JACK MA Yangisha K.C Westcliff University 500B: Organizational Leadership

JACK MA
Yangisha K.C
Westcliff University
500B: Organizational Leadership
Professor Rajiv Subba
July 11, 2022

JACK MA
There are numerous times where we encounter amazing individuals who have had an
impact on people's lives; one such individual is Jack Ma, one of the wealthiest and most
successful Chinese multimillionaires. Ma Yun, now known as Jack Ma, is the co-founder and
executive chairman of Alibaba Group who was also listed on Forbes “Most Powerful Person “list
on 2015.Besides this he was also listed 2nd in World’s 5o Greatest Leaders on Fortune Magazine
in 2017. (Putri, 2022).
One of the richest people in China Jack Ma is the founder and Chairman of
Revolutionary E-commerce Business Alibaba, which has undoubtedly set an example
worldwide. Founded in 1999, the company not only grew rapidly but is able to set an exemplary
remark among the world where it connects the buyers and sellers across the world. (Putri, 2022).
Jack Ma born in September 10 ,1974 in China came from a household that was lower middle
class. Jack Ma had aspirations to lead the student organization throughout his time in school and
to work as an English tour guide in his free time.
Jack Ma served as an English instructor at Hangzhou Dianzi University following his
graduation from Hangzhou Normal University in 1988. During this time, Jack Ma had the chance
to go for business to the USA, where he first became aware of the existence of the internet. He
was aware that this technology will fundamentally alter the course of human history and started
thinking globally there onwards. (Putri, 2022).

My admiration for jack ma
There are many leaders across the world who have influenced me in some manner, but
Jack Ma stands out for me. In most cases, the public only sees the successful aspects of an
individual, but in the case of Jack Ma, he told the world about his failure. Similarly, there are
various instance where Jack Ma has proved himself as an exemplary leader, one being, a
revolutionary chain Ali Baba and its world recognition.
For me personally, those who have experienced hardship and afterwards demonstrated to
the world that they are valuable and can actually follow through on their promises are true
leaders, and their credibility is far higher than that of people who have been fortunate in life,
which is the reason why I admire Jack Ma.
Aside from his financial success, Jack Ma is an excellent personality who personifies the
persona of a responsive and responsible leader. I will further examine the reasons why I admire
him as a Leader as per the five practices of successful Leaders in the paragraph below.
Jack ma leadership style with respect to five practices
The five practices of leadership are model the way, inspire the shared vision, enable
others to act, challenge the process and encourage the heart which is further explained with
respect to Jack Ma’s leadership journey. (Nanjundeswaraswamy, 2014).
Model the way
Jack Ma used the practice like Model the Way, despite many obstacles in his domain, he
consistently followed his passion and made a way for others to follow. As he was in CEO
position, he held a lot of responsibility and had to encounter a lot of misfortune when running

and developing the company but still he was persistent enough and followed his dream. Since he
had a global vision, attaining it was not an easy task. Due to different kind of Language barrier
and aim of uniting the world together despite of many rules and standards that they have to meet,
he did not give up easily. Jack Ma had to struggle a lot to set up the E-commerce channel in
China, he convinced his 17 partners and opened Alibaba, which itself shows that he modeled the
way for his followers and clarified his values and made people believe in him which is a great
achievement as a Leader and was able to set an example. (Putri, 2022)
Inspire a shared vision
Jack Ma convinced everyone and inspired a shared vision to adapt to achieve the change
he envisioned. He first started with the website convinced his 17 partners to invest in the
business made them believe that they will become the future of China’s E-commerce system and
inspired a shared vision amongst them which can be taken as a foresightedness of a Leader. Even
though people did not believe the words coming from a former English teacher, he made people
believe in him and actually proved that they are the Revolutionary Future of the E-commerce
Platform in China and made Alibaba one of the Largest Company in China.
Enable others to Act
Since leadership consists of group of people and leader leading the way, the goal
achievement is impossible with a single effort. Starting out Jack Ma involved multiple people in
his company as a shareholder as his goal was something big and extraordinary. What Jack Ma
had envisioned was not possible from a single effort, it required multiple people’s involvement
and needed a lot of helping hands. Ma encouraged handstands in the workplace, and valued the
open feedback of his workforce. He had a good sense of character and trusted his group

members. This is one of the most essential qualities for leaders because it encouraged loyalty and
created a solid foundation for his businesses to thrive on. (Kapur, 2020).
Challenge the process
Starting out as an English Teacher, people really didn’t believe what Jack Ma had said
and that to a Global Approach for E-commerce was too much to digest for the people. People did
not have an idea regarding what E-commerce is potential of, but Jack Ma’s consistent effort was
able to Challenge the Process and turn Alibaba as a platform to buy and sell goods in and from
Marketplace in no time. Even though there were multiple Language, Political and other barriers
that could have stopped Jack Ma, he trusted the process and soon Alibaba not only improved the
E-commerce of China but also provided a global platform to trade. (Putri, 2022).
Encourage the Heart
One of the most admirable traits of Jack Ma’s Leadership style is he encouraged the
hearts of people. (Kapur, 2020). Coming from a lower Middle Class and not having extra
ordinary mathematics skill but still being able to achieve his Global Visionary Goal is exemplary
in itself. He made people believe that nothing is impossible if we give our consistent effort. He
took time to let people know about his failure stories and motivated people to not to give up on
their dreams, which is one of the greatest assets as a Leader.
Jack Ma and his credibility
As credibility and leadership are interrelated, coming from a lower middle class and not
having extra ordinary skills and his sequel of failures and yet being able to become China’s Most
Influential Personality across the World and success of Alibaba in itself speaks for his
Credibility. (Kouzes J. M., 2017).

In other words, the fact that Jack Ma came from a typical family and worked as an
English teacher prior to becoming successful helped to establish his credibility because people
knew about his hardships and his outcome made people realize that everything is possible if we
work hard for it. Some even informed him that despite having 100 dreams, he couldn't fulfill his
dreams of uniting countries for a common cause. However, after returning from the US, he had
his ideas set in motion and searched for methods to make them come true. He wanted to make
Alibaba so prosperous that he would even buy Google and Yahoo and bring back China's Heart,
commerce. Alibaba became the most prosperous Chinese company in 2014, which increased his
credibility and led to people beginning to believe in him. (Kouzes J. M., 2017).
Since Jack Ma has made it to the Business Charts and revolutionized China’s E-
commerce, there are no any area of improvement remaining for Jack Ma as a Leader because he
proved what he had made other people believe in. But taking pre-caution can always help a
leader to achieve more than what is expected out of them.
Jack Ma in any other field
Jack Ma, was a former English Teacher. In case he was not in Business field than he
would be in Teaching profession. LI personally think Jack Ma would be an average teacher
because as he had already tried the profession he would not be as happy and passionate than he is
as a Businessman because he felt that the Teaching Job was not fulfilling his practical needs.
(Shu Yueyu, 2022) . His global visionary would be not utilized as much as he did it as a
Businessman.
However, his Leadership style would work as a teacher because he would use
Transformational Leadership style for less performing students and motivate them timely

because he personally believes that giving up is failure but, in some cases, he would be needing
Transactional Leadership style because as a teacher sometimes the firmness is required. (Kabeyi,
2018).
Conclusion
From this assignment, what I learned is that Leaders are not always the exemplary people
that we think of. Our idea about leaders and the actual leaders can mismatch. Leaders can be
anyone even if it’s someone with less privilege and average mathematical capabilities. What
matters the most is that, whether the person is able to model the way, influence the people,
inspire them, challenge the process and whether they can bring the best out of everyone or not.
Hence, Jack Ma’s Leadership taught me that failure is the beginning of success. People
will always question the ideas and not always believe what you have to say but proving it and
making things happen depends upon a Leader. Leadership is not an individual trait but is act of
influencing bunch of people to achieve a common goal and trusting the team and moving
forward can help achieve greater results and what matters the most is not giving up.

References
Kabeyi, M. (2018). Transformational vs transactional leadership with examples. 6, 191- 196.
http://internationaljournalcorner.com/index.php/theijbm/article/view/129786
Kapur, R. (2020). Leadership skills: fundamental in leading to effective functioning of the
organizations.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344361074_leadership_skills_fundamental_in_l
eading_to_effective_functioning_of_the_organizations
Kouzes, J. M. (2017). The leadership challenge: how to make extraordinary things happen in
organizations. John Wiley Sons. https://books.google.com.np/books?id=u-
5xDgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+leadership+challenge&hl=en&sa=X&ved
=2ahUKEwic6KKkvNj4AhXGe94KHUqFAD4Q6AF6BAgKEAI#v=onepage&q=the
%20leadership%20challenge&f=false
Nanjundeswaraswamy, T. S. (2014). Leadership styles. Advances in management.
https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/51993044/leadership_styles-with-cover-page-
v2.pdf?Expires=1657108505&Signature=IIDjGWLo~HLmfOxLLy3fk4o-UFO-l-
l6PiEAWCk7bn-zOpRNc4Q3B-
0orpcSHZpzupTpuI71v0Lq1E4LsGqC4~Yf6L2H2SbBPq7vi8P2cvJ9GBo92yPoowppZ
H0wLNLvbZdWzI741F
Posner BZ, K. J. (1988). Relating leadership and credibility . Psychological Reports, 527-530.
doi:https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1988.63.2.527

Putri, S. (2022). Jack ma's leadership style.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361435602_Jack_Ma's_Leadership_Style
Yueyu, S., Xie, X., Xinyu, Z., Wucheng, L., Yang, X., Shuyi, L.,& Jiyuan, Z. (2022). The
“teacher” and martial arts: a psychobiographical analysis of jack ma as a business change
agent. Journal of Personality. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12749