Dick Smith's Business Success - Case Study Example

Dick Smith: Case Study Student name Course name Institution Date of submission Student Number Introduction A leader, as is generally be explained, is an individual who guides and influences others. Leadership is an essential feature of social and economic change (Antonakis 2011, p.256). Charismatic leaders play a significant role in creating the prevalent state of mind of the society. They also serve as symbols of a society's moral fabric. Likewise, transformational leaders articulate the values that bind the society towards meeting common objectives, and most importantly, they have the capacity to conceives, influence, motivates and articulates societal goals that unite people to purse common objectives (Takala 2005, p.48-9). One such transformational and charismatic leader, as demonstrated in the case study, is Dick Smith. This paper presents an analysis of a case study to establish what has contributed to Dick Smith's business success, Attributes contributing to Dick Smith’s Charisma, and lastly whether Dick Smith is a transformational leader. Question 1: What has contributed to Dick Smith's business success? The key contributors to Dick Smith's business success include his personal philosophy. Dick Smith's personal philosophy anchors in showing gratitude and serving others. As explained in the case study, the philosophy was imparted to him while he was a child. Dick Smith also valued freedom of speech and virtues of hard work. The two values have enabled him to be a dedicated philanthropist, as well as to be a successful businessman. Dick smith's charisma also enabled his business success. As illustrated in the case study, Dick Smith has a personal magnetism that has had a momentous impact on the Australian society. He has a unique capacity to connect with people and win their admiration and respect. It also enabled him to connect with other business leaders hence expanding his influence in the corporate world. Hence, personal philosophy, values, and charisma were significant contributors to Dick Smith’s business success. Krone (2014, p79) views personal philosophy and values as critical for shaping an individual towards life’s later events. His key argument is that childhood contributes to building one’s personal philosophy. Hence, Dick Smith’s upbringing, as showed in the case study, was instilled in him while a child. Krone (2014, p.80) also describes values as principles or things one prefers. In this case, while philosophy and personal values are not similar, they shared certain commonalities that contributed towards Dick Smith’s business success. His philosophies were orientated towards finding total meaning by showing other’s gratitude and service. In fact, he was a selfless individual who was oriented towards realising the good in the society. He was also philanthropic. According to Takala (2005, p48), personal philosophy and values are crucial for the development of altruism, which makes sure that a leader’s behaviours are motivated by an altruistic motive. In turn, altruistic motives, such as need for social affiliation, acquire power, and makes achievements are key drives for a successful entrepreneur who has an understanding of the customers, desire to take risks, and orientation to sacrifice capital for later success (Arham et al. 2013, p117-8). Question 2: Attributes contributing to Dick Smith’s Charisma Dick Smith’s key attributes that cultivated his charisma include his emotional intelligence or emotional attachment to people. His capacity to motivationally, and emotionally arouse others, his capacity to develop follower valences in regards to the vision he articulates, and his capacity to arouse people’s trust, self-esteem and confidence, as well as people’s intrinsic motivation. These attributes have been identified by Antonakis (2011, p.257-8) as key leadership attributes of charismatic leaders. He argues that charismatic leaders tend to have emotional intelligence or emotional attachment to people, which enable them to motivationally, and emotionally arouse others, and to enhance the valences of followers based on the visions or missions they articulate to arouse their trust, self-esteem and confidence, as well as intrinsic motivation. As Takala (2005, p.48-9) explains, a charismatic leader’s attributes are driven by altruistic motives, such as the need for achievement and affiliation. Dick Smith had both qualities. For instance, he had an insatiable desire to network or build affiliation with others. He also desired achievement as means to pursue the good of others. Indeed, Talala (2005, p.49) explains that altruism implies pursuing personal goals for the good of others and is motivated by a sense of duty. Dick Smith also had a secure sense of self-worth and sense, as demonstrated by how he made personal achievements that contributed to his self-worth, such as making the first Trans-Tasman balloon flight in 2000. Takala (2005, 49) argues that individuals who have secured a sense of self-worth and sense through achievements tend to be altruistic, where they tend to take actions for the benefit of others without expecting personal benefits. In the case study, Dick Smith's vision reverberated with protectionism, as he promoted local, rather than international products. For instance, Dick Smith's first food promoted the vision of selling Australian food. His vision has also been to promote national identity, self-confidence, and pride. He also had the capacity to connect his vision to values. In respect to communication, he has a highly emotive speech, articulate, as well as being self-confident. Shamir et al. (1993, p.577) appear to summarise Dick Smith’s attributes in one paragraph. He defines charismatic leaders as self-confident leaders who communicate using highly emotive speech by interpreting the present and past to articulate an ideology, provide a glowing image of the future, amplify certain values, display confidence in others, improve people’s self-worth and esteem and mobilise others for action. Takala (2005, p.48-9) shares a similar ideas, which highlight Dick Smith’s attributes when he points out that a charismatic leader is remarkably self-confident, is highly motivated to achieve and affirm influence, and has a strong conviction in achieving the moral correctness of his beliefs. Question 3: Is Dick Smith a Transformational Leader? Dick Smith is a transformational leader. Evidence provided in the case study shows that Dick Smith vision was aligned with protectionism. He encouraged people to resist the conceptions of internationalism needed in today's marketplace of using foreign goods rather than local ones. Instead, he sought to transform the Australian society into the one that use goods manufactured in Australia. This was evident at Dick Smith Foods, which he claimed was largely concerned with showing Australians how dealing in local goods could still lead to business success. Therefore, he sought to transform the individual values, needs, and aspirations of others to collective interests of the Australian society. According to Antonakis (2011, p.257-9), transformational leadership is oriented towards transforming the followers’ individual values, desires, preferences and needs to collective interests hence they become highly dedicated to the leader’s vision. Indeed, Bass (1990 as cited in Salter et al. 2014, p.1) argues that transformational leadership can be based on one's values. Hence, by leading in transforming the Australian society into a protectionist society through Dick Smith Foods, Dick Smith emerged as not being in charge of consumers, but a member of the society that practiced protectionism. Marques (2007, p.100) points out that transformational leaders’ moral maturity enables them unite with people, in a common enterprise by sharing a history, beliefs, values, and ways of doing things to encourage change. Bass & Avolio’s (1994 as cited in Salter et al. 2014, p.9) argues that once the moral maturity makes one engage in a leadership style, his followers get to willingly interpret the basis of a leader's communication, leading to understand of his motives. This also shows that Dick Smith highly depended on influencing others’ emotions to instil change. In fact, Marques (2007, p.100) explains transformational leadership as a process aimed at changing and transforming individuals by influencing their emotions. Still, emotions are not the only aspects, a transformational leader influences. In fact, Dick Smith’s leadership is described in the case study as being multi-dimensional. Despite being a successful businessman, he is an adventurer, a philanthropist and a social leader. Such multiplicity only leads to one conclusion: apart from influencing people’s motives, Dick Smith’s leadership was symbolic and influence people’s ethics, values, standards, as well as long-term goals. He understood that internationalism would have a significant long-term economic effect on Australians and hence articulated the values for protectionism and practising protectionism through Dick Smith Foods to set the standards. According to Antonakis 2011, p.256-8), transformational leadership is essentially an extraordinary form of influence aimed at motivating or influencing followers to attain more than what the society expects of them. Conclusion The key contributors to Dick Smith’s business success include his personal philosophy, which anchors in showing gratitude and serving others. His values of hard work and freedom of speech and natural charisma were also significant contributors to his business success. Dick Smith’s key attributes that cultivated his charisma include his emotional intelligence. He also can develop follower valences in regards to the vision he articulates, and his capacity to arouse people’s trust, self-esteem and confidence, as well as people’s intrinsic motivation. He is also driven by altruistic motives, such as the need for achievement and affiliation. Additionally, he is self-confident leaders, visionary, and articulate. Dick Smith is a transformational leader. His vision was to reverberate with protectionism by influencing the Australian society. He is oriented towards transforming the followers’ individual values, desires, preferences and needs to collective interests hence they become highly dedicated to protectionism. Reference List Antonakis, J 2011, Transformational and Charismatic Leadership, viewed 17 July 2015, Arham, A, Boucher, C & Muenjohn, N 2013, "Leadership and Entrepreneurial Success: A Study of SMEs in Malaysia," World Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 3. No. 5, pp. 117 – 130 Bass, B 1990, Bass and Stogdill’s handbook of leadership, Free Press, New York Bass, B, & Avolio, B 1994, Improving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA Krone, B 2014, "A Personal Philosophy," Journal of Space Philosophy no 3, no. 2, 79-81 Marques, J 2007, “On Impassioned Leadership: A Comparison Between Leaders from Divergent Walks of Life," International Journal of Leadership Studies, Vol. 3 Iss. 1, pp. 98-125 Salter, C, Harris, M & McCormack, J 2014, “Bass & Avolio's Full Range Leadership Model and Moral Development,” E-Leader Milan vol 2, pp.1-14 Shamir, B, House, R, & Arthur, M 1993, "The Motivational Effects of Charismatic Leadership: A Self-Concept Based Theory," Organization Science, Vol. 4, No. 4, 577-594 Takala, T 2005, Charismatic Leadership and Power, Problems and Perspectives in Management, viewed 17 July 2015, Read More