Analysis of Jack Ma's Personality and Leadership

This assignment delves into the personality analysis of Jack Ma using the Big 5 model, highlighting his strengths and weaknesses. It also discusses his leadership qualities, including his ability to empower future generations and face criticism with grace. The assignment provides a critical review of the Big 5 model's limitations and offers recommendations for leaders in the future generation.

Background

Background – Jack Ma’s
(Childhood)
• Jack Ma (or Ma Yun) was born on September 10, 1964,
in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.
• He has an older brother and a younger sister. He and
his siblings grew up at a time when communist China
was increasingly isolated from the West, and his family
didn't have much money when they were young
• In his early age, he used to ride 70 miles on his bicycle
to give tourists tours of the area for almost nine years,
to practice his English which he learn at his young age
with English-speakers at Hangzhou International Hotel.
• He became a good friend of one of those foreigners,
who nicknamed him "Jack" because he found it hard to
pronounce his Chinese name.

Background – Jack Ma’s
(Education and Personal Life)
• Jack Ma struggled to attend college, it took four
years for him to pass the entrance exam.
• After that, Ma attended Hangzhou Teacher’s
Institute and graduated in 1988 with a B.A. in
English. He was also the head of student council.
• After graduation, he starts his career as lecturer of
English and International Trade at Hangzhou Dianzi
University.
• Jack Ma met his wife Zhang Ying when they were
studying at Hangzhou Normal University. They
married shortly after graduating in the late 1980s.
The couple later blessed with two children, a son
and a daughter.

Background – Jack Ma’s Career
Path
Graduated Work as Teacher Graduated Business First visit to USA
(1995)
First time introduce
to Internet
First word search
“Beer”
Launched Website
China page
Received response in
same day
Partnership with
government entity
Rigid Bureaucracy
pushed out Ma
Took Job in Ministry of
Foreign Trade &
Economic
Made connection with
Yahoo co-Founder
(Jerry Yang and
others)
Left job and started
Alibaba (1999)
Received fund some
from Goldman Sachs
Listed in 100 most
influential person (2008)
Become Trustee for Nature
Conservancy China (2009)
Spend 0.3% of Annual Revenue
for environmental protection
Received honorary
Doctorate (2013) Ranked 30th most powerful
person (2014)
Entrepreneur of the
year award (2015)

Alibaba Innovation
Analysis
(Priya & Shirley)

Theory of Innovations
(Amabile,1996)

Jack Ma’s Philosophy

Jack Ma’s Creativity Approach
 Jack Ma is ranked No 3 in global tech innovation visionary
 Jack Ma key success factor is focus on customers, focuses on operating internationally,
and making sure to build a strong and smart team who knows the best for the
company"
 Jack Ma thoughts was to find a problem in the world to solve it. Primary concern was
to make customer happy, followed by employee and lastly stockholders.
 Jack Ma creates much more nurturing environment which encourages teamwork. Ma
strongly promote communication between workers and their superiors.
 Jack Ma is ethically responsible to society by giving donations to schools programs to
increase creativity for Chinese schools and workers in his company. Any worker
within Alibaba that has a business in fully funded and supported to follow through his ideas.
 Jack Ma clearly communicates innovation and gives straightforward plans.

Jack Ma’s Creativity Approach
 Despite Jack Ma has little technical knowledge and as he understand the need and role
the world needed thus he treats his (technologically-savvy) employees with
utmost respect
 Lastly Jack Ma plans to become a high-school teacher and continue to bring creativity
into the lives of the future generations
 Jack Ma is not afraid to make mistakes ie objective was to create a product for China
Exporters to meet U.S. buyers online – and made $1 in profits and improved yearly
 Jack Ma created a unique culture and fun atmosphere at Alibaba where employees
are encouraged to reinforce their energy during breaks and participate in and annual
talent show where he sings pop songs
 The approach is clearly exhibiting elements of Knowledge, Creativity,
Environment and Motivation factors that is promoting Innovation

Jack Ma’s Level of Creativity –
Sternberg (2006)
Jack Ma’s Creativity Description 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Intellectual
Abilities /
Intelligence
Seeing old problem in a new
way
Knowledge Knowsledge and experience in
the field of business
Style of thinking How the abilities are interacted
with the environment
Personality One can decide to overcome
obstacles, take sensible risk,
tolerate ambiguity and self-
efficacy
Motivation Task- Focused motivation is
supports creative work
Environment Environment that is supportive
and rewarding of creative ideas

Analysis & Assessment of Jack Ma’s
Innovation
 Created business to business sales service via web portals, electronic payment
service, shopping search engine, data-centric cloud computing services
 integration of online, offline, logistics and data across a single value chain,
transforms current e-commerce industry into “traditional business”.
REDUCE
ELIMINAT
E
CREATE
RAISE
 Small retails industry
 Remove fake listing within 24 hours by Intellectual Property Protection Platform
 Operating costs
 Globalisation backed by technology will reduce inequality as technology empowers small countries
and business
 Digital distribution Service
 Leadership in retail revolution

The ‘BIG 5’ – Model Of Personality
Structure

The ‘BIG 5’ – Model Of Personality
Structure

Analysis & Assessment of Jack Ma’s
Personality (Trait & Behaviour) using
Big 5 Model

Analysis & Assessment of Jack Ma’s
Personality (Trait & Behaviour) using
Big 5 Model
 EMOTIONAL STABILITY – Jack Ma, the founder of China's e-commerce giant
Alibaba, is never afraid of breaking the rules, but he makes sure he gets his
way, he is a trendsetter, an Internet wizard and a role model(DeYoung 2015)
 EXTRAVERSION - He passed his college exams in 4 attempts, got rejected
by 30 different jobs. He was the only candidate among 24 who was rejected
by KFC. He also faced refusal from enrolment in Harvard University 10 times.
All these rejections were a new motivation for him due to which he is now
among the world’s richest personalities.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Analysis & Assessment of Jack Ma’s
Personality (Trait & Behaviour) using
Big 5 Model
 OPENNESS - Jack was one of the first few individuals who saw Internet
as a business opportunity even at a time when the rest of the world
didn’t believe in his thoughts (Judge and Zapata 2015)
 AGREEABLENESS - Jack Ma will set high expectations of himself and
the team. And expect everyone to complete it because he believed
everyone will never know what we can achieve if we do not push our
self to the limits

Analysis & Assessment of Jack Ma’s
Personality (Trait & Behaviour) using
Big 5 Model
 CONSCIENTIOUSNESS - Jack Ma venture into e-business, which he
could foresee as a great money making scheme of the 21st century

Crtical Review of Big 5 Model
Advantage
 Personality assessment are useful tool in hiring decisions - example employers get
better at selecting candidates, employees become more successful and stay longer
in their position without getting fired or quitting
 Big Five can identify perspective qualities of associates - to predict both academic
and workplace performance
 Big Five can efficiently and accurately describe important individual differences in
personality in personality characterstics of traits (Dale & Harrison, 2017)

Crtical Review of Big 5 Model
Disadvantage
 Big Five dimensions are too broad and heterogeneous, and lack the specificity to
make accurate prediction in many real-life settings (Boyle, 2008)
 Big Five doeant help to understand culturally-specific, gender specific, and age
specific personali expressions
 Validity of traits change with time for example Extroversion, Neuroticism, and
Openess decreases as a persona age
 Rely of self report methods - implicit self bias for example factors like current
health, or mood can change a person's response (Lehmann et al 2013)

Jack Ma’s Leadership Influence
 He leads his business with an
enlightened mind
 He believes in the empowerment of
future generations
 He keeps an eye on circumventing
unethical business practices
 He faces criticism with grace
 He is an example of a leader with Global

Recommendation
 Leaders like jack ma never underestimated or neglected their
weakness. Instead he showed immense respect and curiosity to
overcome that drawback and find a better result. The leaders of
future generation must keep this in mind.
 Jack Ma was poor in mathematical skill and technology. The
leaders in future generation following his skills must maintain a
good hold on these field.
 Jack Ma never gave up from failure. Even after a lot of failures
he chose to stick to his target and achieve it. In leadership
patience plays a vital role as it is reflecting in Jack Ma’s success.

Conclusion
Thus , to conclude it can be said that patience and
positive hope along with hard-work and well-
framed strategies can lead a person to success.
Jack Ma had faced infinite rejection and failure in life
and yet he decided not to give up. He was
determined towards his goal and hence today he has
achieved it. His achievement are not only limited to
China, he is one of the most powerful man in the
world.

References:
DeYoung, C.G., 2015. Cybernetic big five theory. Journal of Research in
Personality, 56, pp.33-58.
Lehmann, R., Denissen, J.J., Allemand, M. and Penke, L., 2013. Age and
gender differences in motivational manifestations of the Big Five from
age 16 to 60. Developmental psychology, 49(2), p.365.
Judge, T.A. and Zapata, C.P., 2015. The person–situation debate
revisited: Effect of situation strength and trait activation on the
validity of the Big Five personality traits in predicting job
performance. Academy of Management Journal, 58(4), pp.1149-1179.