The Characteristics, Behavior and Skills of Al-Waleed bin Talal - Essay Example

The paper "The Characteristics, Behavior, and Skills of Al-Waleed bin Talal" is a good example of a business essay. There are various leaders throughout the world who practice and follow different leadership styles in order to benefit themselves and the organizations they represent. The problem is that all these leadership styles do not work in every situation and may result in an ineffective leader. One leader who has impressed the entire world through his actions and his way of leading are Al-Waleed bin Talal. His leadership qualities and practices are quite similar to the qualities and practices of a Machiavellian leader. Although, Machiavellian leaders are mostly criticized, in the case of Al-Waleed bin Talal these leadership qualities have resulted in making him an effective leader.

One of the most important qualities of a Machiavellian leader is that the leader does not makes decisions on the basis of morality and is rather indulged in making decisions on the basis of benefits that those decisions have to offer them (Wren, 2007). This is quite evident in the practices of Al-Waleed bin Talal who has throughout his career invested in organizations that were either on the verge of failure or have already failed. One such organization that the leader invested in and turned around was the Citicorp (Foy, 2013).
Another important character of a Machiavellian leader is that the leader deceives others, is dishonest and creates an inflated image of him. In the case of Al-Waleed bin Talal, the leader has maintained an image of him that is based on fraudulent and dishonest behavior (Wren, 2007). This is because the leader and his company which known as Kingdom Holding has been able to increase the monetary value of the company without proper evidence due to which the increase in their value has taken place. According to Dolan, whenever the Forbes is nearly towards the end of publishing its world’s billionaires list (Dolan, 2013). The Kingdom Holding’s value at the very last moment increases and this increase in valuation is inconsistent with the value of the assets of the company and other fundamentals (Dolan, 2013).

Leaders who follow the Machiavellian style tend to have a higher amount of education as compared to his/her counterparts and this helps them in making sound technical and business-related decisions (Wren, 2007). In the case of Al-Waleed bin Talal, the leader had attained higher-level education. The leader holds both a master’s level and a bachelor's level degree and he attained his master’s degree in the field of social sciences from Syracuse University. On one end is this Saudi leader and on the other end are those Saudi leaders who do have an ample amount of wealth but do not have the required education to use it in the right way.

The characteristics, behavior, and skills of Al-Waleed bin Talal clearly indicate that he practices Machiavellian leadership style. This is because he takes risky decisions and indulges in manipulative behavior such as the acquisition of Citicorp and inflation of the value of the Kingdom Holdings Company. He even practices a Machiavellian leadership style because he has gained an adequate amount of education that is essential to understand the technical details of doing business.