Leadership and Communication Style of Jack Ma - Case Study Example

Question: Identify a recognised leader of today who you admire. Describe their leadership and communication style and explain whether their approach is well suited to a globalised environment. Name of Student Institution Date This being the 21st century which is characterized by increased globalization, business, social, political and organization environment, leadership structure and patterns have changed. To meet the current demand for any organization or institution, effective leadership and communication are essential (Hossain, 2015). Leadership is the process in which a person influences other to achieve a set goal and leads an entity in a manner that enables it to become coherent and cohesive (Sharma & Jain, 2013). Leadership may be viewed into various perspectives. As such, being a leader may require understanding not just a single model of leadership (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2008), as will shall see in the essay. Communication is a process that involves the creation and exchange of ideas, emotions, thoughts, and understanding between a sender and receiver. It is a means of conveying information and making a person to be understood by others (Guo & Sanchez, 2009). Though communication, leaders build and sustain relationships with followers, as well as enhance interdependency. Thus, communication is a basis of effective leadership. Effective leadership and communication strategies enable leaders recognize and predict ways to avoid poor leadership and miscommunication (Nwagbara, 2010). This essay explains the leadership and communication style used by Jack Ma, a Chinese entrepreneur and leader, that have made him a successful leader and which I consider to be well suited to a globalised environment. Before explaining whether Jack Ma’s leadership and communication is suited to a globalized environment, it is necessary to first understand who he is and describe his style of leadership and communication. As mentioned in the introductory section, Jack Ma, also known as Ma Yun, is a great entrepreneur and leader of Alibaba, an online company that specialises in making a business of convections (Adizes & Books, 2004). Although the company started small, it has since expanded into the Alibaba Group under Jack Ma’s leadership. Like his company, Jack Ma originated from humble beginnings as his parents were musicians and story tellers (Ee & Rashad, 2015). Being the founder and CEO of Alibaba, Jack Ma has made the company successful because of his good leadership and communication styles. Jack Ma experimented with a number of leadership styles before finding the most appropriate one that fit the company. The most interesting aspect of Jack Ma’s leadership is that he willingly recognized when his way of leadership was not working out as expected and changed accordingly, something that defeats most leaders and managers (Ee & Rashad, 2015). Common to most leaders is that they tend to stick with one form of leadership style until it becomes ineffective, leading to dissatisfaction among followers. This did not happen to Jack Ma as he is known to have applied different leadership styles based on the prevailing situation. He was successful in leading Alibaba to greatness until May 2013 when he resigned as CEO of Alibaba group. Therefore, let us now describe Jack Ma’s journey to being a successful leaders. In his leadership at Alibaba, Jack Ma demonstrated autocratic leadership style. During his early times in the company he was the only one who made decisions without much concern for the subordinates. At the end of it all, decisions only reflected his opinions and personality, which projected an image of a well managed business (Ee & Rashad, 2015). When the company was launched for the first time, Jack was only the top man and this made his take an autocratic position. He was the only person who had much knowledge in internet and therefore he had to start by proving to his family and friends about the existence of the internet. He did this by using a computer to show them a web page and then had the task of proving that his business, though non-traditional, could work. Since Jack did not have someone to help, Ee & Rashad (2015) explain that he made all executive decisions and business matters that involved the company. Nevertheless, as the company grew, more qualified people were attracted and wanted to work for the company. They came with new ideas and expertise which meant that Jack Ma had to change his leadership and communication style. As a leader and CEO to the group, Jack started to share responsibility with his managers and co-directors whom he trusted (Ee & Rashad, 2015). This is a leadership style that is more conductive and which allows people to work in closely with a leader (Gough, 2014). According to Sharma et al. (2013) decisions made under this type of leadership considers the best interests of employees a part from that the business. Additionally, communication is entirely downward and it encourages feedback to management in order to maintain morale among employees, thus an improvement to autocratic leadership (Guilford, 2014). Important to note is that Jack Ma recognized when he should change in his leadership style so as to keep pace with developing needs of Alibaba Company. At this point, he made decisions knowing well what he desired and viewed as best by his employees and consumers. He acted confidently and promoted growth with agreement. The mostly used style of leadership used by Jack Ma in his entire career at Alibaba Company is persuasive style, which he embraced after deeply reflected on the need to improve the greatness of the company (Li, 2008). Upon the company expanding to a global scale requiring more foreign partners, Jack Ma needed to understand also the political aspect of heading the company, besides the business aspect. Therefore, he used manipulation to keep investors happy and gave them strong positions in the company (Ee & Rashad, 2015). According to Prez-Cerezo (2013), a persuasive style of leaderships involves a leader maintaining control over decisions, but spends more most of his time working closely with followers to persuade them to support the decisions based on their benefits. There are situations where a company benefits much from a leader who is persuasive; especially when a task to be accomplished is complicated to the extent that is needs input from an expert as explains Schepp & Ebraray (2010). In such a scenario, a leader who is an expert may take the initiative to explain to other why things are happening in a particular way, but it would remain person’s responsibility to ensure things are done. Thus, Although Jack Ma ran his company based on essentially autocratic style of leadership, he was still concerned with the needs of his subordinates (Ee & Rashad, 2015), something that helped Alibaba Company to remain relevant in current modern market. On many occasions, Jack Ma demonstrated democratic leadership style while at Alibaba Company. He did this to the understanding that combining democracy and power would definitely bring about good results in his company (Shearer, 2012). According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (2013), a leader who is democratic in an organizational setting allows the employees to participate in decision making process, thus everything is agreed by many. Additionally, communication is extensive from leaders to employees and from employees to leaders. This style of leadership leads to job satisfaction, improved performance, and increased participatory contribution, from the business perspective (Sin-Kwok, 2010). Nevertheless, this leadership style is likely to slow down the process of making decisions if not streamlined. In fact, focus on consensus is likely to prevent management from implementing the right decision. Interestingly, under the leadership of Jack Ma, Alibaba Company experienced very few poor decisions because of his ability to use various aspects of every leadership style (Ee & Rashad, 2015). In his entire career at Alibaba, Jack Ma was always hard working and was often seen around the company he founded. He was familiar to his employees and the media and he always took a front seat for everything in regards to Alibaba. Ideally, he became a leader by example. As a proactive listener, Jack Ma tried to collect as much information as possible in order to handle challenging situation as they occurred (Ee & Rashad, 2015). By actively listening to the suggestions and concerns of his employees, Jack Ma was able to avoid possible crises before they occurred. According to Watling (2014), this is management by walking around approach that allows a leader to acquire unfiltered and real-time information concerning policies and processes that formal communication channels often left them out. However, he notes that the leader must act as a counselor and coach, but not a director. By sometimes leaving responsibilities for making decisions to employees, Jack Ma experienced the fastest response time possible. For instance, when eBay petitioned to shut down of taobao.com because of encroaching on their user base, Alibaba’s team of management moved in swiftly in order to handle the problem without waiting their leader to decide over the issue (Ee & Rashad, 2015). In deed, Jack Ma had trust in his management team and by allowing them to make decisions on issues that required immediate response is a demonstration that he valued their contribution to the company. According to Ojo (2009), communication plays an important role in the success of organizations. Successful CEOs establish organizations that attract individuals who are high performers. One essential way organization leaders achieve this is enhance trust mutual sharing of information. As a leader, Jack Ma uses effective, yet simple style of communication (Sterling, 2014). Whenever he communicates, Jack Ma displays the ability to share the business vision in a simple and clear way, without using technical terms. For example, in one his speech about Alibaba, Jack Ma stated that people who are ignorant are never afraid and that his company was experiencing three things; they had no money, they did not aware of technology and they never planned (Sterling, 2014). Adhering to ‘the rule of three’, Jack attracted the attention of the audience and made them eager to hear what made Alibaba a successful company globally, which he indicated in his speech as being courageous and hard work. As a former teacher, Jack’s talent as a good communicator increased his courage, ambition, and strategic know how (Ee & Rashad, 2015). Jack Ma is known to use analogy to communicate a point to his audience which works out well for him and portrays him as a true leader. While discussing about defeating eBay, a competitive company in China, he termed eBay as a shark in the ocean while Alibaba as a crocodile in River Yangtze, therefore fighting in the ocean would make them lose while fighting in the river would make them winners (Sterling, 2014). Such communication not only grabs the attention of the audience, but also inspires belief (Ojo, 2009). Jack Ma has become a successful leader because of his ability to attract the attention of his audience and relate to his vision. Additionally, he used interactive communication in his company by not just focusing on communicating contents or exchanging information, but also considered the aspect of social relations with employees (Guo & Sanchez, 2009). In this regard, employees fully understood the expressions he relayed in the information he shared with them because of involving them in the communication process. In regard to the description of Jack Ma’s leadership and communication style, the question anyone would ask is whether his approach is well suited to a globalised environment. In deed, I consider his approach to leadership and communication appropriate to the current globalized world because of various reasons explained in the proceeding paragraphs. According to Hossain (2015), leadership in the modern world varies in style and every leader adopts a particular style of leadership. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the attitudes, behaviours or methods leaders use to deliver their leadership may be effective for some people while at the same time counterproductive for others. Great leaders in the modern world recognize their own style of leadership and communication and take the initiative to learn how it comes across their employees (Clark, 2010). This was evidence in Jack Ma’s style of leadership which he changed as his company grew and expanded. He often realized the need to change his leadership style in order to fit into the needs of his employees and the company at large. Jack Ma learnt to bend his leadership style to the people he led and this enabled them to communicate and behave in motivational and inspirational way, which explains his success as a business leader in the modern world. People in the globalized environment are interested in a leader who is honest. Honesty, according to Shearer (2012) is the integration of inner values and outward actions. Whenever, working as a team, a leader should prove to be an honest soul, something Jack Ma demonstrated when he was a leader and CEO of Alibaba Company. Jack was trusted by his employees as being honest, not simply as a person, but as a leader who was worth following. He treated his employees how they expected to be treated (Ee & Rashad, 2015). A leader in a globalized environment is highly ethical and beliefs that effort, honesty, and reliability is a basis for success. Such a leader embraces these values openly leaving no room for suspiciousness over their integrity (Schepp et al., 2010). Jack Ma appreciated the fact that his company and employees reflected their existence as a business entity. Therefore he made ethical and honest behaviour an important aspect in his leadership, hence moving Alibaba to much greatness. To leader successfully in a globalized environment, a leader must be visionary, one of the features of Jack Ma’s leadership and communication style. As Agbor (2008) argues, leaders must be guided by a vision, with a clear picture of where they are heading and have a strong understanding of what success means and how best they can achieve it in order to thrive in the contemporary business environment. However, Agbor (2008) notes that it is not adequate to have a vision, but it must be shared with others and acted upon. In his leadership, Jack Ma had the passion to work toward the vision of his company with open mind and directed his actions and employees actions toward making the company great across the globe, which he successfully did (Watling, 2014). As a visionary leader, he inspired employees, motivated them and created sustainable value for Alibaba, which are true qualities of leadership in the globalized environment. In deed, Jack Ma was successful in aligning his company around a clear and achievable vision and for this reason he is considered one of the greatest leaders, not only in China, but across the globe. In the modern business world, individuals want to be inspired and this is achievable through inspirational leadership, which was evident in Jack Ma’s leadership and communication style while the CEO of Alibaba. According to Clark (2010), inspirational leaders tell people how their company would change the world. They take the initiative to show their employees the big picture and also assist them have a wider focus on issues and understand how they fit into the big picture (Hossain, 2015). Jack Ma often inspired his employees and challenged them by setting for them standards and expectations that were high and attainable. He inspired people by focusing on the current issues and future goals. He maintained their spirits high by appreciating their hard work (Gough, 2014). Additionally, to be successful in the globalized environment, Denti & Hemlin (2012) argue that a leader must inspire the people he or she works with so that they become committed to their organization to help it achieve its goals. For Jack Ma, he did a lot to inspire his team to work towards success and there is no doubt Alibaba is currently ranked among the best internet-based company across the world. Effective leadership in the globalized environment also requires a leader to be able to communicate well to others (Denti & Hemlin, 2012). As we explained earlier, Jack Ma is an effective communicator, making him an appropriate leader in the modern world. According to Hossain (2015), people working in modern organizations need to be motivated to give their best always and work towards the same goal to make their organizations competitive in the global business world. One of the ways in which to make this possible is through effective communication. Jack Ma demonstrated this during his leadership at Alibaba. He often communicated openly and concisely, which enabled him to clearly and succinctly share what he had on mind with employees and other key stakeholders (Sterling, 2014). Additionally, he made it easy for his employees to remain focused and on track. Jack was a great communicator and this is the reason his leadership and communication style can work well in a globalized environment. Conclusively, the success of an organization relies on its leadership from the time it is founded. As a leader, it pays dearly being dedicated, willing to work hard, being fair to employees, utilizing your skills, acknowledging others, and being flexible, especially when striving for greatness in a globalized environment. Seeking for assistance in areas you lack answers makes you an aware and good leader. Jack Ma proved to be such a leader and the success of Alibaba group of industries is highly attributed to his leadership. Effective leadership in the modern world requires being honest, visionary, inspirational, and good communicator, attributes that are evident in Jack Ma’s leadership and communication style. In this regard, we conclude by stating that Jack Ma’s approach to leadership is in deed well suited to a globalized environment. 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