Effective Leadership Qualities and Success

This assignment delves into the crucial role of effective leadership in organizational success. It examines key leadership qualities such as enthusiasm, decisiveness, and risk-taking ability. The analysis utilizes prominent examples from Apple (Tim Cook) and Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg) to demonstrate how these traits contribute to organizational achievements. Students are tasked with evaluating the leadership styles and their impact on both companies' performance and overall success.

Running head: LEADERSHIP IN BUSINESS
Leadership in Business
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1LEADERSHIP IN BUSINESS
Leadership is a subjective concept in the organizational management. The fundamental of
leadership is based on the idea that, it is the ability of a person to inspire and motivate others to
follow him. It is an essential requirement in every organization to achieve challenging objectives
and goals, take decisions, take rapid actions and improve performance of the other individuals. It
provides direction to the organization. This ability of a person makes others to follow him and
perform their best, and this pushes the organization ahead of others (Northouse, 2015).
This essay focuses on critical evaluation of the relationship between traits, motives and
effectiveness of a leader. These three aspects are interlinked and are important features for a
successful leader. To establish the points, the examples of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook
and Steve Jobs, the co-founder, former Chairman and CEO of Apple Corporation will be
discussed.
Traits of a leader refer to the qualities of a person that make him the leader. The most
important traits of a leader are as follows.
Enthusiasm: this makes a leader active, energetic and expressive. It also makes him alert and
uninhibited to take any decision. It is one of the most important traits that needs to be there in a
leader (Bolman & Deal, 2017).
Dominance: this enables a leader to overcome any obstacle from the subordinates or business
environment with a strong willpower.
Emotional stability: a good leader must be able to handle any negative emotions of the
employees, such as, stress, frustration, etc. Leaders should be able to handle any type of situation
with stability.

2LEADERSHIP IN BUSINESS
Self-assurance: A leader must be self confident and resilient. He should be free of guilt and
should not be bothered by the past mistakes. He should not wait for others approval (Nahavandi,
2016).
Tough mindedness: a leader must be practical and rational in their thinking. He should be able
to handle criticism positively.
Decisiveness: a leader must be able to have strong foresights and take decisions based on that.
During critical situation, this quality of a leader helps the organization to move forward.
Empathy: To build a strong relationship with the subordinates, a good leader must have the
quality of empathy. If the leader understands their situations, then the employees will also obey
him willingly (Daft, 2014).
Accountability: good leaders take responsibility of the actions of their team members and their
own. They also take prompt actions during any emergency.
Optimism: good leaders spread a positive energy among the followers and are always optimistic
about their goals.
Focus: Good leaders always plan ahead and they are extremely organized. Throughout the
execution of the plan, they stay focused to do it efficiently.
Inspiration: a leader is a good one if he is able to inspire others to follow him. For that, the
leader must be able to communicate concisely and clearly and motivate his subordinates (Garcia
et al., 2014).
In this regard, the examples of Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs can be considered. Both
of them are exceptional leaders. An analysis of their traits reflects that, both the leaders had the

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qualities of enthusiasm, dominance, emotional stability, decisiveness, optimism, self-assurance,
focus and inspiration. They believed in their abilities and dreamt of doing something big. They
kept their focus on their actions, they were self-confident about their plans, they took and they
could inspire people to follow and participate in their dreams (Garg, Dar & Mishra, 2016).
Motives of a leader are the forces that drive the person to lead others and achieve success.
The motives are derived from the traits of the leader (Smalley et al., 2016). As per Winston
Churchill’s theory, four types of motives can be observed in a leader, and those are, Power
motive, Drive and achievement motive, strong work ethic and tenacity (Churchill, 2013).
Power motive: When a leader desires to influence people and control resources, he is
driven by power motives. When he wants to achieve more power for his own interest, then
personal power motive plays a major role, and when he wants to achieve a bigger goal for the
organization, then socialized power motive is important (Ghasabeh, Soosay & Reaiche, 2015).
In the examples of Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs, both the leaders were driven by the
socialized power motives. They worked to achieve the objectives and vision for the organization,
rather than for their own benefits.
Drive and achievement motive: this motive helps a leader to take up challenges and
putting efforts to overcome those. Determination, focus, optimism and self-confidence of a
leader result in the above-mentioned motive in him. It pushes a person to put efforts to be
determined about his vision and take decisions as well as the responsibility for that action. It also
helps him to take risks (Churchill, 2013).

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For the leaders in the example, both of them were highly characterized by the drive and
achievement motive. Zuckerberg and Jobs were determined to achieve their dreams and hence,
took decisions and risks to fulfill that. The success of their organization is a proof of that.
Strong work ethics: it is an important motive for an honest leader. He must firmly
believe in the dignity and integrity of the work and the employees, values the hard work and
team work (David, 2016).
Jobs and Zuckerberg, both maintained highly ethical work culture in their organizations.
They valued the efforts of their employees and gave rewards and recognition. This reflects their
motives towards work ethics.
Tenacity: this implies determination and persistence. It helps a leader to overcome the
hurdles to accomplish their dreams. The traits of strong willpower, emotional stability, focus and
accountability of a leader result in the tenacity motive of the leader.
Both the leaders in the above mentioned example have demonstrated the motive of
tenacity. They were persistent about achieving their vision and established such huge enterprises,
as, Facebook and Apple, and made revolution in the world of social media and smartphones.
Effective leadership represents successful leadership. The behavioral patterns and
qualities of a leader play important role in the effective leadership. It demands clarity in vision,
confidence, emotional stability, focus, determination, enthusiasm, decisiveness and few more
qualities. The motives of the leaders also play a major role in bringing the effectiveness into
leadership. However, different situations demand different qualities of a leader. For example, a
sales manager must bring in more enthusiasm than a stock manager. He should be more decisive
and confident about taking risks. Hence, it is important to choose between the characteristics and

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motives properly, which should fit the present situation, to achieve efficient and effective
leadership (Bullock, Stritch & Rainey, 2015).
Self-confidence, assertiveness, enthusiasm, empathy, power motive and drive for
achievement are the common key factors that lead to effectiveness of a leader. A leader must
believe in his leadership skills and capability to have a positive impact on the others. A self
confident leader can make the others confident too. Assertiveness of a leader helps in controlling
the team efficiently. He can express himself and demand high performance from the team
dominantly and people are bound to obey him for his qualities. Another major quality is
enthusiasm of the leader, which is helpful in bringing a positive environment in the workplace
and employees would perform their best willingly. An enthusiast leader can bring in enthusiasm
among his subordinates. A good leader should be empathetic towards his subordinate team
members, as this helps to build up a good relationship among the leader and the followers. The
trust level and coordination among the employees increase if the leader shows empathetic
qualities. Apart from this, the power motive of a leader helps to gain effective control on his
team; and with the drive for achievement, the leader can accomplish his as well as the
organization’s objectives (Shu, 2015).
The above mentioned leaders in the example, i.e. Jobs and Zuckerberg have demonstrated
all these qualities in their work lives. They both displayed efficient and effective leadership
abilities. The success of their dreams and their organizations are one of the greatest examples of
effective leadership qualities. All the above mentioned traits and motives were present in their
portfolios. After the demise of Jobs, when the leadership responsibilities were shifted to Tim
Cook in Apple, he also demonstrated the effective leadership qualities and the success of the
company is a proof of that. Zuckerberg is continuously improving the product as well as the

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services of Facebook, which shows the efficiency in leadership. All these leaders have huge
popularity, which is a result of their efficiency (Garcia et al., 2014).
In the end, it can be concluded that, for an organization to be successful, the efficient and
effective leadership is a major requirement in the management of the organization. Without a
powerful and influential leader, the employees would not be motivated to perform efficiently and
achieve the personal and organizational goals. Many characteristics are required to be an
effective leader, such as, enthusiasm, emotional stability, assertiveness, decisiveness, risk taking
ability, optimism, focus, determination etc. and these qualities generate the motives of
leadership. With all these together, it helps in efficient and effective leadership. All the big
organizations in the world, such as, Apple and Facebook, are all leaded by great leaders and have
become greatest contributors in the development and reforms of the civilization.

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