Leadership Style Of Richard Branson And Steve Jobs Commerce Essay

leadership Style Of Richard Branson And Steve Jobs Commerce EssayThis essay is required to endure a better understanding of leadinghip styles (transactional and transformational leaders styles) from researching on Richard Branson and Steve Jobs success, and reason astir(predicate) diverse types of diversitys (incremental and subject changes) whitethorn occur in an plaque in order to learn change management methods stooge be applied to a real case ( complete(a) company).Although both of the excellent leaders exhibit attri justes of both transactional and transformational leading styles, this essay entrust let on Steve Jobs as a transactional leader and Richard Branson as a transformational leader with three reasons for separately statement.Changes be inevitable for all kinds of organizations and crinkle. This essay will sh atomic number 18 and identify sixer examples (incremental and radical) of changes for separately leader (three examples each type).At last, this essay will discuss the concepts of change management and explain Kotters 8-Step Change Model by applying to a real case ( unadulterated Group).Transactional Leadership VS Transformational LeadershipGood leadership is the key to the success of an organization. Transactional leadership is performance-oriented and transformational leadership is people-oriented. To be to a greater extent specific, transactional leadership involves contingent reinforcement to monitor and justify fol put downs performances by victimisation strengthener and punishment, while transformational leadership tends to inspire and motivate the followers fealty and concentration by leaders charisma.Steve Jobs as Transactional LeaderTransactional leaders characteristic behaviours are (Barbuto, 2005)Contingent RewardContingent reward is actually a usual way that most of the managers use to motivate team ups, create arbitrary competition and improve effectiveness.Steve Jobs had the impressive ability to notice talent and active voice employees and allocate them to the right place within the company. Each year, Jobs took his top vitamin C people on a retreat. It is not only a reward as a vacation, but too an ac companionshipment from STEVE JOBSIn my opinion, acknowledgements from palmy genius would be the best reward for my hard working.Management by exceptionTransactional leaders take actions based on the exceptions (performance) of the employees. Steve Jobs categorised his followers as either geniuses or bozos, and quickly firing those who fall in the latter camp (Greene-Blose, 2012).An an other(prenominal)wise characteristic of transactional leadership would be the entrust for control which is typical Steve Jobs style. His favourite presentation tools were a whiteboard and a sorcerous Marker, which gives him fully control in the conference. After his reinventing apple, Jobs had several weeks of product round sessions. Finally he run out of patience and shouted the team to stop, grabbed a Magic Marker to the white board and wrote d confess quartette words Consumer, Pro., Desktop and Portable. Then he saidHere is what we collect (Isaacson, 2012)This is Steve Jobs, full of power and passion, who gave clear incentives and strategies to his followers with his wisdom and visions.Richard Branson as Transformational LeaderTransformational leaders characteristic behaviours are (Barbuto, 2005)Idealized influenceRichard Branson has become a role model for his followers inside or outside of his virginal Empire by his own passionate and fearless life style. With his own words, You compliments to create something you are proud of That has always been my philosophy of business (Branson), Richard Branson broke some(prenominal) universe records such as the fastest enter Atlantic crossing by boat, the first Atlantic crossing by hot-air balloon, etc. He proved that anything is possible to his followers and the rest of the world with real examples. (Ocker, 2008)Inspirati on motivationRichard Branson is a visionary leader with dreams and hard work attitude which make those dreams come true. At the early power point of Virgin Group business, he once saidI want Virgin to be as salutary- cognise around the world as Coca-Cola. (Branson) After ecstasys of fourth dimension, the brand of Virgin have become world well-known, and c overs many different areas of business which Coca-Cola wound not dare to try. Those kinds of ambitions and courage ties his throng to set downher and close, and leads him to keep on improving Virgin Group serve and products.Individualized considerationRichard Branson business maxim is staff first, customers second and shareholders ternary (Locke, 2009). One of his most famous and interesting story would be the font against British Airways for its protracted libel actions and ended with a settlement of some 600,000 total. After Richard Branson got the m firmnessy, he divided it to all his employees for their hard working .On the other hand, the major reason of Richard Bransons business success is that he takes care of customers necessitate with innovations and consideration, such as placing a rubber ducky in each bathroom of Virgin-owned hotels in order to make guests feel ate home, position Listening Posts in their record broths and allowing customers to listen to entire CDs before purchasing. (Richard Branson Virgin)In general, transformational leadership is considered more friendly and flexible way to organize a company, while transactional leadership is considered more tough and efficient. It is hard to say which one is better. All the good leaders all over the world (include the devil above) have the characteristics of the both leadership styles., such as Steve Jobs charismatic characteristics and ghostly motivating speech skills (Transformational), and Richard Branson strict management ways on the lower level position in the organisation (Transactional). Transformational leadership does n ot interchange transactional leadership but improves the effectiveness of transactional leadership from a different angle. (Bernard, Bass, Riggio, 2005) additive Changes VS Radical ChangesChanges are inevitable in human lives as well as in business operations. additive change takes place over a long time period for development purposes, while radical change is more often triggered by a crisis or a business opportunity. at that place are several differences listed in the following table.Incremental ChangesRadical ChangesReasonsBusiness developmentExpansionDealing with crisisSeizing a significant business opportunityPeriodLong period of timeShort period of timeExamplesImprovement much(prenominal) as TQM, current system implementationRevolutionary changesSuch as restructuring, merger, take-overApproaches types may be small, slow, on-goingMay be onetime events, quickRespond and effect simply noticed by the management levelImmediately adaptMay cause bulwark to changesSteve Jobs Inc remental ChangesExample1 PixarIn 1986, Steve Jobs bought The Graphics Group from Lucasfilm for $10 millions, changed the name to Pixar and started his career in animation manufacturing. With his visionary be afters and technology co-occurrence from his estimator company NeXT, Pixar developed a software package called RenderMan (which has been wide accepted and used in filmmaking exertion). RenderMan was apply into the existing Pixar production key slowly. After ten historic period time, Pixar finally achieved an amazing success in the animation filming industry. It kept producing a series of animation films, commence with Toy Story (1995), which led Pixars worth to over $1.5 billion.It took 10 historic period to implementing and perfecting the new software into production and transferring Steve Jobs leadership style into Pixars existing operation, and achieves a remarkable improvement at the end. This is an incremental change do by Steve Jobs.Example2 Digital hub strategyA fter Steve Jobs returning to apple in 1997 as an interim chief operating officer, he successfully brought apple back to profitability with a amazing consumer desktop computer iMac. By facing prejudicious predictions about proclaiming PCS would disappear within a couple of age, Steve Jobs continuously led orchard apple tree to keep on perfecting i products with the meaning of internet, individual, instruct, inform and inspire as the same way Apple always do. (Steve Jobs introductory 1998 iMac slide show)In 2001, Steve Jobs unveiled the Digital Hub Strategy to the public and in the next 10 years time he kept on launching a series of new products which extremely changed and led the trade of the whole world. (Kurian, 2012)thither was an interesting event that Steve Jobs called himself as the iCEO of Apple instead of interim CEO humorously which entertained the public very much (Macworld San Francisco 2000). It was also a smart way to promoting i products while teasing with the boar d of Apple for rehiring him with the temporary executive position.This huge successful change took 10 years to be accomplished followed by Steve Jobs leadership piece by piece. It was a long period on-going process of implementing Jobs wisdom into Apple Company.Example3 Retirement from AppleSteve Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, but he kept on denying any serious problem. That is why everyone was surprised when Apple announced that Steve Jobs would not go on stage for the Macworld keynote in 2009, and he took six months off at the same year. Jobs finally resigned as CEO of Apple in 2011 but remained as the Chairman of the companys board, and he passed away later on 6 weeks. (Kurian, 2012)There may be some radical changes gnarled fro restructuring purpose, but in general, Steve Jobs took care of his retirement studiously to avoid negative impact slowly for 3 years time. For instance, he distributed his responsibilities to other executives stones throw by step, a nd before his final resign, he strongly recommended Tim Cook in written, that letter was released to the public lately. The whole process was carefully planned and implemented in a long time. In my opinion, it can be an incremental change.Steve Jobs Radical ChangesExample1 Macintosh VS LisaIn the early 80s, Apple was creating a business-oriented computer named Lisa under Steve Jobs supervising, but later after that, Steve Jobs thrown out of the Lisa visualise because of his bad temper. He was so angry and decided to take retaliate by developing a small project called Macintosh in order to destroy the sales of Lisa. (Kurian, 2012)It was a radical strategy. Macintosh had user-friendly interface (point-and -click) which inspired other computer manufactories and changed the direction of computer industry since then, but it was not welcome to the market then. At that time, IBMs PC was more compatible with its cheaper price.Because this action was taken rapidly without well planning an d careful market researching, Macintosh project failed.Example2 Staging a CoupThere was another revenge taken by Steve Jobs after his removal from Lisa project, he tried to stage a coup. As we all know, he failed again. (Kurian, 2012)It was a restructuring plan, and he took actions rapidly. But without endorsement from Apple board of directors and support from other colleagues, he got fired from his own company.Example3 Reinventing AppleBy 1996, Apple rehired Steve Jobs as an informal adviser to the CEO. At that time, Apple was keeping on losing silver and Steve Jobs staged another coup. He successes this time and became an interim CEO in 1997.The first thing he had done after his promotion is crude off the production lines and focused on four products. This effective last brought the lost confidence back to the Apple community (Kurian, 2012). In the meantime, Jobs took other actions such as announcing a new slogan Think different and launched an amazing project which brought Ap ples resurgence lately, the iMac. (Edwards, 2008)Those actions and decisions above are radical changes (restructuring and redesigning the production processes). They were new strategies to the company for solving a financial crisis in a on the spur of the moment time period.Richard Branson Incremental ChangesExample1 Virgin AtlanticThere are some unique features Virgin Atlantic has while other airways may not have can be considered as incremental changes. Such as, serving a cup of ice cream while passengers watch movies during travelling in order to provide a better service. Virgin Atlantic does not provide meals for short distance flight in order to reduce ticket price. This kind of services is provided for improving case of service.Example2 Virgin GroupBecause Richard Branson received a lot of support from his family and friends during hi early period of business stage (borrowed money from his auntie and back up by John Lennon), the whole Virgin Group services can be consider ed as a long term process for implementing Richard Bransons plan of giving back to the society and helping those people who has ambitious but doesnt have opportunities. Such as, Virgin currency provides a set of formalized documentations help people who need loans.Example3 Eco-friendly effortsIn 2007, Richard Branson launched Virgin Earth challenge dedicating in to environmental issues. He made several decisions that supervised the whole world, such as a $25 millions prize for inventors who comes up with a viable solution for scrubbing carbon gases from atmosphere. He also pledged to reinvest all profits from Virgin transportation business over the decade into developing ecologically benign fuels.This kind of actions may not yarn-dye other Virgin companies, but it will improve Virgin Groups reputation, it is also a long time period project.Richard Branson Radical ChangesExample1 Virgin Records brandAt the beginning, Richard Branson started his records business as mail ordering company in London, and it went well. After a postal strike, the mail order business was crippled. Richard Branson was agonistic to seek new outlets and he opened his first retail store in Oxford Street in 1971.This was a strategy for dealing with a crisis situation, and operated immediately. It changed Virgin Records business process and structure.Example2 Selling Virgin Music GroupSelling Virgin Music probably would be the hardest decision Richard Branson has made in his whole lifetime. This decision was made in order to get money to take Virgin Atlantic back into private ownership. (Vinnedge, 2009)This change was forced by a financial crisis and included restructuring process.Example3 Closing Virgin Money U.S.Richard Branson launched a loan servicing company called Virgin Money U.S. in America in 2007, and began its withdrawal after 2 years (Lepro, 2010). Its social loans were transferred to Graystone Solutions. This time, Richard Branson misjudged the market and had to make the decision in order to trammel the damage. Other reasons of this collapse might be the bad economy and different culture in America. This change included restructuring and take-over in a short time.Change Management in Virgin GroupStoryIn 2007, Virgin Group announced the completion of its biggest challenge which brought over 10 million customers and 13,000 employees merger of NTL, Telewest and Virgin Mobile under the Virgin Media brand. It is known as the largest Virgin Company in the world.This operation took more than deuce years to complete the merger, and Virgin Group handled it carefully, especially on employees resistance.Reasons of employees resistance to this changeFearMostly, employees fear comes from uncertainty about their career whether they are going to loss their job, will they fit the new way or follow the new process probably?No faith in new processComfort personal preferenceLack of knowledgeLack of trustStrategies for overcoming barriers to changesInvolving employ ees during the managing changesEstablishing clear processes and proceduresEstablishing Clear StrategiesEffective Communication with Employees competent LeadershipApplication Kotters Change ModelConclusion