Leadership Aspects of Starbucks: A Case Study of Kevin Johnson's Leadership Style

Leading Business
Organisation

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Servant Leadership Style-............................................................................................................3
Kevin Johnson's Leadership Style- .............................................................................................4
Strong personal brand of Kevin Johnson as a global leader-.......................................................6
Recommendation to build on current success and maintain Starbucks' sustainability and
competitive Advantage- ..............................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION- ...........................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
This report includes leadership aspects of Starbucks, which is a coffee company and
American coffee house chain. This report includes details and style of leadership of Kevin
Johnson, CEO of Starbucks and past CEO of Starbucks and evaluate how leadership of both
leaders affected Starbucks and its business. Both CEO's of Starbucks share same goals for the
company but their approach to achieve them is different and Kevin Johnson have a more
disciplined approach (Mason, Cole and Goza, 2017). Current CEO focused on ethical aspect of
the company that customers should be served nutritious food and drinks. Then report also
includes perspective of management and employees about working in and working for company.
Servant Leadership Style-
A philosophy of leadership in which individuals interact with each other and leaders
include everyone's opinion while making decision. Aim of this leadership is to achieve authority
rather than power. This is present in decentralised organisation. These leaders look after well
being of all who are around them and exhibit characteristics like empathy, commitment to
growth of self and those around them (Seto and Sarros, 2016). These leaders are concerned about
fulfilling wants and requirements of others and considering themselves as servants. These leaders
also encourage others to look for others requirements rather than personal gains. Servant leaders
share powers with others in various forms including delegation of authority and involving
subordinates in decision making. Servant leaders possess some qualities that are valuing opinion
of others, building a culture of trust., developing others and leadership in them, helping everyone
even with their personal issues, motivate and guiding rather than commanding. Servant leaders
believing in leading through involvement of everyone rather than commanding what to do and
how to do. That are most likely to be trusted by employees and other stake holders of
organisation.
There are various challenges associated with this style of leadership, they are as follows-
Reduce motivation of employees- Employees tend to work faster and better when they
know that they are answerable to strict leader. In servant leadership leaders are not strict but very
patience and kind towards employees so employees can take them for granted. This can give
hard time to leaders (Burch, Swails and Mills, 2015). In a volatile environment of organisation
where employees are required to be always ready to change themselves according to