Managing Organizations Leading People Report

Running Head: BUSINESS AND CORPORATION LAW
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Managing Organisations and Leading People
12/18/2019
Student’s Name

Managing Organizations and Leading People
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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Servant leadership Style and challenges in VUCA world...............................................................1
Leadership Style of Kevin Johnson: An evaluation........................................................................2
Jonson as a strong personal brand...................................................................................................5
Recommendations............................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The report presented hereby is focused on the leadership style of Kevin Johnson, who is
President and Chief Executive Officer of Starbucks Coffee Company. The report will include a
discussion about servant leadership style and challenges associated with the same in a VUCA
environment. In addition to this, the leadership style adopted by Kevin Johnson will also be
critically evaluated in addition to considering the image of the subjective person as a global
leader. Lastly, some recommendations to enhance the sustainability of Starbucks shall be given
along with a conclusion that will evaluate the effectiveness of the leadership of Johnson.
Servant leadership Style and challenges in VUCA world
Different styles of leadership provide different methods of giving directions, developing and
implementing strategies and to deal with people. Servant leadership style is one of them, which
has been adopted by many of the leaders in recent times. Robert K. Greenleaf has given this style
of leadership. The focus of a leader adopting this leadership style remains around the well-being
of people as well as communities to which they belong (Greenleaf.org, 2019). In other words,
this can be stated that a leader under this style first plays the role of a servant for the people
associated with a business such as employees and customers. It is a positive leadership style
where the leader adopts some key characteristics in his/her behavior such as listening, awareness,
healing, empathy, and other affirmative features (Mindtools.com, 2019). As mentioned above,
various leaders are adopting the style whereby Cheryl Bachelder, CEO of Popeyes Louisiana
Kitchen seems a good example of a servant leader. When she joined this company, the financial
condition of the same was not good and profits trends were negative. The person has used a

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servant leadership style and in this manner, the loyalty of the customers in the company
enhanced (Mackey, 2018).
After the above-mentioned discussion, it becomes clear that servant leadership reflects positive
attributes and mostly leads to positive consequences as a leader thinks of others before thinking
about him/her. Nevertheless, in practice, one may find some issues while practicing this style of
leadership especially in a VUCA environment that stands for volatile, uncertain, complex, and
ambiguous (Kraaijenbrink, 2018). In the organization of present times, most of the people think
that they live in the VUCA world which motivates people to adopt agility so that they can meet
the requirements of the present as well as in the future (Horney, Pasmore, and O’Shea, 2010).
The volatile environment reflects the magnitude and dynamics of changes where there is always
an unpredictability of issues. Problems and views of employee's changes regularly and a servant
leader face difficulty in changing the policies as per such changed issues. Due to the complexity
and ambiguity of the environment, contemporary organizations often face sudden changes all the
time. There are chances that even after when a leader listens to his employees and work
accordingly, they can leave the organization, and the business can face loss. Hence, in this way,
with high employee turnover, servant leadership seems difficult to pursue. Further lack of trust is
another issue due to which even the servant leaders do not adopt ideas provided by employees
and faces issue according to the principles of servant leadership. In an uncertain and difficult
environment, for the purpose of wise decision making, a collective effort in "heterogeneous
groups" seems necessary. Many times due to generational gaps, the appropriate decision cannot
happen. These are some of the lead issues that a servant leader often faces while dealing with the
VUCA world.