Elon Musks Corporate Engagement and Leadership - Coursework Example

• Introduction

Organizational leadership can be defined as the management approach that is dual focused and works towards the betterment of the individuals and the whole organization simultaneously. It also refers to the work ethic and attitude that empowers people t lead an organization from all angles and in a comprehensive manner. Leadership requires one to be in a position to provide inspiration, oversight, objectives as well as other necessary administrative services for the company (Ismail et al. 2011, p.89). Effective leadership requires the leaders in an organization to identify the best leadership styles and also the right tools for making strategic decisions. The paper aims at highlighting organizational leadership and strategic decision-making tools implemented by Elon Musk.

2. Elon Musk’s Corporate Engagement

Elon Musk was born in June 1971 in South Africa but an American business investor, inventor, and engineer. He is the founder of PayPal which was formerly known as X.Com which is the biggest internet payment company. Musk later sold the company to eBay and diverted his attention to Tesla Motors, SolarCity, and SpaceX. SpaceX is a company that is known for its commercialization of space travel while Tesla Motors makes electric cars. However, Musk’s career started in 1995 when they established a web development company with his brother that was called Zip2 (Vance, 2015). It was in 1999 when he founded X.Com the online payment company which merged with another company that had online money transfer called Confinity which led to the company’s name to be changed to PayPal.

In 2001 Musk was drawn towards space exploration and formed SpaceX under the inspiration of ‘Mars Oasis’ that was a project surrounding the idea of greenhouses on Mars. Later in 2003, Tesla Motors was incorporated wherein 2008 during the financial crisis Musk took over the leadership of the company as the CEO, a position that he has held till present. In a bid to help combat global warming, Musk was inspired to come up with the concept of Solar City which is the second largest company in the US in the provision of solar power systems (Mangram, 2012). Through the combination of Tesla Motors, Musk complements for the efforts of fighting global warming through the solar systems.

Elon Musk is also highly involved in other investments where he serves as a competitive innovator and in 2015 created OpenAI which is a non-profit making research company on artificial intelligence. He is the CEO to the company and in order to create complementary companies; he started another company in 2016 called Neuralink that aims at integrating human brain to artificial intelligence. Neuralink is still in the startup stages but Musk is among the top co-founders (Paterson, Luthans, and Milosevic, 2014, p.5). Musk’s managerial and leadership skills are highly effective and have seen to the success of the companies that he has managed and offered leadership.

3. Transformational Leadership in Musk

Musk utilizes a transformational leadership style since his style mainly matches the four strategies described by Bennis and Nanus. The transformational leadership was introduced in 1978 by James Burns where transformational leaders tend to be focused on higher intrinsic needs that transcend individual short-term goals. Transformational leaders tend to display some key aspects that can be traced to Musk's leadership style. Musk portrays some aspect of inspiring motivation, idealized influence, individual consideration, and intelligence (Koesters, Shea, and Satiani, 2017, p.24). Other qualities include vision, trust, social architect and creative self-deployment.

3.1 Musk’s Idealized Impact

Idealized influence can also be referred to as charisma and is the degree to which leaders serve and portray themselves as confident and powerful role models. These leaders also tend to appeal to the followers at a personal and emotional level. Elon Musk through his leadership style shows confidence in the ideas he presents in the simplest ways possible. Elon Musk is not afraid of the investments he makes and does as he says which shows the aspect of self-confidence. Elon Musk is seen making major investments with almost his entire net worth. This shows the level of charisma in him and the manner in which he expects his leaders to follow. Through an attributional theory, the manner in which Musk exposes himself to risks provides an insight to his followers on the underlying motives that allow the followers to have a prediction of the probable future events.

3.2 Inspiring Motivation

This is the extent to which leaders manage to articulate and establish inspiring visions and appealing to the followers. When SpaceX faced a catastrophic loss Musk came to save the company by taking over the leadership. Through inspiration Musk managed to turn the company around by first identifying the faulty manufacturing and turned around the company’s success (Hastrich, 2015). The move by Musk moved the followers and also helped them solidify their trust in the leaders. This example shows how Musk has the ability to articulate and impact his vision to his followers as well as build on their commitment towards the goals of the company. Musk showed the ability to help his followers face adversity and inspired them to take challenges headfast.

3.3 Musk’s Intellectual Simulation

The aspect of intellectual simulation is among the top attributes in transformational leaders. This is described as the degree to which the leaders challenge the assumptions of the followers, takes risks and solicits the ideas brought forth by the followers. Musk embraces risky decisions and losses as well as makes assumptions that are highly contradicting. Musk invested his entire wealth in a business that is highly risky and capital intensive.

3.4 Individualized Consideration

This is the extent in which leaders attend to the follower’s needs and acting as the mentor to and coach to them. Musk is a leader who embraces this attribute and does it in a unique way. Musk does this through the setting of unrealistic goals and working with the followers hand in hand. He pushes his employees hard and takes them through the harshest conditions at work which creates room for the employees to achieve difficult goals and exceed the set expectations. SpaceX’s culture is also guided by a phrase that likens the company to the Special Forces who embrace impossible decisions. Through motivational talks and generalized talks to the employee’s faults, Musk portrays the complete attributes of a transformational leadership.

3.5 Visionary Leader

It is evident that Musk is guided by the vision of a different world and transformational technological machines. Musk is guided by the vision that the world the world shall turn into a planet that uses no fossil fuels but rather a maximization of the application of green energy. Musk’s dream also incorporates a concept of ideas of foreign planets exploration and also building territories on Mars. Transformational leaders aim at simplifying and making their dreams attractive to the followers where this vision can be seen as beneficial, simple and attractive. But most importantly, transformational leaders prefer engaging their dreams despite the fact that they are attractive or unattractive to the others. For instance, Musk’s dream of space exploration does not make sense to most but he drives it ahead.

3.6 Musk as a Social Architect

Through Musk's achievements, he has managed to inspire his employees in all the ventures he has made. For instance the development of the Tesla S electric vehicle as well as the launch of the SpaceX Falcon Rocket he has led his employees to accept the new philosophies and group identity. The philosophy that Musk brings forth is for the company to maintain the unprecedented standards of excellence while also creating progress the paths of the abandoned industries.

3.7 Trust

Musk ensures that his followers can count on him even during the most complicated periods. He is highly predictable in uncertain situations by making the most complex and unpredictable decisions. When his company Tesla struggled through the financial crisis Musk contributed towards the funding of the company from his own savings and invested over $100M. This can be described as an aspect of a transformational leader where these types of leaders are described as most effective during crisis and it is thus no coincidence that Musk made such unsound decisions in times like these.

3.8 Creative Self-Deployment

Transformational leaders usually have high levels of self-consideration and mainly focus on aspects such as strengths and ignore the weaknesses. They also submerse themselves in the tasks at hand and the aims of the firms. Elon Musk is popular at embracing decisions that are unpopular and is not shy from his capabilities and usually speaks openly on his will to learn about the complex issues. Finally, he relies on ethical standards, moral conviction and values.

4. Decision Making Tools

It is important to formulate the company’s objectives and goals when starting a business. Strategic planning involves the process by which organizational leaders create missions and objectives as well as identify the strategies to ensure they implement these objectives (Whitehouse and Flippin, 2017, p.7). However, there are multiple tools that can be implemented towards making strategic decisions and Elon Musk can be identified by mostly using cost-benefit analysis and feasibility study to make these decisions.

4.1 Cost-Benefit Analysis

Cost-Benefit analysis is mostly the tool that is commonly implemented and consists of cost assessment and the potential benefits that may arise from a decision based on various courses of action. The user usually chooses the course of action that could result in greater benefits (Boardman, 2008). For instance, Musk sold PayPal since he hoped that by investing in the SpaceX and Tesla Motors would generate more money as the future was transitioning to a green energy driven world. Managers such as Elon Musk use this tool to implement and execute some of the strategies. Before he executes new projects he conducts the possible cost that can be incurred and the benefits that may accrue from a given project.

4.2 Feasibility Study

Feasibility study is the tool that involves assessment of whether projects or certain goals can be achieved and generates profits. This tools helps the managers in the initial planning stages when launching a company or a project in deciding if it is a prudent decision or not. This tool allows the businesses to organize and determine the necessary goals that make the business work and run effectively (Arian et al. 2010, p.67). The manner in which Elon Musk shows confidence in his decisions shows the presence of strategic determination of the possible returns. For instance, the Tesla Motors idea and the Open AI idea show how he evaluates the possible future benefits that may arise and pursues the projects.

5. Conclusion

Elon Musk portrays aspects of transformational leadership through his direct approach to management and decision making. For one, the approach to new decisions as described in the paper show that there is a high level of confidence in his mind setup and involves the followers as well. His directing tactics for the employees also show that he believes in himself and gets the workers to buy into his ideas as well which is highly transformational in nature. The manner in which he conducts himself shows that he implements the cost-benefit analysis tool and the feasibility study tool to make decisions that determine the company’s future. These two tools can be seen from the manner in which he places the philosophies and the objectives of the companies.

6. Recommendations

Elon Musk should try to incorporate a democratic mode of leadership since his leadership style could result in misuse of influence and loss of inspiration. Being a transformational leader means that the leader asserts more of the control and dominance in decision making which could impact negatively on the company. Transformational leaders as seen through Elon Musk embraces risk driving innovation into the company. They tend to show the followers the manner in which they should accomplish certain tasks with vigor and determination. However, too much risk is not healthy and could eventually lead to a destructive outcome for the company. Through democratic leadership, Elon Musk would leave room for other’s contribution and reduce the number of risky decisions made.

Asides a democratic leadership, Elon Musk should ensure that he minimizes excessive pursuit of intellectual ideas that have minimal merit. The decision to SpaceX was superb but faced many setbacks. The reality of agricultural development in Mars is far-fetched but not impossible; however, for its success, it will take enormous resources, manpower and innovation which could be challenging for one company to achieve it all. The resource intensity required could lead the company to bankruptcy or slanted growth. This implies that Musk should ensure that decisions made and projects are undertaken are of more merit to the company which supersedes the intellectual capacity of the ideas.