Leadership: Lessons from Jack Ma, Co-founder of Alibaba

This report analyzes the leadership style of Jack Ma, co-founder and executive chairperson of Alibaba, and covers his vision, challenges, strengths and weaknesses, risks taken, and more. It highlights the lessons that can be learned from his journey as a leader.

Running head: LEADERSHIP
LEADERSHIP
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
Leadership is both an art as well as a skill and those organizations which are involved in the
domain of the corporate external environment need to ensure that they have a good leader who
will help the different people in achieving their objectives and ensure that the organization
achieves a competitive advantage. The report is based on one such inspirational leader named
Jack Ma, the co-founder and executive chairperson at Ali Baba. The report covers various crucial
topic related to leadership like the lessons to be learnt from Ma, the different challenges he faced,
his strengths as well as weaknesses and the vision he had. Various theoretical concepts along
with practical examples have been used.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
About Jack ma.................................................................................................................................3
Visions the leader has for the organization......................................................................................4
Challenges the leader has to faced...................................................................................................5
Strengths and weakness of the leader..............................................................................................6
The risks the leader has undertaken.................................................................................................8
Lesson(s) we can learn about this person as a leader......................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
A leader guides the organization and helps the members in achieving their goals. Any
organization with an efficient leader will be successfully able to achieve all its goals and
objectives and may also be able to achieve s sustainable competitive advantage in the long run.
Hence, in order to be successful in the long run, it is very successful for an individual to adopt
the traits which are present in a leader as these traits go a long way in assisting an individual to
achieve success (Anderson & Sun 2017). The primary aim of the given report is to highlight the
journey of one such leader named Jack Ma. Jack Ma is the founder and the executive chairperson
of the Ali Baba enterprise. The report will be highlighting the journey of the leader and cover
areas like the challenges being faced by them, the strengths and weaknesses of the leader, the
risks Jack Ma has undertaken and the different lessons which can be learnt about the leader.
Analysis
About Jack ma
Jack Ma is a Chinese business philanthropist. He is the founder and executive chairperson
of the Alibaba Group. According to a poll on August 2018, Jack Ma is one of the richest men in
China with a net worth of more than US$ 38.6 billion (Financialpost.com. 2018). The Chinese
business is at its present state because of Ma and has been defined to be one of the most powerful
personalities in the globe. Recently, he announced his retirement and will be continuing charity
work from September 10. His reign as the head of Alibaba has taken the business as well as the
Chinese economy to new heights. Co-incidentally Jack Ma was born on 10th of September in
1964 and began studying English at an early age and practiced it with foreign tourists. He was
nicknamed Jack by them because his original name was difficult to pronounce (Tsui, Zhang &

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Chen 2017). With a degree in English, from an early age Jack showed various signs of progress
and later on became a lecturer at a prominent university. According to Telegraph.co.uk. (2018),
his consistent hard work and vision for Alibaba has made the company one of the largest e-
commerce companies around the globe. The leadership style of Jack Ma can be taken to be as
influential and inspiring.
Visions the leader has for the organization
In the 45th World Economic forum annual meeting, Jack Ma stated that his vision for
Alibaba has been greatly inspired from the different leaders around the globe and that it greatly
relies on providing service to the 2 billion customers of Alibaba. According to Jack Ma, this shall
have a double effect as it will help the 10 million small businesses which function outside China
to sell their products through the e-commerce portal (Entreprenuermag.co.za 2018). There are
more than 300 million people transacting through the internet and with the help of Alibaba the 10
million small businesses have been greatly impacted by this and this has contributed to the
welfare of the Chinese economy. Moreover, instead of just ensuring that Alibaba becomes the
largest e-commerce website in terms of customer base as well as annual sales, the vision lies in
ensuring that Alibaba becomes a global platform for the different small businesses not only in
China but in other parts of the globe as well like in Norway, Argentina, and Switzerland (Yahaya
& Ebrahim 2016). It is his goal to build up an e-WTO and make use of the medium of internet to
extend the operations of the business. Moreover, Jack Ma states that along with the achievement
of this vision, Jack Ma also wants to ensure that the team lives up to public trust and ensure
successful operations. He wants to set an example for the young people in China and help them
in understanding their duty towards the country. According to Antonakis & and Day (2017),

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various Hollywood movies have also been an inspiration to him and help him to understand that
he should never give up.
Challenges the leader has to faced
The leader, Jack Ma`s journey has not been a simple one and he has faced various
hardships in his life which expanded his horizons and helped him to become a better individual
(Telegraph.co.uk. 2018). From a very young age, Jack Ma valued education and hence, wanted
to study in a good university but could not complete this dream immediately as he was
continuously rejected by schools and universities. The different challenges as faced by him have
been stated as follows:
Failed various exams in school: Jack ma had a hard luck in school as well as University.
This is because he failed various exams in school and because of this he had to undergo the same
studies many times which was quite demotivating in nature but he learnt his lesson and never
gave up. At last, he was successfully able to pass all his examinations (Arnold et al. 2015).
Rejected from Harvard University: Moreover, the second challenge which was faced by
Jack Ma was that he was rejected by the prestigious Harvard University many times in his
tenure. He applied around 10 times to get an admission at the school and was rejected all the
times (Financialpost.com. 2018). Moreover, this portrayed that Jack Ma was a man of
persistence and in spite of being rejected high number of times, he kept applying for the
admission and never gave up.
Was turned down from various jobs: Due to his short stature and not very pleasant looks,
Jack Ma was rejected for over thirty jobs and in spite of this, he never lost hope and remained
positive throughout. According to Entreprenuermag.co.za (2018), he believes in hard works and

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is often heard giving speeches in relation to the same. He also states that, today and tomorrow
may not seem to be a good day, but the day after tomorrow, will be better in terms of positivity
and success. He remained optimistic irrespective of the various challenges and ultimately found
success.
Got no initial funding for Alibaba: Although Jack Ma had started Alibaba, he got no
funding for it and was unable to convince Silicon Valley to fund for the enterprise and the
organization suffered various losses during the first three years of its operations (Raelin 2016).
Hence, it can be stated that, Jack ma faced various challenges in pursuit of becoming a
better leader, but none of these challenges could bring him down.
Strengths and weakness of the leader
A leader is someone who can be looked up to and various aspects of their life can be used
in order to learn the manner in which they have achieved success (Entreprenuermag.co.za 2018).
Hence, this section of the report will be undertaking the different strengths as well as the
weaknesses of a leader in order to understand his leadership style in general.
The various strengths of Jack Ma as a leader are as follows:
Signature leadership style: Jack ma has an inspiring and influential leadership. Through
this leadership style, Jack Ma has been successful in changing the business dynamics of China
and has bought about a revolution in the domain of e-commerce industry (DuBrin 2015). His
whacky sense of leadership style has been praised by various critics.

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Democratic management: Jack Ma believes in democratic management, which is based
on the fact that he believes in letting his board members take the different decisions in order to
ensure an environment of innovation in the workplace.
Understanding of people: According to Kang, Solomon and Choi (2015), Jack Ma has
an excellent understanding of people and has the best people management skills which are
required in order to run a large enterprise (Ojha 2016). He understands that the different people
in an organization are required to be respected adequately in order to ensure success in the long
run.
Respecting choice and opinion of the different consumers: Jack ma believes in the power
of the consumers and understands that their feedback goes a long way enabling the different
aspects of the company to improve in various dimensions.
Charity: Jack Ma believes in social work and charity. Moreover, he also believes that in
order to be successful in the long run he will be required to ensure that the social responsibility
of the organization is fulfilled.
Shortcomings
However, all the leaders in the business also possess certain shortcomings which can be
used as an example to improve one’s leadership skills.
Lack of computer knowledge: The primary shortcoming of Jack Ma is that he lacked
relevant technology with respect to technology (DuBrin 2015). If he had proper knowledge in the
remaining field then he would have been able to successfully improve the business model.

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Lack of contacts: He lacked contacts in his initial days of business which made him face
various difficulties while conducting business.
The risks the leader has undertaken
The journey of Jack Ma has not been an easy one and he has undertaken various risks
throughout his journey as the company head of Jack Ma. Some of these risks undertaken by the
leader have been stated as follows:
1. Undertaking e-commerce even when it was not popular: E-commerce was not a
popular concept back when Jack Ma began his journey in this domain back when e-
commerce was not very popular and hence, due to this, he undertook a huge risk in this
aspect and staked all his reputation and years of hard work in this venture (Moore 2016).
However, he was determined to become successful and hence, was able to achieve his
long term goals.
2. Continuation despite lack of funding: Although Ali baba was on the verge of
bankruptcy, Jack Ma did not lose out on hopes and continued the operations on the
business enterprise. This aspect went a long way in assisting him to achieve success and
was also able to ensure that the business achieves its objectives.
A successful business is all about risk taking and by portraying capabilities to take these
risks, Jack Ma was highly successful in taking these risks and this is the reason, his organization
was successful in its endeavors (Ward 2016).
Lesson(s) we can learn about this person as a leader
As a leader, Jack Ma has been very inspirational and hence, for this reason, there are
various lessons which can be learnt from his endeavors and actions:

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Persistence: Jack Ma reflects persistence. Although he had been rejected many times in
his life from the different universities and schools, he did not lose out on hope and was able to
achieve success. According to Asrar-ul-Haq and Kuchinke (2016), his continuous trials
portrayed that he was very persistent in nature and this aspect bought him success in the long
run.
Hard work: Jack Ma was quite handwriting as well. As he wanted to learn English from
the time he was quite young, he engaged in several activities to do so which required extensive
travelling. Moreover, he worked vey heard on his startup which made him successful in the long
run.
Learning from mistakes: Jack ma has been often heard saying that Alibaba has made
various mistakes and that they try to improve daily (Northouse 2018). Hence, it can be rightfully
stated that Jack Ma has taken continuous efforts to learn from these mistakes and this has
assisted him in achieving success in the long run.
Conclusion
Hence, from the given analysis on Jack Ma as a leader, it can be stated that he portrays
the style and signs of a true leader and that it is due to his own efforts and steps being taken that
Alibaba has been able to achieve success to this extent. The essay outlined the journey of Jack
Ma as a leader and outlined the different lessons which can be taken from him, Risks he
undertook, his strengths and weaknesses, vision of the leader and challenges being faced by him.

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References
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new ‘full‐range’theory. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19(1), pp.76-96.
Antonakis, J. & Day, D.V. eds., 2017. The nature of leadership. Sage publications.
Arnold, K.A., Connelly, C.E., Walsh, M.M. & Martin Ginis, K.A., 2015. Leadership styles,
emotion regulation, and burnout. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 20(4), p.481.
Asrar-ul-Haq, M. & Kuchinke, K.P., 2016. Impact of leadership styles on employees’ attitude
towards their leader and performance: Empirical evidence from Pakistani banks. Future Business
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