leaders with high positive self-regard and focus on their strengths rather than emphasizing on their weaknesses (Cossin and Caballero 5). Musk also has the propensity to engross himself in his responsibilities as well as the principal objectives of his firms. In all his inventions and establishments, Musk is known for his boldness regarding his aptitudes. For example, he expresses himself openly about his aptitude to learn multifaceted topics, such as rocket science through reading. Furthermore, to build on his weak areas, he hires professionals through a recruitment process that ensures proficient experts are brought on board at the same time maintaining excellence in performance. This needs to be the attitude of leaders who want to achieve in their organizations. Leaders need to focus on their strong areas and improve on the weak areas. However, when the situation becomes hard, they can source help from experts.
According to Musk’s leadership theories, it is apparent that ideas are good facets that only become effective after their implementation (Padgett). Therefore, an idea that has been projected and not implemented remains to be an idea. Nonetheless, when an idea is implemented remarkably, it can turn out to be a great business. With regards to Musk, it is evident that effective leaders connect the power of groundbreaking minds, which leads to sound business models that have positive implications financially. In the same manner, leaders currently need to be innovative in ideas and should execute them well. However, they also need to recognize their confines to step aside when others with effective and available capacity need to come in. For example, the Hyperloop was just an idea that that to bear a great positive impact when executed.
Another significant model that leaders need to emulate from Musk is integrity. For example, when Musk needed to begin Tesla organization, he borrowed money from the government. It was just until recently that he managed to repay more than $400 million taxpayer supported loan. Leaders need to follow this form of integrity and remain relevant in the business market.
Despite all these models and concepts of leadership executed by Musk, the durable distinguishing component that is between Musk and his vision and the average transformational leader is the dependence on principled canons, values, and moral views. According to Northouse (201), one of the fundamental advantages of transformational leadership is the ability to have solid focus on the followers’ requirements, ideals, and morals and the ambition to ensure the subjects or employees are moving to the better canons of moral responsibility. Therefore, effective leadership as seen in Musk is enhancing aspects like good customer experience that drives the organizational leaders to set enormously high standards. Furthermore, in order to attain all the facets, leaders, as demonstrated by Musk, need to ensure the wellbeing of the employees through effective leadership and motivation. All organizations’ success is dependent on employees since they are the most involved individuals that together with effective leadership determine the outcomes of organizations. Through effective leadership qualities, Musk has managed to lead several investment successes, particularly after joining Tesla board of directors as the chairperson and other organizational inventions. As an excellent leader, Musk applied leadership theories that enabled him to learn concepts of transformational leadership in enhancing success.
Works Cited
Cossin, Didier and Caballero, Jose. “Transformational Leadership: Background literature review.” Retrieved from https://www.imd.org/uupload/IMD.WebSite/BoardCenter/Web/213/Literature%20Review_Transformational%20Leadership.pdf.
Northouse, Peter G. Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2015.
Padgett, Lauren . Elon Musk: Transformational Leadership in Action. 2015. Accessed 11 November 2016 from https://sites.psu.edu/leadership/2015/03/26/elon-musk-transformational-leadership-in-action/
Singh, Dolly. What is it like to work with Elon Musk? 2013. Accessed 11 November 2016 from http://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-work-with-Elon-Musk