Leadership of a 21st Century Business Leader: Mark Zuckerberg - Case Study Example

Leadership of a 21st Century Business Leader: Mark Zuckerberg Name Institution Name Date Executive Summary Having the ability to influence others to accomplish a given task is something that leaders are tasked with. The leadership of the 21st century is extremely dynamic due to the fact that the business environment is changing at an exponential rate because of the continuous technological inventions. Leadership in the 21st century is bigger than a complex matrix of practices that vary geographically, by organizational level, and individual circumstances. This paper discusses the leadership of a 21st century business leader. For instance, using Mark Zuckerberg; the co-founder and CEO of Facebook, the paper discusses his leadership style together expansively evaluating his leadership traits. Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook 5 Transformational Leader 6 Influential Leader 7 Evaluation of Mark Zukarberg’s Leadership 8 Evaluation of My Leadership 10 Conclusion 11 References 12 Introduction Leadership is defined as the ability to influence others towards the achievement of goals that contribute to a worthwhile purpose. Technological advancements have virtually transformed leadership in the global perspective; the current time leaders are faced with global challenges that they must overcome in order to be considered effective and efficient leaders. To be successful in this dynamically shifting business environment of the 21st century, leaders have to rethink their historical views in order to come up with new attitude and abilities configuration (Woog 2009). Leadership in the 21st century is bigger than a complex matrix of practices that vary geographically, by organizational level, and individual circumstances. For instance, those leaders who maintain active awareness with regard to their environment as well as apply the practices demanded by the same environmental situation are highly positioned to achieve individual and organizational success. For any leader to be effective in his undertakings he must have the ability to tap people’s potentials by understanding their sincerity to serve (Lusted 2011). Furthermore, a good leader must have personal mastery that supersedes his competence and skills. Through unending aspirations to change the status quo, a good leader leads his team to create products that change lives across the globe. This paper using Mark Zuckerberg discusses the leadership of a 21st century business leader. Accordingly, it describes the industry and situations within which his leadership is practiced. Furthermore, paper evaluates Mark Zuckerberg’s leadership style, behaviour, traits, attitudes and power. Lastly, the paper provides what I could do different in similar leadership situation. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook Leadership of the 21st century is regarded as the ability of the leader to influence a group of people towards the accomplishment of objectives and goals that contribute to a worthwhile purpose. Through history leaders carry the mantle for change that might be for the better or for the worst (Beahm 2012). They manage to accomplish this through a myriad of ways; their actions are always inclined towards establishing direction where their followers should go and inspiring them to pursue success notwithstanding obstacles that they might encounter on the way (Woog 2009). These leaders have a unique ability to motivate, instruct, and inspire their followers to do anything they command. Organizational leaders of the 21sth century set the firm’s pace by creating the vision and strategy while also remaining alert and cautious to discover new opportunities within the environment they operating in. Furthermore, a good 21st century leader creates a shared culture within the organization that is aimed at helping others grow (Woog 2009). It is also imperative for leaders to focus on the team they are leading to inspire and motivate them. They act as facilitators or coaches (Dobinick 2012). Leadership entails emotional connection with your team, having an open mind, being a good listener and communicator, and courageous with an insightful character. Additionally, leaders create change and culture of integrity (Burns, 2010). Various theories have been put forward to try and explain the leadership styles that different leaders have used to influence their followers (Alef 2010). 21st century business leaders must have the ability to create a vision for their organization, empower their followers, and create and align organizational structure and systems that work well for their organization (Lusted 2011). They should be team builders, rewarding for example they must be able to provide feedback, they must also be able to be cautious about the external forces that affect the organization, and for them to attain greater achievements they must be global minded (Garcia 2012). Accordingly, global leaders must be courageous to take risk by pursuing business goals and objectives regardless of the complexity of the environment (Ensmenger 2011). Emotional intelligence is a must for a global leader; he should be able to develop trust, show empathy, and develop sound relationship with his followers (Woog 2009). And for his on personal good, he/she must be able to balance the personal/work life. Mark Zuckerberg is the co-founder and CEO of Facebook; a renowned social media company in the social media Industry. Mark’s leadership since the inception of the company has been transformational. Mark Zuckerberg’s leadership can be described as follows Transformational Leader Transformational leadership’s singular objective is transforming the organization through a series of procedures that are focused on changing the current organizational status (Beahm 2012). Transformational leaders are associated with having exceptional communication skills, have expansive knowledge of the firm’s current focus as well as have the capability of visualizing the future and come up with structures aimed at improving the current trends (Dobinick 2012). They are knowledgeable with capacity to frame and re-frame the future in order to provide a clear understanding to their followers. These types of leaders impact greatly on organizational culture and performance (Woog 2009). They have respect, confidence as well as follower loyalty and for this reason they are said to a change powerhouse. Mark is a transformational leader; this type of leadership is characterized by the leader’s ability to bring about significant change. Mark continually envision and implement the transformation of organization performance. Furthermore, this leader has the capability to spearhead change in organization’s vision, strategy while at the same time promoting innovation in products and technologies. Zuckerberg over the years at the helm of Facebook leadership he has come up with groundbreaking technological innovations as well as products (Dobinick 2012). Transformational leadership is where leaders take actions that are aimed at increasing the awareness of what is important and right, motivating their followers to go beyond self-interest for the betterment of the organization and the society at large. Zuckerberg has excellently achieved this mandate; he carries Facebook’s transformational mantle influencing his followers to unendingly focus on making the world more open (Susan 2011). He gives his employees a clear picture of the future of Facebook and helps them to work towards it by listening to them and advising them accordingly. Influential Leader Zuckerberg is also an influential leader; for instance, he influences his followers based on his personality. The influential leadership theory identifies how leaders behave, how they differ together with underlying factors that give rise to different types of leadership (Beahm 2012). Mark is an authentic leader; his personal integrity and credibility which significantly help him in developing trusting relationship with his followers (Dobinick 2012). His leadership is based on commitment to moral and ethical values. He earns allegiance from his followers through his leadership style; he builds, nurture, inspire, and empower his followers. In this regard, Mark’s main role is stewardship and service (Woog 2009). Due to his ability to stay focused, not only does he influence his followers, but also companies in other industries; he has managed to change the way the globe is networked as well as influencing how advertisements are made online. And more importantly, he believes in his products and in the company’s vision something that has helped him to tremendously influence his team to tirelessly work towards meeting the company’s vision of making the world more open. By sharing the company’s vision and direction inspires everyone towards the company’s advancement; his followers has an excellent understanding of the company’s product which makes them to have a sense of ownership. Evaluation of Mark Zukarberg’s Leadership Zuckerberg, not only did he create a company that is largely respected and widely used across the world, but has also built products that have and still are transforming the lives of millions the world over. As already established above, Zuckerberg is transformational leader (Beahm 2013). The following are his leadership traits: Focused: the most admirable character of Zuckerberg is his primary goal; to connect people across the globe; for instance, initially, Facebook was not meant to be a global company but rather to accomplish a social mission; getting the world to be open and connected. For this reason, this leader works unendingly to ensure that the world is connected and open. Money is not his primary objective but social well-being of the larger world is. Courageous: Zuckerberg is extremely courageous always persisting in making sure that the company’s corporate objectives are achieved regardless of the dynamically changing global business environment (Woog 2009). He is fearless when it comes to trying on new ideas; he is determined to get it done. Demanding: he does not tolerate emotional fragility particularly in individuals that he needs to help him execute company’s mission. His focus is to ensure that Facebook’s mission succeeds. He is a demanding a leader, analysts describes Zuckerberg’s demands as those that are needed to drive a global enterprise to become a global leader. Visionary: he works to make sure that the society gets an exceptional experience in the social media industry (Womack, 2011). Facebook culture has put people first, the CEO has ensured that the company continually transform into an organization that connects people in a variety of ways (Beahm 2012). The organizational culture of Facebook is a high energy culture that encourages interaction between leader and followers to weigh in on products. This has helped the company to increasingly expand in the global arena (Lusted 2011). Sharing: Zuckerberg is a sharing leader; he encourages communication and interaction with his subordinates as well as company shareholders (Maida 2012). He shares the company vision with the aforementioned stakeholders to ensure that company works towards a singular direction. He is a CEO that is glued to the future, with regard to this he has managed to incline his followers to “the way of the future” something that has empowered the company to offer exceptionally unique products of networking people (Beahm 2012). Change leader: Zuckerberg carry’s Facebook’s mantle, always being on the forefront and changing the way his followers as well as company customers live; due to his abilities to drive change he has created customer loyalty. The company product facebook.com has become part of many cultures across the globe. Zuckerberg’s recent idea of creating a culture of “More about engaging than selling” has helped his followers to broadcast where they are to their friends (Carlson, 2012). This has added uniqueness to the company which has even helped in transforming the company further. The CEO has made the company a leader in the global environment (Dobinick 2012). Influencing/motivating and inspiring: he influences his followers based on his personality. Based on his ability to stay focused, not only does it compel his followers to follow his example but also he has managed to influence the way the globe is networked (Fertig 2013). Evaluation of My Leadership I am a transactional leader; I contribute to accomplishment of company’s corporate goals by rewarding employees who meet the company expectations while punish those who fail to meet the set objectives. For instance, in order to increase the company’s profitability and development I recognize performance through pay increases and advancement. Transactional leadership is autocratic in nature whereby the leader exerts power on the followers to make them do what is required. The following are the traits of a transactional leader Management by expectation: transacting with followers by primarily focusing on mistakes; for instance delaying decisions and/or avoiding intervention until things go wrong. The rewards are mainly based on recognizing performance. Increasing efficiency: since there are established routines together with procedures, following the established rules rather than making any improvement on organizational structure. The leader compels followers to follow the established structures to ensure performance. Goal setting: the leader establishes what is expected from the followers; there is an explicit agreement defining how the followers will be rewarded or punished for their efforts and commitment. Similarly, the leader provides a constructive feedback to make sure that followers are kept on the set tasks. Establishing standardized practices: these practices help followers to work towards helping the company reach maturity by strongly emphasizing on goals, efficiency together with increasing productivity. Conclusion Technological advancements have virtually transformed business leadership in the 21st century; the current time leaders are faced with global challenges that they must overcome in order to become effective business leaders. The above discussion, using Mark Zuckerberg; the co-founder and CEO of Facebook the paper has described the leadership of 21st century business leaders. In this regard, Zuckerberg’s leadership has been discussed together with his leadership traits. He is a transformational leader and some of his traits include: focused, visionary, courageous, sharing, demanding, and change leader. Due to his superb leadership style he has managed to propel the Facebook to become the market leader in the social media industry. 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