Issues and Solutions in Uber: A Study on Leadership and Organizational Culture

This report discusses the issues faced by Uber in terms of leadership and organizational culture and proposes solutions to mitigate these issues. It also includes a recommendation for implementing a diversity plan.

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Executive summary
Uber is one of the leading taxi service company around the world. Currently, the organisation is
facing a number of issues regarding its leadership and organisational environment. It was alleged
that the CEO of the organisation, Travis Kalanick was solely responsible to damage the
workplace environment and created hindrance into the development of the organisation.
Therefore, the purpose of this report is to identify the issues clearly and suggests a plan to
mitigate the issues permanently. In course of the discussion, the report further incorporates a
recommendation portion that clearly mentions the plausible steps that help the organisation to
implement the diversity plan effectively.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Background......................................................................................................................................3
Identification of problem.................................................................................................................4
Discussion........................................................................................................................................5
Solution............................................................................................................................................6
Organisational culture..................................................................................................................6
Leadership quality.......................................................................................................................7
Solution........................................................................................................................................7
Recommendation.............................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
Reference.......................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
Uber is considered to be one of the leading taxi service across the world. The company
was established in 2009 with lots of opportunities and scopes in future. As a matter of fact, the
leadership of the CEO Travis Kalanick helped the company to rung the apex of its success.
However, in course of time the organisation is facing series of issues in its business orientation
where the management was alleged to practice unethical practices in its business activities. As a
result of that it became severe problem for the organisation to sustain in business and
continuously witnessing employee grievances and allegation to violate the local transportation
regulation accompanied with wilful discrimination and intellectual property theft. All those
allegations were highly serous and damaged the reputation of Uber robustly.
Therefore, this report aims to identify the problems within Uber. Based on this issues the
report further proposes a solutions and recommendations that can help the company to usher
better organisational environment.
Background
Ethical dilemma and issues are not new in Uber. Since its inception the organisation has
been dealing with a number of ethical issues. For instance, the workplace environment within the
organisation is full of misdeeds and unethical organisational practices and the CEO of the
company Kalanick supported that practice effectively. As a matter of fact, there was no such
hierarchical structure within the organisation that was driven by the partiality and lack of
leadership quality. Therefore, it became a culture for Uber to follow the practice of sexism,
discrimination and violating the local regulations sporadically.

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Identification of problem
First of all, it can be argued that the workplace culture or the organisational culture is the
most important aspect for Uber that has to be developed effectively. It is associated with the
cultural diversity and the sense of gender equality within the organisation. However, in case of
Uber, the organisation follows the polarised model of cultural values. According to Hanley, Scott
& Priest (2017, p.190) the polarised cultural theory reflects the prevalence of a single culture
within the organisational framework and the company intentionally retain such kind of culture.
Moreover, the research of Ercan (2017, p.123) articulated that the polarised cultural ethos are
clearly put focus on an aggressive cultural practice where the organisation is unwilling to
generate other cultural values within its organisational dimension. In relation to this, the
erstwhile CEO and founder of Uber Kalanick had little concern about the organisational culture.
Therefore, he did not want to manifest any specific organisational culture into practice. As a
result of that it became a problem for the employees to understand the cultural practice they had
to follow. The unrestrained nature of the workplace culture led to unprofessional behaviour
inside the organisation (Lang 2015, p.178). Lack of respect for diversity and the bullying were
the most common feature of workplace culture in Uber that damaged the image of the company
intensely.
On the other hand, the negative workplace culture led to lack of leadership quality that
further perturbed the efficiency of the employees. In case of Uber, the tradition leadership styles
had been followed that was associated with the notion of rigid decision making and the
authoritarian principles of the organisation in decision making. As per the research of Shu (2015)
it can be argued that the traditional leadership style is lack of flexibility and resilience that can
create a communication gap between the management and the employees. Moreover, another

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important aspect of the traditional leadership quality can be identified in terms of making chaos
and scepticism among the employees on the aims and objectives of the organisation and the role
of the leaders in order to manage the workforce (Rhee & Sigler 2015). In case of Uber, Kalanick
provided ultimate power in the hand of the regional offices and there was no link between the
headquarters at San Francisco. As a result that communication gap was an obvious issue that the
organisation was suffered with. In addition to this, the concept of laissez faire leadership quality
can also be relevant while evaluating the organisation leadership in Uber. Wong & Giessner
(2018, p. 767) opined that the laissez faire leadership highly optimistic about the skills and
mentality of the group members. Therefore, no such measures have been taken to formulate the
working culture. A free and open organisational culture can be seen in case of the laissez faire
leadership (Zareen, M., Razzaq, K. and Mujtab 2015, p. 435). In case of Uber, the role of
Kalanick was also comprised of the same mentality. As a result of that the executives enjoyed
more flexibility and autonomy to impose their interests on the employees. The aggressive
leadership tendency was also illustrated within the 14 core values propounded by Kalanick. For
instance, the elements of meritocracy and toe-stepping culminated the positive working culture
in Uber. The managers were always seemed busy in undermining their supervisors in order to
elevate their own career progression. It had a negative impact on mistrust and violation of the
organisational values that resulted unethical professional practices like sexism and discrimination
(Buch, Martinsen & Kuvaas 2015, p.120).
Discussion
Based on the above argument, it can be stated that there are two clear issues that Uber
was suffered with in terms of the lack of positive workplace culture and the negative leadership

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quality of the leaders. The issues formulate a core concept that most of the business challenges
that Uber had been faced were mainly due to the internal culture rather than any external threats.
It can be stated that the issues of the organisation bestowed in the leadership practice of the CEO
that indulged and provoked other members and managers to follow a lunatic and unprofessional
attitude. As a matter of fact, partiality and self-preferences were also existed within the
workplace culture of Uber that hampered good relationship between the organisation and
employees. In this regard, some solutions must be addressed focusing on the workplace practice
and leadership style in the context of Uber. As Wiengarten et al. (2015, p.373) opined that
organisational culture was one of the crucial factors that facilitated success and proficiency
among the employees.
Solution
Two specific solution is going to be proposed about the organisational culture and
leadership quality of the organisation.
Organisational culture
 Specific- To Reduce the unethical practices within the organisation.
 Measurable- To decrease the unethical organisational practice by 20%
 Achievable- Uber has a diverse workforce all around the world so that it will generate
culture of workplace diversity.
 Relevant- It is important for Uber to develop organisational proficiency
 Time-bound- The process will be achieve within one financial year.
Leadership quality
 Specific- To implement the transformational leadership style.

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 Measurable- To decrease the employee attrition rate by 20%.
 Achievable- Uber has enough market capitalisation with huge workforce.
 Relevant- The leadership style will help Uber to increase professional skills among the
employees.
 Time-bound- The process will be completed within one financial year.
Solution
For introducing and implementing an effective leadership, the transformation theory of
leadership will be taken. As per the research of Hoch et al. (2018, p. 515) it can be stated that the
transformational leadership is committed to enhance the performance of the leaders. One of the
major factors is related to the features like high motivation to the employees so that they become
inclined perform effectively (Banks et al. 2016, p.635). Moreover, the transformational
leadership practice is also focused to encourage new concepts and innovative ideas of the
employees so that a creative and healthy atmosphere within the organisation can be restored. It is
associated with the intellectual simulation where the leader tires to procure intellectual
simulation within the organisation. From the discussion of Engelen et al. (2015, p. 1072) it can
be derived that the positive influence of the leader on the employees through transformational
type of leadership is highly effective for the organisation in order to deal with the practice of
getting strategic advantage on behalf of the organisation. There is enough scope for the
organisation to put thrust on the organisation and the embodied structure of team members and
the leaders can facilitate such measure. Individual consideration plays an important role in this
regard where the employees can get enough exposure to nurture their talents and skill for
developing the organisation (Ghasabeh, Soosay & Reaiche 2015, p.460). From that point of
view, it can be articulated that transformational leadership forms an effective means of

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organisational environment where both the employees and the organisation get the opportunity to
make progress.
Figure 1: Diversity plan model
(Created by the author)
Therefore, a specific model is also required in order to train and develop a diverse culture
in Uber. It can be identified as a diversity plan that is effective in the context of Uber. In this
regard, at first the Uber management especially the HR team is responsible to review the existing
process. The purpose of evaluating the existing workplace practice is to underline the core
aspects and features of the organisational environment. After that it is important to figure out the
possible accessibility measures of the organisation. In this stage, the management will investigate
the insights of the organisation and analyse the possible scope to deliver a diverse organisational
Review
process
Accessibility
Diversity
training
Dversity
plan

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culture within the organisation. Next, a plan to train the employees on diversity and highlights
the importance of the proposed plan will be highlighted in order to engage the employees with
the plan (Ravazzani 2016, p.157). Based on all these stages, a diversity plan will be developed in
order to deal with the objectives effectively.
Recommendation
However, there are some suggestions that the managers must take in order to successfully
implement the process.
 The cooperation and adaptability of the managers is considered to be one of the major
aspect that can result the effectiveness of the proposed plan. For instance, direct
communication between the workforce and motivating the employees in course of
making better workplace environment is considered to be one of the major aspect for the
Uber management. In addition to this, the employees must have a clear vision regarding
the workplace diversity and its importance in the business spectrum. In an overall
explanation, it can be argued that both the adaptive nature of the employees and the
management with having better communication practice can only establish effective plan
for the workplace diversity.
 Moreover, it can be argued that manifesting a better HRM policy is also identified as a
pertinent measure for planning out the diversity plan. As the Uber management is no
longer in a position to generate the importance of diversity in workplace by itself
therefore it is the responsibility of the HRM to provide additional efforts to convince the
management to take the diverse culture practice. The role of the HR department will be

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promote adequate measures for making healthy environment for the diverse workplace
management plan effectively.
 Communication can also generate robust impact on the process of making better diversity
management plan. In this regard, both the formal and informal interaction between the
managers and the employees can be pivotal enough to implement. Through the direct
communication between the executives and the employees an amicable relationship can
be created that encompasses both the interests of the employees and the management.
The employees can understand the objectives and purpose of the organisation. on the
other hand, the organisation will also acknowledge the interests of employees so that both
the actors can meet their individual targets and bring more efficacy into the process of
making effective diversity management plan.
 Besides this, putting emphasis on individual aspiration is also identified as one of the
contributing factor for the Uber before implementing the workplace diversity
management plan. It is important for the organisation to put some serious emphasis on
the individualism because of encouraging the employees to think out of the box. As a
result of that the employees would feel more relaxed and cope with the organisational
practice effectively.
Conclusion
Based on this understanding, it can be argued that the Uber management is facing serious
threats in terms of dismantling the workplace culture and usher unethical organisational practices
that will create huge problem for the organisation to sustain its business. On the other hand, the
situation is also affected by lack of effective leadership quality. in this regard, the proposed

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transformational leadership style and the workplace diversity management plan are highly
relevant in order to develop better and efficient organisational framework. Therefore, it can be
concluded that the role of the proposed recommendations will help Uber to get strategic
advantages in highly competitive market.

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