130029

Abhijit Chokshi

MNGT 320

MNGT320

RETHINKING LEADERSHIP

Abhijit Chokshi
130029
Word count: 2084

130029

Abhijit Chokshi

MNGT 320

Leadership:
There are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept (Bass, 1981). Leadership may be considered as the process (act) of influencing the activities of an organized group in its efforts toward goal setting and goal achievement (Stogdill, 1950: 3). Leadership is the accomplishment of a goal through the direction of human assistants. A leader is one who successfully marshals his human collaborators to achieve particular ends. (Prentice, 1961: 143) Leadership is that process in which one person sets the purpose or direction for one or more other persons and gets them to move along together with him or her and with each other in that direction with competence and full commitment (Jaques & Clement, 1994: 4). The crucial aspect behind each organizations success is the leader. Leaders apply their leadership attributes such as ethics, values, beliefs, characters, skills and knowledge to carry out the process of leadership (Bass, 1990). There are diverse theories that explicate how people become leaders. The oldest theory is the great man theory which assumes that the capability for leadership is innate. According to this theory, the great leaders are born, not made. The trait theory assumes that there are certain qualities in individuals that make them leaders. There are diverse leadership styles that describe the qualities of leaders. Leaders alter these leadership styles based on the situation conferring to situational leadership theory. The transformational theories focus upon the relationship between leaders and followers in which the leader motivates and inspires the subordinates. (Kendra cherry, 2012) The purpose of this assignment is to outline the leadership skills of Michael Dell , the chairman and CEO of Dell (the prominent online PC retailer). Dell Inc. is an American MNC based in Round Rock, Texas, USA. It was founded by Michael Dell in 1984 at the age of 19. The company develops, sells and supports computer and related products and services such as HDTVs, printers, cameras, MP3 players. The company is one of the chief information technology corporations in the world. According to the fortune magazine Dell Inc. is the 38 th largest company in United States. (dell.com, 2014)

130029

Abhijit Chokshi

MNGT 320

Brief Life History:

Michael Saul Dell was born on 23rd February 1965 in Houston, Texas, USA. His father was an orthodontist, his mother a financial consultant and stockbroker. From an early age, Michael Dell was fascinated by both business and electronics, and couldn't wait to combine his two passions. Only at the age of eight, he applied to take a high school equivalency exam, hoping to get out of school and into the business world faster. Being a technology enthusiast, at the age of 15, he disassembled his first computer and reassembled it to see if he could make his personal computer. In the first year of university at the University of Texas, he began his entrepreneurship journey with only $1000 capital. His idea was to sell straight to customers instead of selling through the third party, which made his product way cheaper than the competition. He started selling personal computers from his university dorm as per the customers requirement. Consequently, this reduced the storage cost and allowed him to build customized PCs based on customers need. He left university to focus on his novel venture PCs limited which was later listed as Dell Computer Corporations in 1988. In 1992 he became the youngest CEO after Dell Computer Corporation was listed as one of the largest 500 companies in the world on the fortune 500. Ranked as the 44th richest man in the world, he has net worth of around $14.6 billion. He managed the company for almost 20 years till 2004 when he resigned from the CEO post and became the chairman of the board of directors of Dell. However, he returned to manage the company as a CEO and replaced Kevin Rollins in 2007 at the request of the board due to 9% drop in the dell stock performance. With the intention of improving the life of children in USA and India, Michael and his wife Susan have formed the Michael and Susan Dell foundation. (Kasey Wehrum, 2009)

Achievements:
According to fortune 500, Dell Inc. is ranked 41st among American companies based on annual revenue. At the age of 27 he became the youngest entrepreneur to have his corporation listed in the fortune magazines list of top 500 companies. At the age of 24 he received entrepreneur of the year award from Inc. magazine. He was also declared Top CEO in America from worth magazine. Recently he was awarded CEO of the year from financial world magazine. In 2005 Forbes magazine identified Michael Dell as the 4th richest man in United States.

130029

Abhijit Chokshi

MNGT 320

Leadership Qualities:
Michael Dell possesses following leadership Qualities: 1. Farsighted: the fundamental idea behind Dell Computer Corporation was to offer computing technology in a more efficient way. The key question in his mind was how can we make the process of buying computers better? He had a flawless vision and at all times he focused on it. Throughout his college days, it was his dream to beat IBM. He did eventually achieve this goal in the subsequent years when he started his own business. He surpassed IBM in sales by recording revenue of about $7.8 billion a year. He has a distinctive business philosophy and a powerful vision for the future. He advocates and believes in committed customer service, low-price, high quality, and custom-made machines in his company.

2. Adaptive and Flexible : Dell decided to share his power with his long-time partner Kevin Rollins after realising that he did lack all the right skills to transform his business into a multi-product and multi-geography establishment. A novel leadership model emerged under which there were two CEOs in one company. This model indeed involved diverse risks. However Dell believed in what Charles Darwin said, It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change. 3 Quick Learner: Michael Dell firmly believes that failing fast is the key to success. In one of his interviews he said, One of the first things I learned, was that there was a relationship between screwing up and learning: the more mistakes I made, the faster I learned.

4. Creator of Conducive and collaborative environment: He practised downward consultation with the purpose of gathering opinions while deciding the accurate plan of action. He preferred all of his employees to be participative while deciding the plan so that they are motivated towards accomplishing the goal.

130029

Abhijit Chokshi

MNGT 320

Leadership Styles:
A leadership style refers to patterns of behaviour and actions leaders use to achieve the desired outcomes. Leadership style defines how to set standards for a team, develop the teams short-term and long-term goals, understand employees, motivate them, give them feedback, reward them as well as punish them. Michael Dell has his peculiar leadership style; however I believe he is more of a transformational leader. Transformational leadership embraces change. Change can be in the form of innovation which comprises exploring novel opportunities. Michael has a robust capacity to alter the situations and manifest something innovative to benefit the organization. Due to intense and cut-throat competition in personal computer space, there is always a need of continuous transformation in the strategies. With the transformational leadership style of Michael, he kept up with the changing market conditions still making profits. Michael Dell has revolutionized the way computers are sold. He is committed to providing finest products and services with a continuous holistic improvement. He moved in business with barely any managerial knowledge, but the unique thing about him is his charisma making him a charismatic leader. He motivates employees by gaining their respect and loyalty. For instance, in the initial days of his company he used to hang out with his employees, who he perceived to be shy. He follows a situational leadership style as he changes his leadership style conferring to the situation to fit the circumstances of his organization. He is an affiliative leader who generates harmony and builds emotional bonds. Individuals working in DELL like him and have a sense of loyalty towards him. He has managed the company since its foundation successfully and he is known as a warm guy with noble characters. He is emotionally attached to his employees. For instance, when Kevin Rollins became the CEO, the performance of the employees got affected and Dell had to come back. He is a peoples man and for him people always come first . Affiliative leader is responsible to heal gaps in a team or motivate people during stressful circumstances. For example, in April 1993, when John Medica was put in charge of the notebook division at DELL, several products got void as the development of these products was taking longer time than anticipated. It was decided that only Latitude XP will be produced. The engineers were de-motivated since they spent a lot of time and energy developing these products. Michael Dell reinforced the dells strategy in order to motivate the engineers and encouraged them to pull together to make Latitude XP a success. Michael Dell is definitely a democratic leader who forges consensus through participation. He believes in collaboration, team leadership, communication and getting valuable input from employees. According to Michael, business is about building teams and talent in the organization. The diversity of ideas and input from all the team members helps in making better decisions and is the most important component of success. When some of the products failed or had to be scrapped Michael motivated the team to work hard on the next product. His democratic leadership can be seen when he called an absolution after he regained full control of DELL as a CEO in 2007. The managers and executives at Dell were encouraged to bring problems to him without any fear of reproach.

130029

Abhijit Chokshi

MNGT 320

He also is a bit of an authoritative leader as he has a clear goal and always stays focused on it. He was autocratic while he made some important decisions in his early life. But later he became participative when he shared his management with Kevin Rollins.

Conclusion:
There are numerous individuals who do not advocate the leadership style of Michael Dell. According to them his style of leadership has led to decrease in innovation as most of the computer companies nowadays are focussed on reducing cost to match dells profit instead of coming up with innovative ideas relating to the product. Dells leadership style and business model is concerned with reducing cost. He is considered as a worthy businessman but not an innovative leader. A successful leader doesnt follow any specific style instead he alters his style of leadership along with the situation. The business environment is frequently changing and a good leader must respond in an adaptive way. Every leadership style has its pros and cons. Therefore the most important thing is to use the right style at just the right time and in the right measure. The most vital learning from this assignment is that successful leaders have a clear goal and vision. Leaders motivate their subordinates to follow the same vision and organizational goals. Michael Dell has no fear of confessing his incapability and on every occasion he misses some skills he gets someone capable of doing the job to help him manage the business. It is rightly said by Theodore M. Hesburgh The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You cant blow an uncertain trumpet.

130029

Abhijit Chokshi

MNGT 320

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Administrator (2009) Michael Dell - The Man Behind DELL. [online] Available at: http://www.apexinstitute.ac.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=34&Itemid=28 Mar 2014]. [Accessed: 3

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