MGMT 3303
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- Which roles does Musk appear to occupy as a leader of his companies?
Elon Musk has continued breaking barriers and, over the years, with ground breaking technologies that have awed many. Reading through the article, “Elon Musk, Business Leader and Serial entrepreneur,” one gets the picture of a person who has a hold of the industry in his palms. Elon Musk occupies both interpersonal, informational, and decisional roles at Tesla, Space-X, and other companies under his portfolio.
As a manager, the interpersonal role means that Elon Musk can interact with people inside and outside their work unit (Kinicki, and Williams, 2018, pg. 17). Interpersonal functions consist of activities such as being a figurehead, leader, and liaison. Musk’s interpersonal roles are brought out from the text where the author writes that, “Several people who worked for Musk in the past describe him as autocratic and blunt, often to the point of being offensive” (Anonymous, n.d). The statement shows the decisiveness leadership skills that Musk practices. Elon Musk is Space-X and Tesla’s figurehead. It plays a liaison role by working with other people outside the company’s work unit and organization to develop alliances that will help both Tesla and Space-X achieve the organization’s goals (Kinicki, and Williams, 2018, pg. 17).
Another role that Elon Musk occupies at his companies is informational. Elon Musk is always available through his social media handles to respond personally to queries raised by space enthusiasts and Tesla fans and customers. He can answer a random question raised by someone who has very minimal knowledge of how rocket science works (Anonymous, n.d). It shows that he monitors and disseminates information about his company and plays a spokesperson role (Kinicki, and Williams, 2018, pg. 17). As read from the text, it is interesting that he took it upon himself to explain and respond combatively to critics when in 2013, three battery-related fires erupted in Tesla cars (Anonymous, n.d). Such actions show that Musk has a grip on the communication and messaging of his companies.
For a company like Space-X, decision-making is a huge responsibility given the business’s nature and complexity. from the text, Tim Mueller, the director of propulsion systems at SpaceX, is quoted saying that, “If you want to change something of fix something, just talk to Elon. It keeps the signal-to-noise ratio high” (Anonymous, n.d). This clearly shows the level of the decisional role that Musk holds in the company. It also shows that employees under him believe in his leadership as an entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator (Kinicki, and Williams, 2018, pg. 17).
- What would you perceive to be a key advantage, and a fundamental disadvantage, of reporting directly to Musk?
Elon Musk is identified as a firm believer in simplicity in technical design, manufacturing, and running an organization. The text also illustrates Musk’s Space-X as an organization with a much simpler bureaucracy with Elon Musk as the primary decision-maker (Anonymous, n.d). To understand the key advantages or disadvantages of reporting to Musk, it is prudent to know the different management theories that try to figure out the best management models, especially in bureaucracy (Kinicki, and Williams, 2018, pg. 50). One of the best management theories available is Max Weber and the rationality of bureaucracy theory. Max Weber felt that a better performing organization should have the following five bureaucratic features: a well-defined hierarchy of authority, formal rules and procedures, and a clear division of labor, with parts of a complicated job being done by specialists (Kinicki, and Williams, 2018, pg. 50). The last two bureaucratic features included impersonality, without reference or connection to a particular person, and a career on merit (Kinicki, and Williams, 2018, pg. 17).
We can use Max Weber’s rationality of bureaucracy theory in getting the critical advantage and disadvantages of reporting directly to Musk. The essential benefit is that by registering to Musk, there is a clear and well-defined hierarchy of authority and formal rules and procedures that pass-through Musk before being implemented. A key disadvantage of reporting directly to Musk is that there appears to be impersonality, meaning there is a reference or connection to a particular person in the decision-making process; it constrains lower-level managers and employees to be independent make decisions without referencing Elon Musk. This type of leadership tends to lead to stifled innovation.
- What is your overall evaluation of Elon Musk as both a business leader and a leader in society?
It can be limiting Evaluating Musk as both a profitable business and societal leader. To begin with, business needs people with resilience and entrepreneurial minds just like Musk here. His ability to spot the market gap and reason out filling it makes him a real business leader. The fact that he doesn’t just sit down to wait for things to happen. He goes for them, and he is not stopped by failure. He does not shrink in the face of failure. For instance, in 2013, when three battery-related fires erupted in Tesla cars, Musk did not shy off from telling his critics off (Anonymous, n.d). Elon Musk is a purpose-driven leader given the line of the business portfolio he chose to engage in. it is not every day that someone wakes up and decides to undertake projects to colonize other planets. It must have taken determination and creativeness in such massive undertakings. He has said that he didn’t start Space X because he thought building rocket ships would be great for his portfolio; Space X is his way of making his mark on the world. By setting exceptionally high standards, Musk’s place in societal leadership is sealed. He achieves this by ensuring that his business model is set up to solve the world’s problems. For instance, Tesla motors aim to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and achieve one hundred percent electric-driven vehicle. His Space-X business portfolio aims at recycling the rockets to minimize rocket debris and dumping while at the same time cutting down costs. Such measures have earned him worldwide recognition for his conservation measures.
- What factors might Musk, similar to the late Steve Jobs, have going for him as a leader that people will put up with his blunt approach to people?
The flexible leadership theory of Yukl contends that organizational performance is more robust when the influence of middle and lower-level leaders on crucial decisions is commensurate with their unique, relevant knowledge. It is clear that Steve Jobs was a leader in his business portfolio and was knowledgeable of the various components and parts of a gadget he wanted to bring in the market. He was not merely a boardroom CEO waiting for engineers to bring the end product for him to launch it. There is a fascinating article written about Steve Jobs that reads;
“It’s the night of November 9th, 2001. The iPod is launching the following morning. Steve Jobs, sits down with a model, plugs in the earphones and listens to a song…only something isn’t right…. That night, that team of engineers stayed up into the night redesigning and rebuilding the jacks for 100 demo iPods just so they clicked into place correctly. This they did and the iPod went on to revolutionize the way we listen to music” (Peirce, 2017).
Such leadership style is replicated in Elon Musk, who is described by many of the current and former employees of both Tesla and Space-X as a person who is “autocratic and blunt, often to the point of being offensive” (Anonymous, n.d). Both Elon Musk and Steve Jobs stand firm in their beliefs, but they are not rigid (Peirce, 2017). In presenting their employees such a difficult task, and giving them the freedom and responsibility to take ownership of it, Jobs and Musk allowed their employees to work both for themselves, and their employers (Peirce, 2017). Two leadership traits that can be used to describe the two industry leaders are that they are opinionated, yet adaptable, a requisite for success in any industry and especially, a technology-related sector that requires constant adaptations to the ever-changing technological aspects (Kinicki, and Williams, 2018, pg. 549).
- Incidentally, do you think that Musk’s reliance on problem-solving ability as a criterion for hiring would be helpful, or harmful, to new graduates? Explain your reasoning.
Musk’s reliance on problem-solving ability as a criterion for hiring rather than industry-relevant experience helps new graduates. The business model of SpaceX and Tesla uses new techniques and technologies from the design conceptualization to the production line and the final product. Most of the technologies are being applied for the first time and is designed and redesigned in house. Getting employees who can solve current problems and improve the existing technologies to be more efficient is the main idea that Elon Musk considers in his hiring (Anonymous, n.d). For instance, space exploration is a somewhat rigorous science; what it needs is refining and improving on efficiency, getting employees who can crack research and scientific models on how to travel to the International Space Station using the minimal resources in terms of fuel and other related resources need problem, solvers rather than experience in the field. On further reading, management theories such as the contingent viewpoint support Elon Musk’s hiring method. The contingent viewpoint emphasizes that a manager’s approach should vary according to the individual and environmental situation (Kinicki, and Williams, 2018, pg. 58). The hiring method that Elon Musk Used fits the business environment that he is engaged in.
Reference
Anonymous. (n.d) Elon Musk Business Leader and Serial Entrepreneur.
Kinicki, A., and Williams, B. K., (2018). Management: A practical introduction. McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Peirce, A. (2017) Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk Are Great Leaders Because of the Have These Two Opposite Traits. https://www.lifehack.org/598699/the-counterintuitive-traits-of-steve-jobs-and-elon-musk-that-make-them-the-greatest-leaders