I completed my analysis on a Microsoft article discussing Bill Gates leaving Microsoft as the Chief Executive Officer. In 2000 Bill Gates transitioned from the full time Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft to the Chairman of the organization. The article mentions that Mr. Gates resigned from his office of CEO in order to work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that he and his wife started. I feel that Mr. Gates was an extremely successful CEO and still remains an important part of the leadership at Microsoft.
I think Mr. Gates has many traits the relate very closely with the Trait Theory of Leadership in the Northouse text. Intelligence, Self - Confidence, and Determination are all skills that I think Mr. Gates posssed as the CEO of Microsoft. Mr. Gates was incredibly intellegent in the world of technology and computers. He was extremely knowledgable about what the next trend in the computer world would be, and was able to create products to supply to the demands of customers. I personally feel that Mr. Gates was one of the first very knowledgable leaders in the technology and computer industry. I feel that his intellegence can be justifified in part by the significant success that Microsoft has experianced. I feel that Mr. Gates was also very self confident and determined. When designing new techologies or programs, Mr. Gates was also determined to have the next best thing, and demonstrated the self confidence in himself as an innovator. Mr. Gates also demonstrates integrity and doing the right thing.
I think it is interesting to compare Mr. Gate's leadership with the Skills Model of Leadership. I think Mr. Gates demonstrated technical, human and conceptual skills fairly evenly - even though he severed in top management as the organizations chief executive. Mr. Gates demonstrated technical skills or knowledge in building or designing software or new products for Microsoft. I feel that Mr. Gates also demonstrated human skills very well. Mr. Jobs work with software architects, vice presidents and many other employees at Microsoft. Lastly, he demonstrated conceptual skills in when creating strategic plans for the future on Microsoft.
In comparing Mr. Gates to the Contigency Theory, I would classify him as a task oriented leader resulting from a low least preferred co-worker score. I feel that the leader-member relations relations are very high at Microsoft, because Mr. Gates is very involved in the design creation of new products. Mr. Gates worked very closly with his subordinates in many ways in his role as CEO. I believe that the task structure would be rather low at Microsoft. I dont feel that Mr. Gates would expect tasks to be completed in a certain way, with no other option. While I do think the Mr. Gates had very specific expecation of his subordinates, I feel he was open to new ideas, new ways of doing this and created a very innovative organization at Microsoft. Lastly, Mr. Gates has very high position power because he was the CEO of the organization. Based on this, I would evaluate Mr. Gates to be a task oriented leader - though I personally believe he was also a relationship oriented leader as well - a combination of both.
Mr. Gates was a very successful CEO at Microsoft, which can be demonstrated by the outstanding success of the organization and the fact that he still remains involved with Microsoft. I believe that Mr. Gates has a very successful leadership style helped him attain great success while serving as the CEO of Microsoft.
Questions
1. Do you believe Mr. Gates was a successful leader at Microsoft?
2. Do any other leadership theories directly apply to Mr. Gates as the CEO of Microsoft?
3. I mentioned that Mr. Gates seems to be both task and relationship oriented as a leader - can you agree or disagree?
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/jun06/06-15corpnewspr.mspx
Kyle Burrows
I do believe that Bill Gates used both task and relationship skills. Bill Gates was very focused on making sure that the task was complete and was great at making sure that specific roles were filled. An example from this article is having certain people work side by side with Bill Gates for a few years in order to make sure that they could fulfill their new role. Bill Gates also has relationship oriented skills. Like Kyle mentioned, Bill was willing to take advice from others and speak words of encouragement.
ReplyDelete-Michelle Fulkerson
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ReplyDeleteI agree Michelle - what are your feelings on Bill Gates as a task oriented leader? Do you feel that he is more task than relational - more relational or task - or a combination of the two? Do you feel that one is better or worse than the other in the case of Bill Gates as CEO?
ReplyDeleteKyle Burrows
In my opinion Bill Gates was a successful leader at Microsoft. When I applied the Style approach to Bill Gates' leadership style I found him to fall into the Team Management category. According to the article, before his departure, Bill promoted a high degree of participation and teamwork amongst his subordinates. Before stepping down, the article said that Bill put more responsability on the three department heads. This is another example of Gates stimulating participation.
ReplyDelete--Kyle, I believe Gates is a combination of a task and relational leader. He was able to work directly with his people to ensure the task at hand was accomplished. At the same time he was focused on building good relationships with those around him. I believe in his business, this combination is necessary. In order to harbor an innovative environment, Gates had to remain focused on the task while receiving ideas from his subordinates to create the best product. This is why I think Gates' use of both behaviors is a large part of his success
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-Clay Gruenwald
I think that you could apply the team leadership model to Mr. Gates. Especially McGrath's Critical Leadership Functions (figure 11.2). The group deficiency was that Gates was leaving and needed a new CEO who was talented, motivated and experienced enough to handle the new position. As a result, Gates took action by implementing a two year transition period to make sure that everything would go smoothly and the new CEO was trained properly. They forecasted the need to implement 3 new divisions and acted on that need. The prevention of harmful changes also has to do with the 2 year transition period. it shows in this statement “Bill and I are confident we’ve got a great team that can step up to fill his shoes and drive Microsoft innovation forward without missing a beat,” Ballmer said.
ReplyDeleteBrittany Bowen
Kyle to go to you question of whether task or relationship motivated, I agree that Gates is both, but I have to say he is more task motivated. It is a very close mix, but to me the article focuses more on how the transition was going to work out. I agree with both Clay and Michelle that being a relational leader played a big role because without having a relationship with Ballmer, I feel that he would not have made as good of a connection with him. And as a result, it would not have been as good of a learning relationship as it was.
ReplyDeleteBrittany Bowen
Yes, I agree that Gates was both a task and realational leader as everyone has mentioned - and I think that was pretty evident in the article. I think that Gates has to focus very much on the tasks, but he also worked very closly with other employees/subordinates to create the next major innovation for Microsoft. I also think Brittany has a strong point in bringing in Team Leadership. It seemed that Microsoft ran as a team of people creating and developing - do I think that is a good theory for this article as well.
ReplyDeleteKyle Burrows