Essay on Elon Musk

This essay discusses the background, leadership theories, and challenges faced by Elon Musk, a famous business leader. It highlights his achievements, including founding Tesla Motors and SpaceX, and provides lessons learned from his leadership style.

Elon Musk

ELON MUSK
“Essay on ELON MUSK”
In this essay, the discussion will be made on ELON MUSK who is one of the famous business
leaders. The paper will highlight the background of ELON MUSK, the leadership theories and
also the challenges that are faced by him at the time of managing the activities of the company.
He is a technology entrepreneur, investor and engineer and was born 28 June 1971 in South
Africa. In 1989, he was of 17 years and moved to Canada to attend the Queen’s university and
avoided the service offered by the South African Military. In 1922, ELON MUSK has taken
transfer in US as a student at the University of PENNSYLVANIA. From there he was graduated
with the degree in economics and then stayed for the second bachelor in Physics. After leaving
Penn, he headed to Stanford University located in California to study PhD in the subject related
to energy physics. Then he launched his first company Zip2 Corporation (Biography, 2019).
Presently, he is working to revolutionize transportation both on Earth and in space. Space X
Musk’s rocket company has the value of more than $20 Billion. He is the automaker of Tesla
Motors which was founded in 2003 and now the company is offering the vehicles on the global
platform. He is famous for founding Tesla Motors and Space X. In 1999 he founded X.COM
which is now known as PayPal, in 2002 he established Space X and in 2003 the company
established Tesla. ELON MUSK is also the co founder of Tesla Company (Biography, 2019).
It is observed that journey of ELON MUSK has been good as he worked with the positive
attitude and also with dedication. He has given everything to attain what he wants. Due to his
hard work and dedication he is known as one of the biggest business leader on the global
platform. ELON MUSK has married in 2000 with wed Justine Wilson but after that he took
divorce and then met with the actress named by Talulah Riley and in 2010 he got married with
her. He has five sons with ex wife Justin Wilson (Biography, 2019).
One of the popular leadership theories in relation to ELON MUSK is behavioral theory. This
theory focuses on the behavior of the leader and also it takes into consideration two aspects
which are task oriented and people oriented (Setili, 2015). This theory is considered by this
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leader has he possess positive attitude towards the work and also motivate the employees. The
task oriented behavior of the leader is concerned with organizing, initiating and collecting of the
data. People orientation is concerned with encouraging, observing, coaching and listening
(Bolman and Deal, 2017).Musk has focused on the lesson concerned with leadership. One of the
best examples which relate with this theory is that he believes in “Putting the right people at right
time”. It has been said by him that “I think you don’t want to grow too fast”. It can be stated that
it is important to make sure that every individual you hire, you really need to hire that person”
(Thompson and Glasø, 2015). He believes that employees should not be hired for the sake of
filling the position, so he stated that the right person should be appointed at the right time. In this
he considered the task oriented behavior in which he organized and collect the data required of
the employees (Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2015). He also made the changes in the recruitment
policy in which he mentioned that at the time of recruitment the assessments will be done such as
Predictive Index behavior assessment and PI Cognitive assessment. These assessments will help
to evaluate that the candidate have the right behavior drives and also the mental agility to achieve
success in the given role (Allio, 2018).
The next theory considered by ELON MUSK is transformational leadership theory. In
transformational leadership theory the leaders work with their teams to evaluate the requirement
of change (McCleskey, 2014). Musk also considered this theory in which he focused on
motivating the employees to give their best. To boost the motivation of the employees Musk
emphasized on making the changes in relation to policy and incentives. The policy was made to
reduce the noise on the floor so that employees can work with dedication (Fairhurst and
Connaughton, 2014).
The best example is that the transformational leaders come into conflict with the other leaders
when they resist change and the Musk did the same at PAYPAL. They are specifically gifted at
spotting that what is not working in an easy manner than other leaders and in this Musk has taken
approval from California High speed rail system (Roach, 2017). He gone there to design and
propose by taking his own hyper loop and stated that he will take people 350 miles from Sylmar
to Hayward and will permit the commuters to travel between the cities in less than 35 Minutes.
So he changed the overall process of traveling and shorter the timing in relation to the
commercial airplanes (Donohoe and Kelloway, 2016).
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ELON MUSK
It is investigated that there are various challenges faced by ELON MUSK. Failure with Tesla
was one of the challenges that were faced by him. It has been examined that in 2008, Tesla has
been collapsed due to financial crisis. When the company wants the money to fund in Model S,
at that time Musk selected to bankrupt him. On February 23, 2010 in the court filing case Musk
admitted that he was broke about four months ago and ran out of cash. The filing of the case
related with divorce was from his ex wife. To overcome this challenge Musk took personal loans
from his friends and also due to his perseverance and determination he has boosted the success
ratio of the Tesla Company. Instead of this he was also having the option to reduce the prices of
the products so that low profits can be earned but with this he can fund slowly in the Model S
(Hess and Andiola, 2017).
The earliest challenge faced by him was when the board of directors refused him to be appointed
as the CEO of the company when he started. The board of directors stated that he doesn’t have
operational responsibilities and due to this he cannot be appointed as the CEO of the company.
By seeing this scenario Musk decided to start his own company (Shapiro and Stefkovich, 2016).
Then he launched his first company Zip2 Corporation and showed them that he possess the
operational requirements which are required to be CEO and till now he is achieving success in
the market. So, the step taken by him has boosted the growth opportunity. But the other step that
can be taken by him at that time was convincing the board of directors to give him a chance to
showcase his skills and knowledge (Dobbs, 2016).
There are many lessons that are learned from ELON MUSK. One of the lessons that have been
learned is to “Have a powerful vision”. The successful leaders usually have a powerful vision
and ELON MUSK is one of them. He has a revolutionary vision and it has been observed that
not only the idea has the positive impact but also the changes the overall working process of the
company. He established the PAYPAL Company and transformed the overall company of
money transform on the global platform. So, it can be stated that one of the lessons learned from
him is to have a vision that should be transformational and also powerful so that it could be easy
to attain success (Marques, 2017).
The next lesson learned from him is related with “Execution of the ideas well”. ELON MUSK
showcased that it is important to have an innovative team so that it could be easy to execute the
ideas. With their participation, the business models can be made solid. This will help to maintain
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ELON MUSK
the healthy financial returns and also assist in execution of the vision. So, it can be stated that
your idea will be good in the manner how the individual will execute it (Rimmer, 2018).
Think big is also one of the lessons learned from ELON MUSK. By focusing on the history
related with innovation, it is leaned that individuals should think big. PAYPAL changed the
overall industry by digitizing the money transfer and it has made the process simple for the
people to send and receive the money. His Space X Program has also affected the space travel. It
has been observed that ELON MUSK think big and he taught us how to do it. So, this is also the
important lesson that has affected the behavior of the individuals and also encouraged them to
think big (Koesters, Shea and Satiani, 2017).
It is concluded that ELON MUSK is one of the famous leader who achieved success in his life.
At the time of managing the activities of the company he focused on behavioral theory and
transformational leadership theory. It has been examined that there are various challenges faced
by him such as the issue related with financial crisis and also he was rejected by the board of
directors, then also he faced and resolved the challenge and now is known as one of the biggest
leader. The lesson learned from him is to think big and to have a powerful vision.
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ELON MUSK
References
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