Leadership Skills and Management Expertise of Bill Gates

The assignment provided is a detailed case study on the leadership skills and management expertise of Bill Gates. It discusses how he and his friend Paul Allen built Microsoft into a successful company, overcoming challenges such as piracy and lack of documentation. The document highlights Bill Gates' exceptional skills in management and leadership, which helped pull the company through tough times and make him one of the richest men in the world.

Running head: ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION
Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Name of the Student
Name of the University
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Executive Summary

1ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION
The purpose of this assignment is to understand and evaluate the leadership and entrepreneurship
skills and attributes of a popular leader. The leader that has been chosen to study is Bill Gates.
The assignments not only discusses the attributes and the personality traits of Gates but also
discussed the company and its process from the initial time. The challenges the entrepreneur had
to face in the process have also been discussed in the assignment.

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Brief history.....................................................................................................................................3
Main Attributes of entrepreneurship that helped Bill Gates achieve success..................................4
Personality traits and personal approach.........................................................................................6
About the company..........................................................................................................................7
Identification of the process.............................................................................................................8
Challenges and barriers faced by Bill Gates....................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Reference list.................................................................................................................................10
Appendix........................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
Regarded as one of the wealthiest man alive, Bill Gates has been an important leader,
motivator, philanthropist and a significant business entity of the present times Bill Gates
established the world's largest software business enterprise, Microsoft with partner Paul Allen,
and today his net worth is around $91.6 B. they founded the company in 1975 and subsequently
became one of the most successful business venture of the current times. Bill Gates has stepped
down from his management position of the company in 2008 to concentrate the focus to
charitable work the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and in 2014 he stepped down as
chairman as well (Forbes.com, 2018). Bill Gates along with his friend Paul Allen had dropped
out of Harvard to create this venture In March 1986, Microsoft was listed for initial public
offering (IPO) for $21 per share, and this step of taking the company public made him a
millionaire when he was just 31 years old. At this time the worth of the company was $520
million and Gates held 45 percent of the company's share. He had gained recognition as a
remarkable leader and exceptional. He has inspired a lot of people to dream big and achieve
heights in life. In this assignment the leadership and entrepreneur traits of Bill Gates are going to
be discussed (Forbes.com, 2018).
Brief history
Bill Gates was born in 1955 in Seattle to a culturally and financially rich family; he was
always an ambitious young man who was hard working and far-sighted. He was enrolled in
Harvard law school where he dropped out in order to develop Microsoft; his vision was to create
a solution software that was compatible to be used for universal purposes. He was passionate
about computer systems and information technology; he used to hack servers easily of the

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Computer Center Corporation where he and his friend were allowed to carry out their
experiments. After they had hacked their systems they were not allowed in the campus for weeks
(Patel, 2017). In 1970 when the organisation was bankrupt the students working for the
organisation lost their jobs along with many other officials. But talent finds its way and he had
got opportunity to showcase his talent and carry out his experiments. In 1975 Paul Allen and Bill
Gates founded Microsoft. The company started facing difficulties but by the end of the second
year the company had 13 members and the sales reached new milestones. Since then the
exceptional visionary leadership of Gates and his knowledge helped him take the company to
new achievements making him the richest man at the age of 39. He has been on and off the top
position but has been consistent on the list (Elkins, 2018).
Main Attributes of entrepreneurship that helped Bill Gates achieve success
From the history and the introduction of Bill Gates that is stated above one of the major point
that is being repeatedly highlighted is that he had pursued the dream that he had. He loved what
he did which encouraged him to work and strive hard for long hours (Patel, 2017). Pursuing the
passion is the way of success, if one doesn’t enjoy what he or she does then they will not be able
to succeed in the endeavourer. He used to spend time with computers learning the process and
the functions of the operations more than the time he used to spend studying for his
examinations. By the time he was in college he had made up his mind regarding his future and he
had his vision set on the goal for his future. He had spent a lot of time learning the computer
languages and programming, which he later turned into an empire of opportunities (Forbes.com,
2018).

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He was not scared of hard work, he was focused and learned whenever he failed he had spent
time understanding and learning his shortcoming so that he could maintain the position of being
at the top of the game. It is a common saying that it is easy to reach the top but it is difficult to
maintain the position. Encouraged by his passion for learning computer science he worked hard
to develop his skill sets and expertise (Patel, 2017). Gates spent years, programming and
developing coding, and finding solutions that could address the problems that were being faced
on a global platform. Even after the establishment and success of the company he continued to
work hard and equally encourage the employees of the company to achieve their goals and
objectives. He wanted his employees to share his own passion for the product and the service
that the company was offering the clients and in order to deliver a quality product hard work was
inevitable (Elkins, 2018).
He had vision for the company and he always thought in the long term process, though the
objective of the company is set in a short term basis but he always had a far sighted strategy in
the management of the business which made the company successful. In terms of the barriers and
the challenges that he had faced in the course of this tenure, he assured the company combated
the risk and grow in the due course. According to Gates it is very important to have a clear goal
in business as well as in life, if the destination is clear then the path towards the destination can
be achieved. Setting milestones and yardstick measures helps in identifying the achievements
and failures (Ward, 2017).
Another main attribute of Gates is that he welcomed and always encouraged innovation
in the company both in his way of life as well as in terms of encouraging and motivating the
people of the organisational (Patel, 2017). It can be said that he follows transformational
leadership, the product or service that he offered transformed the way computers were used in

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domestic purposes. In the course of the company he has implemented several policies to
motivate the people to innovate and crate new ideas (Elkins, 2018).
Positivity and pessimism is one of the attribute in Gates that has helped him learn and
evolve with time. The backlashes and the criticism that he receives he used as a learning
yardstick and tries to evolve from the feedbacks that has been provided. Gates said, “Your most
unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning (Rampton, 2016).”
Personality traits and personal approach
 He is hard working and passionate this is one of the traits that have been discussed above.
 He is visionary and he has the capability of recognizing the opportunity, he is also a
person who is far sighted which has helped him throughout in this decision and policy
making process for the company (Patel, 2017).
 Gates is a person who is a believer in sustainability he is considerate and is philanthropic
in nature currently his focus is to develop and expand the foundation that is named after
him and his wife. Microsoft is an organisation that has invested in CSR from a very long
time. Gates understands the responsibility he has towards the society and the environment
apart from the financial benefits of the company (Elkins, 2018).
 Bill Gates was advised by another popular leader Warren Buffett to learn to say “No”, he
has taken that advise and has shared it with others in several interviews, it is important
for entrepreneur to say No at times, it is important to take decisions and in the process he
or she should ensure that they do not agree to everything rather use their analytical skills
to understand the situation (Ward, 2017).

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 He is also a risk taker form a very young age he has established that he is not afraid to
take risk in order to pursue his passion; he has shown several examples of his risk taking
trait in the time he was heading the management of Microsoft (Rampton, 2016).
 He is determined and is driven by passion, he does not leave any of these tasks undone or
incomplete, and he faces failure with positivity and takes it as a learning experience. He
is also pragmatic in nature which makes him a successful person (Ward, 2017).
About the company
Microsoft was established as a software development company in 1975 by Bill Gates and
Paul Allen. The company was established with the vision of providing common people a
platform of software that was easy to use and could be adapted by people easily. The company
initially faced a number of barriers in the process of operation and product development there
were several security issues in the prototype and then there was issues with sales in the first few
years of operation (Rampton, 2016). The losses of the company was enormous this was due to
the issue of piracy where people could easily copy the software instead of buying it form the
company. This is an illegal act but the company there was no way that the company could track
it hence they had to evolve the technology and build a security system that could not be imitated.
During this time he had pleaded the government to provide rights for software as well like music
or art. In 1977, the company earned around $500,000 dollars with strength of 13 people in the
organisation. The operations of the business were divided in R&D and business administration
while Paul Allen was the one responsible for R&D, Gates managed the administration of the
business. Facing a lot of ups and down in the process of business operation the company in 1986,

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was listed for public with $21 which grew to $28 dollars in a day. In 1993, the company reached
another milestone of being the most popularly used operating system in the world. He stepped
down from his position in 2008 (Rampton, 2016).
As the leader of a cutting edge organization Gates ensured to take care of his employees,
he encouraged innovation and creative liberty among his employees, he motivated the people to
work hard and share his passion and love for the company. He ensured the issues and grievances
of the people are taken seriously and worked upon. He focused on generating job satisfaction by
allowing people space in the work environment (Ward, 2017).
Identification of the process
As Gates and Allen were both passionate about the computer sciences and spent most of
their student days learning and developing programs and technology they had a fair idea about
the contemporary changes and innovations that were taking place in the industry, they had
realized a scope of a software that could be used by the common people which was user friendly.
The far-sighted, pragmatic nature of Gates drove him to grab the opportunity and build an entity
around the product and the services (Ward, 2017).
Challenges and barriers faced by Bill Gates
There were a number of issues that was faced by the duo, firstly they had to engaged in a
lot of learning process before developing a satisfactory product. Yet there were security issues
that were identified.

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The company did not have a sales team, which meant that the sales in the initial days
were low until the company started investing in promotion (Rampton, 2016).
A major issue that the company faced was of Piracy and that is where Gates claimed to
have protected rights form the government for software as well because it is also a work of
science and creativity (Patel, 2017).
When IBM had approached Gates with a business proposal he had to deny due to lack of
documentations and drafts. He had to recommend the rival company for this offer.
Nevertheless, with the leadership skills and outstanding management expertise the
company gained the position of being the most widely used software in the world making Bill
Gates one of the riches man (Ward, 2018).
Conclusion
Bill Gates is popular as a visionary entrepreneur, transformational leader and an
outstanding philanthropist. The company that he and his friend has built has gone through many
ups and down in the course of time but Gates with his exceptional skills in management and
leadership pull through those years. He still continues to inspire the younger generation through
his actions as well as his ideas.

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Reference list
Elkins, K. (2018). Bill Gates: These skills will give you the most opportunity in the job markets
of the future. cnbc.com. Retrieved 15 March 2018, from
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/12/bill-Gates-these-skills-will-help-you-most-in-the-
future-job-market.html
Patel, D. (2017). 5 Traits That Made Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos Wildly
Successful. entrepreneur.com. Retrieved 15 March 2018, from
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/302735
Rampton, J. (2016). How Bill Gates Became a Leadership Legend. entrepreneur.com. Retrieved
15 March 2018, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/250607
Statista.com. (2018). Microsoft's annual revenue worldwide, from FY 2002 to FY 2017 (in
billion U.S. dollars). statista.com. Retrieved 15 March 2018, from
https://www.statista.com/statistics/267805/microsofts-global-revenue-since-2002/
Forbes.com. (2018). Bill Gates. forbes.com. Retrieved 15 March 2018, from
https://www.forbes.com/profile/bill-Gates/

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Appendix
Figure: Growth chart of Microsoft form 2002-2017
(Source: Statista.com, 2018)