Research on a successful business leader
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Successful business leader
Bringing a business to the top world best in performance requires strong leadership. These leaders have the charming quality of mobilization of the management towards achieving the company’s goals. Most of these leaders are organized, and they operate within the specified rules upon which the business activities are set to be operated. This study focuses on one of the most successful and influential leaders of the time. The selected leader for this study is Jack Ma.
Background of Jack Ma
Jack Ma, age 55, was born in Hangzhou village in Zhejiang, China. Jack Ma has been ranked as one of the most successful business leaders. Concerning his education, Jack Ma has a strong drive for learning the English language. This made him travel up to twenty-seven kilometers on a bicycle to take part in guiding tourists to get some knowledge of the English language. Additionally, he acted as a pen pal to a foreigner. Concerning his education, Jack Ma consumed three solid years to get clearance on examinations so that he could proceed to college. He first joined Hangzhou Teacher’s Institute before proceeding to Hangzhou Normal University to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in English at degree level. He became a teacher of English at Hangzhou Dianzi University upon graduating. Jack Ma had a dying wish of joining Harvard Business School. However, he got rejected every moment he tried to apply to seize the opportunity. For every attempt, he got rejected up to 10 times.
Based on his work experience and history, Jack Ma faced bitter rejection after he applied for thirty distinct job opportunities. He got rejected painfully after, among all his twenty-four colleagues, he was the only person rejected by the KFC company. Similarly, Jack Ma also tried to seek a job with the police; however, he was informed that he was not good. He acquired information online and decided to begin a company and was named Hangzhou Haibo Translation Agency. After he visited the United States, Jack Ma realized no information associated with beer in China, which was available from various countries.
Furthermore, it took him to surprise that he could not find general data concerning China across the internet (Clark 2018). As a result, he decided to create a website with a group of his friend and named it ‘Ugly’ in association with the condition of China. He and his colleague, He Yibing, later began another company called ‘China Pages.’ Following the charming achievements of China Pages, he began creating monitoring websites that were needed by various companies in China.
During the reign of his headship at an IT organization governed by China International Electronic Commerce Center (CIECC), he perfected his skills and later resigned, which made him find the direction of his career (Wulf 2010: 436). This began the discovery of Alibaba. In order to adjust and improve in the market place, he advanced by discovering other online market places like Alipay, Lynx, Ali Mama, and Taobao Marketplace (Kim et al. 2016). Alibaba expanded and resulted in one of the significant, worthy companies worldwide. He served the company as an executive chair. In 2018, he decided to step down as the chairperson of the company. Jack Ma, in the year 2017, he took part in a music festival as well as giving various dance presentations (Lowrey 2016: 903-912). Jack Ma founded a philanthropic company and named it ‘Jack Ma Foundation.’ The company is dedicated to enhancing education, public healthcare, as well as the environment.
Skills and competencies that have contributed to the success of Jack Ma
Skills, as well as competencies of a high order, are expected for a leader to make it through the ladders of success. Jack Ma, being one of the world’s recognized business leaders, is not exempted from the possession of these qualities. Despite his alarming success, he has kept the success away from clouding his vision. Some of the competencies and skills executed by Jack Ma are discussed as follows;
Attitude
Jack Ma has a high preference for attitude. Based on the discovery of Alibaba Group, Jack Ma complained that the worst mistake ever crossed his line. As has been described, Jack Ma could have never gone beyond being a manager and an executive hired to attend to businesses either from within or outside the country (Lowrey 2016). As a result of the attitude invested in the discovery and development of Alibaba, Jack Ma has emerged to be the most successful world-renown e-business leader.
Values unity
Unity is one of the most significant aspects that a company should embrace. It enhances collaboration among the members and contributes to the achievement of the set goals within the required time. It also enhances a good working relationship between the workers. Jack Ma has a good idea of this aspect and has made a maximum of its use. Instead of converging and getting the attention of the employees individually, Jack Ma employs the unification of the employees under a single goal to be achieved.
Foresight
This is an aspect that enables the leaders to focus on the future. The aspect also allows the leaders to do proper planning. Jack Ma used this approach to stay ahead of other competitive businesses through making decisions and determining how the decisions will reward back. Jack Ma also succeeded because of the time he normally spends in developing innovative thinking skills as well as following the right intuitions.
Hiring skilled personnel
Skills are some of the core aspects a successful leader considers. Jack Ma values the skills of an employee more than the skills that a leader should possess. Jack Ma argues that an employee should be adequately skilled compared to the leader (Micklethwait and Dimond 2017). Therefore, Jack Ma spent most of their time looking for and hiring a highly skilled workforce.
Leadership style of Jack Ma
Jack Ma employed unique leadership styles which range from one to another. that enabled him to manage the employees as well as maintain a focus on the success of the company. In order to create a balance, Jack Ma kept on employing different management approaches. Firstly, Jack Ma used an Autocratic style of leadership. This style involves an overall control over every activity that a company undertakes (Ee and Yazdanifard 2015: 190). The leader controls all the decisions and gives the employees very little room to contribute to such decisions. For example, Jack Ma applied the autocratic leadership style when he wanted the employees to respond more quickly due to the available work to be done.
Jack Ma could, at times, limit the employee’s freedom, especially when seriousness is required and essential ideas have to be passed to the employees. Secondly, Jack Ma could employ a more friendly management approach. Such leadership was employed on special occasions. For example, Jack Ma employed the approach was only with the intention of building loyalty and also motivating the workers. More dominantly, Jack Ma used a persuasive approach. For instance, Jack Ma used the approach in instances where there was a need to get the employees to adopt new ideas and styles of operations.
Key challenges Jack Ma has faced and how they dealt with the situation
Jack Ma has faced several challenges ranging from his academics to achieving outstanding success in the business. Some of the challenges are presented below.
Rejection
Jack Ma faced constant rejection, especially at the time he graduated. For example, he applied to thirty distinct jobs but did not succeed. He also applied for an opportunity at Harvard University and got rejected for all his trials (Lee and Song 2016). In order to overcome the challenge, Jack Ma stayed even more focused. He focused on only what he wanted and kept trying his luck in various fields and later got to discover Alibaba.
Failure
Jack Ma has the most painful history of failure, especially in academic success. For example, he failed in the college entry tests twice before he could join the college. Jack Ma counteracted the failure by being steadfast and not giving up (Lee and Song 2016). This is shown when he tried up to the third time in middle school examinations. That is when he succeeded.
Lesson from the management and leadership from the leader
The leadership, as well as the management of Jack Ma, has a lot of lessons. For example, his life is an indication of the essence of not giving up. From the way of operation, I have learned that one should not give up in life. It is also evident that academic success does not define the future success of someone. This is derived from the fact that Jack Ma was not good in class but has emerged as the most successful business person globally. Similarly, one should not be discouraged by the number of failures that have come on the way.
In conclusion, success is like a road upon which any challenge can be encountered. Success demands a lot of attention and dedication. Similarly, it requires much of a strong heart that cannot be swept away by the obstacles that may come across. This is a similar life that Jack Ma has gone through.
Reference List
Chukwusa, J., 2018. Autocratic leadership style: Obstacle to success in academic libraries. Library Philosophy and Practice, p.1.
Clark, D., 2018. Alibaba: the house that Jack Ma built. HarperCollins Publishers.
Ee, C.T.J. and Yazdanifard, R., 2015. The Review of Alibaba’ s Operation Management Details That Have Navigated Them to Success. Global Journal of Management And Business Research.
Kim, S., Zhang, X.A. and Zhang, B.W., 2016. Self-mocking crisis strategy on social media: Focusing on Alibaba chairman Jack Ma in China. Public Relations Review, 42(5), pp.903-912.
Lee, S. and Song, B. eds., 2016. Never Give Up: Jack Ma in His Own Words. Agate Publishing.
Lowrey, Y., 2016. The Alibaba Way: Unleashing Grass-Roots Entrepreneurship to Build the World’s Most Innovative Internet Company. McGraw Hill Professional.
Micklethwait, A. and Dimond, P., 2017. Alibaba: Largest Etailer on the Globe a Mere 15 Years On. In Driven to the Brink (pp. 181-200). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Wulf, J., 2010. Alibaba Group. Harvard Business School Case, 710, p.436.