Leadership Team Assignment

The leader's name is Elon Musk, and he is the current CEO of Tesla, a company that manufactures vehicles that are powered by electric energy.   Elon Musk has been in the leadership position for fifteen years since the firm was founded in 2003.   In the firm, he oversees the entire product development process, engineering and the design of the various products including electric cars, solar roofs, and batteries.  Elon Musk has not explicitly undertaken a leadership training program, with most of the formal training on the same being in his undergraduate study in business.  The business training did not focus less on leadership and more on economics, but this was enough to law ground for formal knowledge on leadership. 

Elon Musk describes his personality as more of conscientious and extroverted, which can explain his leadership capacity in a various contexts, given that he oversees three other organizations.  His perception of leadership involves being focused towards a vision and being persistent do as to change the organization. Being a visionary is a basic trait for a leader, since this sets the tone of any organization in terms of motivation and attitude. Being a visionary requires a person to be obsessive of their set goals so that to move away from mediocrity. Musk is very passionate about his roles and responsibilities, so that he devotes every hour he is awake shaping and executing ideas.  The obsession with his set goals involves paying much attention to the smallest details, and very high expectations for products, himself and his team. He has actually been accused of having uncompromising attitudes and at times unreasonable to the point of breaking things apart or criticizing poor performers in his team. Hence, being passionate and obsessive involves having passion for the cause chosen. In addition, Musk views being ethical as an important trait of effective leadership that allows individuals to strive towards excellence through doing what is right and legal. This perception can explain his deep attachment to environmental friendly products such as electric batteries and cars that aligns to the interest of the community and population in which Tesla carries out its operations.  This ensures that the leader can set him apart from others in the same industry.  He believes that managers should lead from the front line but not from their headquarters or offices so that they can be in touch with various problems that employees are undergoing. This also involves putting the safety of their teams above their own interests.

While Musk perceives that some people are born leaders, he attributes his leadership skills to the way he was brought up and the environment in which he grew.  He attributes the adversity he faced as an important aspect in developing his leadership skills. Therefore, a person can become an authentic leader through learning and experience gain while carrying out various roles and responsibilities related to supervision and management. This is especially true at the moments when the person is encountering failures and weakness which helps in building confidence. Also, Elon Musk believes that any person can become a leader regardless of their national origin, gender and as long as they are of the appropriate age.  His experience is a good example since he was born in South Africa and spent much of his childhood years before moving to Canada and then to United States for further studies. However, the journal to becoming a good leader may have challenges such as setbacks and discouragement from the attitude of people closer to the person. These may act as barriers to leadership development if a person is not courageous enough to deal with them. The relationship between Musk and his employees is mostly positive especially enabled by his desire to have their interest at heart. He believes that employees' safety should come before the interest of leaders since they are the driving force behind the success of any organization.  He sees a positive relationship with employees as an important aspect in ensuring that their work performances are high.  Such kind of relationship will only be absent if the employee's performances and actions do not align with the organizational goals so that innovation in the form is not attained.

 Elon Musk views his leadership style as transformative where vision, social skills and creative forms the foundation of this leader.  Musk has a clear vision of a world that is not dependent on fossil fuels and where the maximum use of green energy will enable the conservation of the environment.  His goals are bold and ambitious, and this is an important trait of a transformative leader and especially the one on helping the human to live in a clean environment.  In line with this, Musk believes that leaders display different leadership styles depending on situations because different situational problems call for a different approach to solving them.  While employees should be allowed to work in an environment with positive moods and he views that it is important to have employees not to focus on conventional organizational cultures.

Musk tries to improve his leadership skills through focusing on learning, creativity, and innovation. The leaders maintain a transparent environment with employees by disclosing decisions that are likely to affect their operations. Transparency is important in building trust with team members.  Leaders should focus on employees' development to improve their abilities and personal growth because this will retain them at the firm.  Musk sees himself as the face of Tesla based on the fact that as a physicist, innovation is part of his identity.  On that basis, the leader encourages employees to identify themselves with Tesla because their efforts define the innovative nature of the company.  As a transformative leader, Elon Musk uses his power to influence the attitude of employees since power and persuasion in leadership define the motivation of the employees.  Musk is to an extent a charismatic leader because he perceives his attitude as having a positive impact on employees in Tesla.  However, he views charismatic leadership as not the best if leaders become authoritarian or narcissists.  As a leader, Musk believes he should set an example for employees because this will determine the culture and their working attitudes.  Any goals set by the leader involve the inputs of employees unless where the discussion is not needed. This enables the employees to embrace the goals and be part of the execution process.

One situation that defined Musk leadership style involved an injury to one of the employee. In the situation, the leader called upon such employees to report directly to him. The results were that any possible negative reaction from the employees was averted.  Musk views the biggest problem with employees presently as involving the fact that they are more distinctive and demanding which is seen in their desire to change jobs while looking for growth and satisfaction.  Musk believes that there are some events in life that shape the leaders' character and specifically refers to the adversity and bullying that he encountered as a teenager as having developed him.   His biggest strengths as a leader are work ethics and have been working for hours to accomplish his tasks, and this has improved his ability learn quickly.  He has acknowledged that he experiences problems when setting unrealistic timelines, and expecting all everybody in the firm to share such ethics and vision, and thus he needs to improve on his understanding that people are different.

Elon Musk can improve his leadership methods or skills by motivating others so that they do lose their passions or ambitions.  This involves recognizing and appreciating their inputs in ensuring that the organization achieves the set goals.  Focusing on appreciative leadership will go a long way in motivating the employees and ensuring that their leadership skills are also developed in return (Goetsch & Davis, 2014).  The leader should embark on making the employees know that they belong, their contributions in the form are valued and to know that the organizational success means their personal growth.  Adopting appreciating leadership gives people a sense of direction (Lewis, 2006). The desired innovation, transformation and sustainability in the organization will then be achieved through improved team performance.  Letting people know that they can trust the leader by giving their best is important.

References

Lewis, D., Medland, J., Malone, S., & Murphy, M. (2006). Appreciative leadership: Defining effective leadership methods. Organization Development Journal, 24(1), 87.

Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.