Analysing a Leader: Elon Musk

This essay analyzes the leadership style of Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla. It examines the dilemmas he faced, his breakthroughs, and his strengths and weaknesses as a leader. The essay also provides recommendations for Elon Musk to improve his leadership skills and address stakeholder concerns.

ANALYSING A
LEADER

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
ANALYSIS- ELON MUSK............................................................................................................1
Overview.....................................................................................................................................1
Dilemmas Faced by the Leader...................................................................................................1
Breakthrough that made Leader Successful and Famous...........................................................3
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Leader....................................................................................3
Recommendations.......................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Leadership refers to the capabilities within certain individuals to manage and lead an
organisation appropriately and effectively in order to attain challenging goals (Shamir & Eilam-
Shamir, 2018). Moreover, this activity also includes spontaneous and effective decision making
actions when required. A leader in an individual who is responsible for leading their teams and
other subordinates towards success. The following report is based on analysing a leader. It
includes dilemmas faced by the leader and leadership style used by them to manage the same.
Moreover, it involves breakthrough that made the leader successful and famous. The report also
covers identification of strengths and weaknesses of the leader along with actionable
recommendation for the leader.
ANALYSIS- ELON MUSK
Overview
Elon Reeve Musk is the founder of Space X and co-founder as well as CEO of Tesla, an
individual responsible for overseeing all the firm's product design, manufacturing and
engineering activities for the organisation's vehicles, battery products as well as Solar Roofs.
Born on 28th June, 1971, Musk is one of the world's most successful entrepreneur with a net
worth of $19.7 Billion (Elon Musk, 2018). Currently this individual is heading various
organisation which have a strong global image such as PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX and The
Boring Company. All these organisations are technologically advanced and are known for high
end innovations. Elon Musk is one of main reasons behind the success of all these firms in such a
massive level.
Dilemmas Faced by the Leader
The road to success is never simple and each leader face tremendous problems as well as
failures before acquiring appropriate and effective success. As for Elon Musk, there are several
dilemmas and situations which were faced by the individual. These situations encouraged him
into shaping himself in a better manner and transform himself as a person, an entrepreneur and
most importantly, as a leader.
As per the biography of the tech-giant by Ashlee Vance, one of the biggest dilemmas
which was faced by Elon Musk was around 2007, when both his companies SpaceX and Tesla
Motors experienced severe failures which tarnished his image in the public and media houses
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began to criticize the approach by Musk to run his businesses. While second launch attempt of
SpaceX miserably failed, Tesla Roadster was anointed as No.1 fail in that year by Valleywag,
which is a Silicon Valley Blog. This dilemma turned to be so big, that Elon Musk sold some of
his prized possessions to earn some extra cash (Vance & Sanders, 2015).
However, effective decision making is necessary in order to overcome dilemmas in
professional careers. Furthermore, another thing which contributes in overcoming from such
negative situations is the leadership styles adopted by the leader. As for Elon Musk, both his
companies were dangling with ineffective support as well as inappropriate offerings. Thus, a
definite and long-term oriented leadership style was necessary to be adopted by this leader. A
change in the way of working was required to be adopted by Elon Musk and to overcome his
dilemmas, he adopted transformational leadership. Regular encouragement was provided to the
employees of these organisation. Along with this, necessary training was provided to employees
as well in order to make trade-offs more effective between productivity and expenses. He
personally communicated with each of his division related his vision and version of how this
problem could be handled and oversaw all the purchases made by the company. In addition to
this, he became a consistent guide of his employees which resulted in a progressive growth in
situation of both these companies. Transformational leadership has been perhaps one of the most
used leadership by Elon Musk in his quest for success. Moreover, it is very much relevant for
this situation as in similar situation, it is important for leaders to communicate and work as a
team and ensure proper working which could only be possible through this style of leadership
(Lobo, 2015).
Another dilemma which was faced by the leader was that after he invested every cent in
his business, he almost ran out of any cash to further conduct his business operations. With such
a dilemma, he was faced with limited options to carry his business forward. One option which
could have been taken by the leader was related to a rushed private stock sale. Another option
available with Elon Musk was borrowing money from his friends (Musk’s ‘out of cash’ dilemma
many business founders love to share, 2019). However, to the keep the company going
consistently, this leader took loan from his friends. Furthermore, the leadership which he adopted
to solve the dilemma was democratic leadership. Each division head was kept under loop
regarding the decisions which were made for the company. Moreover, democratic leadership also
helped Elon Musk in swiftly leading the organisation out from this dilemma. As for this style's
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relevance in this situation, during those times when leaders are somewhat ineffective in taking
their decisions, it is required to involve subordinates in decision-making which is essential to
take appropriate steps in order to appropriately solve all the dilemmas.
Breakthrough that made Leader Successful and Famous
Each entrepreneur and leader have several situations and breakthroughs which have
dynamic outcomes depending upon the situation. However, each situation have their own
impacts on the leaders, their public image as well as on success or failure of their organisation. In
terms of Elon Musk, most of the breakthroughs in the leader's lives were regarding his
innovations as well as his effective contribution in two most prominent industries which are
aeronautics and automotive engineering. Besides this, one major breakthrough which shaped up
the automotive industry was brought by Elon Musk and made him quite famous globally. This
breakthrough was achieved through development of Electric Car by Tesla. Seeing the ongoing
environmental concerns, dependency on oil for motor vehicles and effective technological
advancements, Elon Musk provided the world with a range of electric cars. As per an account on
the leader provided by CNBC, the stock of Tesla increased by almost 700 percent in a period of
almost two and a half years after it began the sales of these electric cars (Elon Musk’s 10 greatest
inventions changing the world, 2019). Furthermore, this concept brought a revolution in the
market as well as among the people worldwide. Elon Musk gained immense popularity as well as
his progress, till date, has been unstoppable.
Another breakthrough which led to popularity as well as success for Elon Musk is his
recent successful attempt regarding Falcon Heavy Rocket. On February 6th, 2018, SpaceX
successfully launched Falcon Heavy, which was another prominent event for this leader (Elon
Musk, on Falcon Heavy’s triumphant launch, 2019). This was a huge news which spread rapidly
across the globe, leading to immense popularity as well as success for this entrepreneur. The
reason for the same is that the previous attempts of launch of Falcon Rockets failed miserably.
Thus, the world along with Elon Musk were waiting for a successful launch and when finally it
happened, it led to the leader being famous once again around the world.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Leader
Leaders are required to lead the whole organisation towards success. They have several
responsibilities as well as essential roles to play within their companies which makes them quite
important for the firm. However, there are several strengths and weakness in a leader which are
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very crucial to be identified and analysed effectively. The reason for the same is that it helps in
identifying several advantages and limitations of the leader in respect tot he company, their work
as well as their attitude towards their work.
As for Elon Musk, he is one of the most talked out entrepreneur in the current world
scenario related to business. He has been quite effectively analysed before and there are several
traits and characteristics present in this leader which are both positive and negative. Moreover, it
is also quite important to take into account the stakeholders' view on Elon Musk which would
help in analysing prominent aspects about the leader in a better manner. The strengths and
weaknesses of Elon Musk are discussed below:
Strengths: Creative Thinking: Elon Musk is known to possess one of the most innovative minds
which suits best for the industries his companies operate in. He has a long term vision for
the future and works continuously on improving existing models and developing new
products. His creative thinking has helped the leader in producing effective designs in his
auto-mobiles and his aeronautical equipments which would serve the demand of the
market for long term. Persistence: Another strength of this leader is the his persistence (Cragg & Spurgeon,
2016). Despite of several failures throughout the years, Elon Musk kept up with the
consistency of developing more effective infrastructure along with using necessary and
appropriate technology in his equipments. One biggest example is mentioned above
regarding the brutal crash of Falcon 9 by SpaceX. Persistence has always been the key for
Elon Musk to adequately progress towards consistent growth and lead his organisation
towards success.
 Work Ethics: A successful leader is the one who is completely invested in his work and
devote his time, efforts and talents on improving the position of their organisation. Elon
Musk is a workaholic and works almost 100 hours a week consistently for so many years.
Within all his companies, he is one constant hard working factor. Furthermore, he even
quoted, “There are way easier places to work, but nobody ever changed the world on 40
hours a week”, and encourages his subordinates within his companies to invest more of
their time while working towards success (Elon Musk says people need to work around
80 hours per week to change the world, 2019).
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Weaknesses: Casualness: As far as stakeholders' opinions are concerned, one of the biggest weakness
of Elon Musk is his casual behaviour. Despite his hard work and innovative mind, he has
been strongly critiqued on social media for all the misinformation he jokingly spreads in
relation to his companies. One such example is his tweet regarding him taking Tesla
private at $420 per share (Five things Tesla CEO Elon Musk can still safely tweet about,
2019). This caused a massive shakedown and and a heavy penalty on Elon Musk for such
false information. Moreover, according to his shareholders' opinion, his casual behaviour
regarding these aspects has been quite grieve for his companies public image. Thus, lack
of seriousness is his another weakness. Public Speaking: As CEO and Founder of companies like Tesla and SpaceX, it is
expected from Elon Musk to effectively address the public regarding the future plans of
these companies. Moreover, he is also expected to be quite confident in his speech (What
You Can Learn From Elon Musk's Presentation Style, 2019). However, it has turned out
to be one of his biggest weaknesses. His speeches are often inconsistent and flat, which
fails to develop any sort of enthusiasm within the listeners. He has been consistently
critiqued in relation to his public speaking and his ambiguous speeches.
 Erratic Behaviour: His stakeholders, especially shareholders and employees have been
quite vocal lately about his 'One Man Show' and erratic behaviour that has started to
cause several severe consequences for the company. After he claimed of having fund
secured to take the firm private, Tesla's Shareholders have been on a tiff regarding his
mental condition (Elon Musk's Increasingly Erratic Behavior Comes At A Price For
Tesla Shareholders, 2019). Moreover, quite recently, it was evident that various
stakeholders of the company wants to oust their leader along with three other board
members (Elon Musk must be fired as Tesla CEO, shareholders say as company
struggles, 2019). Moreover, his outsized claims have been critiqued by employees as
according to their opinion, they pay the price for such promises (Tesla workers say they
pay the price for Elon Musk's big promises, 2019). All these evidences indicate his
biggest weaknesses which might hamper the success of his company as well as his future
image in the market.
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Recommendations
Seeing these several weaknesses as well as negative stakeholders perspective, it is
essential that there are some recommendations which must be used by Elon Musk to improve on
his weaknesses (Charteris-Black, 2018). These recommendations are stated below:
 Foremost recommendation for Elon Musk is that he must undertake decisions which have
a positive impact on his organisation and its stakeholders. A better approach would be to
transform his leadership behaviour and consider opinions of others as well.
 He must work with more effective organisations so that rate of failure of his project
decreases which would ensure consistency.
 Elon Must should work on improving his public image and work towards presenting his
views a bit more firmly.
CONCLUSION
Thus, it is concluded that analysing a leader is a crucial practice to appropriately gain an
insight on the individual and all the factors which are either associated with them, or is likely to
affect their image and position. Further, it is very much important to acquire and analyse
information regarding dilemmas and negative situations faced by them along with type of
leadership they have adopted to overcome the same. This would allow in understanding the traits
which are necessary to deal with similar situations. Furthermore, it is essential that stakeholders'
opinion is obtained about the leader which would be helpful in carving out the strengths and
weaknesses of the leader. Lastly, for each weakness, it is essential that recommendations are
provided in relation to improving these weaknesses.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Charteris-Black, J. (2018). Analysing political speeches. Macmillan International Higher
Education.
Cragg, R., & Spurgeon, P. (2016). Competencies of a good leader. In How to Succeed as a
Leader (pp. 33-40). CRC Press.
Lobo, M. C. (2015). Party dealignment and leader effects. Personality Politics. 148-66.
Shamir, B., & Eilam-Shamir, G. (2018). “What’s your story?” A life-stories approach to
authentic leadership development. In leadership Now: Reflections on the Legacy of
Boas Shamir(pp. 51-76). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Vance, A., & Sanders, F. (2015). Elon Musk. HarperCollins.
Online
Elon Musk must be fired as Tesla CEO, shareholders say as company struggles. 2019. [Online]
Available Through:
<https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2149067/elon-musk-
must-be-fired-tesla-ceo-shareholders-say>
Elon Musk says people need to work around 80 hours per week to change the world. 2019.
[Online] Available Through: <https://www.businessinsider.in/Elon-Musk-says-people-
need-to-work-around-80-hours-per-week-to-change-the-world/articleshow/
66820201.cms>
Elon Musk, on Falcon Heavy’s triumphant launch. 2019. [Online] Available Through:
<https://earthsky.org/space/elon-musk-spacex-falcon-heavy-launch-feb-6-2018>
Elon Musk. 2018. [Online] Available Through:
<https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/#7ff3632b7999>
Elon Musk's Increasingly Erratic Behavior Comes At A Price For Tesla Shareholders. 2019.
[Online] Available Through:
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimcollins/2018/09/05/elon-musks-increasingly-erratic-
behavior-comes-at-a-price-for-tesla-shareholders/#6a3830c39441>
Elon Musk’s 10 greatest inventions changing the world. 2019. [Online] Available Through:
<https://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/13/elon-musks-10-greatest-inventions-changing-the-
world.html>
Five things Tesla CEO Elon Musk can still safely tweet about. 2019. [Online] Available
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tweet-about/>
Musk’s ‘out of cash’ dilemma many business founders love to share. 2019. [Online] Available
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had-to-make-when-he-was-broke.html>
Tesla workers say they pay the price for Elon Musk's big promises. 2019. [Online] Available
Through: <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/13/tesla-workers-pay-
price-elon-musk-failed-promises>
What You Can Learn From Elon Musk's Presentation Style. 2019. [Online] Available Through:
<https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/how-elon-musk-uses-authenticity-to-spread-his-
ideas-and-how-you-can-too.html>
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