Leadership Skills and Management Style of Brad Smith - Term Paper Example

Leadership Skills and Management Style of Brad Smith Brad Smith, Intuit’s chief executive officerand president, has been successful in leading the company through various business needs. Intuit’s long-term mission is to provide customers with a simple and improved financial life, and Brad has been profound in making this vision almost a reality (Furr, Dyer, & Christensen, 2014). Brad has led Intuit in developing products and services that simplify the life of close to 45 million consumers, accounting professionals and small businesses. Under his leadership, the company has managed to cultivate an agile and experimental culture regardless of the number of years Intuit has been in business.The essay briefly describes the leadership skills and management style of Brad Smith, and his efforts to drive the Company to a higher market share. Brief leadership background Brad began his entrepreneurship journey in his early years. He was in martial arts starting at the age of 14 and got his black belt by the age of 18. Soon after, he was teaching an entire school with about 150 students. His early life was unbelievably intense due to the self-awareness part of being a black belt. At that point, he knew nothing about entrepreneurship, and that is where his journey began. His dad worked for Nestle for about 26 years and ended up being the mayor of their hometown. He was tough but kind to everybody and treated each one around him like a human being. Brad spent six years in a job doing a range of jobs in marketing, before joining Intuit. He started the Internet division at a time the dot-com was booming and convinced the board to avail US$40 million to be used in signing two e-commerce deals. He convinced the board that it was possible for them to sell more products online than their salesforce could do. The plan did not succeed as planned but the board still trusted Brad to deliver for the company in future endeavors. Brad Smith joined Intuit in 2003, serving as the Vice President as well as the general manager of the Company’s Accountant Central and Developer Network in Plano (Furr, Dyer, & Christensen, 2014). Brad also led Intuit’s Consumer Tax Group from March 2004 to May 2005 in San Diego. In May 2006, he was selected to serve as the senior Vice President as well as the general manager of the Company’s Small Business Division. He was fully responsible for the small business division department of the company and dealt with the portfolio of Quicken, QuickBooks, and the Payroll products. Later in January 2008, Brad was selected to become the president and chief executive officer of Intuit. Leadership Skills and Management Theory Brad leads Intuit into the new century with a strong commitment to the spirit and values of one of the largest financial software companies all over the world. In his journey to developing the company into a sustainable and profitable venture, Bradhas had to change and improve the initial management structure. His efforts have relied on the idea of sharpening the external focus of the company in the marketplace with greater effectiveness, speed and productivity (Roberto, 2013). Brad’s management style is backed up by the contingency theory of management that allows managers to take into account all aspects of the existing situation before making a decision. He describes this form of leadership as the ‘We’ rather than the ‘I’ syndrome. The style involves developing an entrepreneurial mentality and working religiously to get all the employees at Intuit thinking like the top management. Kent thinks that the most important role of a leader is to get the employees chasing the pennies down the hallway just like the owners do. As presented by (Roberto, 2013), Brad strives to lead by example since he believes that every leader out there should utilize the contingency strategy in encouraging employees to act in a similar manner. He values and encourages the power of teamwork and considers the collaborative spirit among all the members of the company to be a motivating factor behind the success achieved by Intuit. He believes and prides in two core values that differentiate the company and provide a reliable environment to offer effective solutions. According to (Roberto, 2013) Brad is stimulated by customer-driven innovations and has the mindset to uncover the most important, but unresolved problems affecting the world. Customers are at the heart of what he inspires his employees to do. One good leadership skill he portrays in the contingency theory of management is his desire to conduct follow-up activities worth 10,000 hours to different homes each year (Lussier & Achua, 2015). Through the visits, Brad together with his employees, get adequate time to observe where their customers live, do business, and even work. Practically, he has visited several coffee shops and home offices in the rural farms of India. Also, he leads Intuit like a startup company regardless of its renowned status. According to (Lussier & Achua, 2015), the size of the company a manager leads does not matter much. What makes a company important is the ability of the manager to eliminate any barriers to knowledge. Through such initiatives, he has created and fostered a culture among his 8,000 employees worldwide. His employees can now take risks and desire to grow their skills through learning from the success and failures they face. He also gives passionate employees adequate opportunities to collaborate on any new ideas in order to solve the problems facing their customers. Brad embraces the “Two-Pizza rule” in keeping the new ideas moving and teams nimble. The approach ensures that none of the product development teams is larger than two pizzas can feed. His daily motivation is to empower his employees to contribute ideas, make an impact, set goals and even challenge them to step out of the comfort zone. Brad realizes the importance of recognizing his employees for the innovative work they contribute towards the success of the Intuit. He does this through various techniques, one of them being the Scott Cook’s annual Innovation Awards. Other platforms include patent rewards, as well as the opportunity for the employees to showcase their work at the Innovation Gallery that is held throughout the year. Motivation Efforts On the basis of motivation, Brad has been very influential in building cross-cultural skills within the company and beyond. He has been at the forefrontin discovering and filling the innovation gap that previous presidents had not realized before. Up to 2012, Brad had managed about $100 million in revenues from the products that did not even exist several years back. He has managed to triple Intuit’s stock of products, and the company has new acquisitions such as the PayCycle and online-based payroll service, and Mint, a web-based financial manager. More importantly, Brad has motivated his employees towards pursuing innovations and making enchanting products such as the SnapTax (David & Murman, 2014). SnapTax is an Android and iPhone app that allows users to prepare and file their simple tax returns without physically touching their computers. One noticeable motivational move was in 2006 when he was still serving as the senior Vice President of the Company’s Small Business Division. He promised his team that he would put on a 1920s bathing suit and jump in a pond, if the employees managed to meet the launchdeadlineset for the latest version of the QuickBooks. Surprisingly, his team met the deadline, and he met his promise by taking a leap. Brad has done a number of things in the name of employee motivation and retention. His efforts are made possible due to the fact that he is a storyteller and also a student of history. He has often been heard telling stories of the great battles, such as that of the battle of Thermopylae to inspire his teams. His employees’ face what is regarded as insurmountable odds and without such motivation, they are likely to fail in the delivery of quality innovations. A different example of how Brad inspires his employees can be seen during a particular challenging launch. He takes it to himself to huddle Intuit managers at a certain retreat in order to develop immediate strategies that can counteract the release of a competitive product by Microsoft. Microsoft’s product was introduced into the market exactly 60 days before the introduction of the latest QuickBooks. Brad ensured each member of his team received a copy of the graphic novel that was based on the battle of the Thermopylae (SUCCESS, 2009). The novel was intended to inspire them and boost their efforts in maintaining more market dominance in accounting software over what Microsoft had released. Through such efforts, he inspired Intuit managers to develop a pre-announcement strategy that was named “Rolling Thunder”. The objective of the drive was to convey to Intuits potential customers that the newer version of QuickBooks was worth waiting for 60 days. Intuit took the risk of sharing the announcement with Microsoft on the same airwaves without succumbing to the competitive advantage developed by the latter. Beyond the storytelling and costumes, there are more powerful motivators that Brad used to inspire his employees. Such include clear goals, a decision-making authority, and giving employees the resources they need to achieve daily tasks. Through these motivators, employees at Intuit found it easier delivering their best efforts and making a difference by developing new and effective solutions. Brad introduced the concept of unstructured time in order to enable small teams to be more entrepreneurial as well as identify the new product ideas (SUCCESS, 2009). In addition, he also brought a strong desire to nurture creativity and innovation among the employees, as well as to reach out to the stakeholders of the company and stay ahead of the market trends. His promotion campaigns came in handy at a time the company was re-branding, and the 25-year-old Intuit was looking forward to the next quarter century. The priorities that developed included the making of Intuit into a more global company, especially since over 37 percent of its customers were already doing business globally. The company has made great progress towards achieving the main goals and objectives and has increased the number of designers by close to 600% (SUCCESS, 2009). Currently, the company holds quarterly design conferences and routinely brings in people who have created beautifully designed products, like the Kayak travel website and the Nest thermostat. Intuit has managed to challenge everyone who works for it, including the accountants and lawyers. Also, the company has introduced new innovative and smart design features that help customers make an emotional connection with the company and increase its market share. Brad Smith understands that great leaders ought to do more than boosting the bottom line. Thus, he does everything possible to motivate, inspire, and empower his employees to do their best. He is good at sharing his insights, ideas, and information through different platforms. Brad uses everything from blogs and social media to email and corporate television. Such open communication enables him maintain an honest and open dialogue with his employees. As part of his communication program, he hosts a 60-minute Q&A session quarterly to build the trust of his employees and customers over the airwaves. His employees are allowed to submit questions prior or during the session. Brad then responds to the questions during the Intuit TV broadcast. He addresses a wide range of topics, ranging from healthcare options to Intuit’s business strategy, and on-campus perks. As part of the mission of making the employees at Intuit feel great and recognized, Brad has an effective strategy to celebrate their service anniversary. These recognition practices exhibit the generosity and thoughtfulness of the company. Each type of employee-recognition practice keeps in mind the type of achievement. For instance, rewards on celebrating the service anniversary are provided in the form of e-mail, and cash Spotlight Award by Brad Smith. In addition, each employee also gets a goody bag at the Indi Development Center that also includes a crystal memento, a box of chocolates, and Rs. 1,000/= Flipkart voucher. To wrap everything up, Intuit also sends each employee a bouquet of flowers to their homes on their service anniversary. Brad is also categorized among the first 150 industry leaders who have embraced blogging as part of the LinkedIn’s new INfluencers program. Through the program, employees see a great opportunity to learn more out Brad, his expectations, and future plan of the company. He shares his thoughts on leadership, data, and innovation with other “INfluencers,” including Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Richard Branson, Deepak Chopra, and Jeff Weiner. Brad adds a lot of humor and candor on his platforms and has inspired most of his employees to follow him on the popular career-oriented site. Conclusion Leadership skill that management holds in every organization plays a significant role in leading the organization to its set goals and objectives. Needless to say, Brad has been very influential in looking for new ways on how to instill design into its customers. To help things along, he has tried to change the layout of the office spaces, and even reduced the number of cubes. More areas of impromptu work and collaboration have also been introduced. The company is also now paying more attention to how its competitors are using design to delight its customers. It is now clearer that design innovations are derived from start-ups that are born in dorm rooms and garages. Today, Intuit is a design-driven, customer-focused, and technology company. References David, M., & Murman, C. (2014). Designing Apps for Success: Developing Consistent App Design Practices. Chicago: CRC Press. Furr, N. R., Jeff Dyer, (. o., & Christensen, C. M. (2014). The innovators method : bringing the lean start-up into your organization. Boston: Harvard Busines Review Press. Lussier, R., & Achua, C. (2015). Leadership: Theory, Application, & Skill Development. Chicago: Cengage Learning. Roberto, M. (2013). How Business Leaders Avoid Conflict (Collection). New York: FT Press. SUCCESS. (2009, March 2). CORNER OFFICE BRAD SMITH. Retrieved from SUCCESS: http://www.success.com/article/corner-office-brad-smith Read More