BUSS 2068 Case Study: Leadership in the 21st Century Analysis

This case study examines the leadership styles of Richard Branson (Virgin Group) and Terry Gou (Foxconn). Branson employs a transformational leadership style, prioritizing employee well-being and fostering innovation, while Gou adopts an autocratic style, focused on task-oriented approaches and strict control. The analysis explores the impact of these contrasting styles on employee motivation, job satisfaction, and organizational culture. The study also applies the path-goal leadership theory to evaluate the effectiveness of each leader. Ultimately, the study emphasizes the importance of adopting appropriate leadership styles to enhance organizational performance and create a positive work environment, suggesting improvements for Foxconn's leadership approach to address employee stress and improve overall well-being.

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Community Management and Organization
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Author’s Note

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Introduction
The present study gives an overview on the importance of leadership style in leading
towards success in business. The leaders adopting leadership style influences the employee’s
behavior in working towards business goal. Leaders have the ability to maintain interpersonal
relations with their subordinates and motivate them to attain objectives of the enterprise.
Leadership style is the way by which leaders adopt their functions and the way they behave
towards their group members (Iqbal, Anwar and Haider 2015). It can be participative or
collaborative and directive or commanding leadership style. There are different types of
leadership styles such as- transformational, transactional, charismatic, democratic, autocratic,
servant and bureaucratic. This study focuses on two case studies that reflect on two different
leadership styles integrated by two leaders working in different organizations.
Question1:
a) The leadership style adopted by Richard Branson is transformational leadership style.
Transformational leadership style is the leadership style where the leaders mainly works with the
teams for identifying change and creating vision to guide change through inspiration and
executing change with the group members (Mesu, Sanders and Riemsdijk 2015). The
characteristics of transformational leadership style includes-
i). Idealized influence- It determines the ability to build confidence within the leaders that forms
the basis to make change within the enterprise. Leaders having these features are honored,
trusted and appreciated by the followers.
ii). Intellectual simulation-It refers to the ability of a transformational leader to transform the
organizational process. These leaders enhance efforts of followers in regard to innovativeness,

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creativity and stimulate change in the way of thinking relating to business problems (Choudhary,
Akhtar and Zaheer 2013).
iii). Inspirational motivation-This relates to the transformational leaders ability to inspire as
well as motivate followers to make good behavior. These leaders also motivate others to follow
new idea.
iv) Individual consideration-This feature of transformational leader reduces ability of the
individual analysis of subordinates.
One such examples of Branson adopting transformational leadership style is that he puts
their employees interest first. This is because Branson believes that this inspires as well as
encourages them to work harder towards enterprise goals.
b) Terry Gou adopts autocratic leadership style as he does not permit their workers to work
independently (Rast III, Hogg and Giessner 2013). The leaders adopting this leadership style
includes application of punishment and task- oriented approach. The theory of path- goal
leadership style defines these leaders as directive leaders. With leadership style, the employees
becomes constantly in pressure to work harder for enhancing efficiency as well as productivity.
One of the examples of this leadership style is seen from the case study that there have
been near around 11 suicides and suicide threats being done owing to bad working conditions as
well as employees treatment. Terry Gou did not consult with his employees and even attempted
to make a sign in absolving his enterprise of any kind of responsibility if they wishes to commit
suicide.
Question 2

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As per Polston-Murdoch (2013), the path- goal leadership theory defines that effectual
leader is the one who mainly explains path through which the followers should attain personal as
well as task- related targets. It represents how the leaders performance, motivation and
satisfaction impacts the performance of an organization. There are four kinds of leadership styles
that includes-
Directive leadership-The leaders direct the followers by knowing them to know what is to be
done and requires to be performed (Nanjundeswaraswamy and Swamy 2014).
Participative leadership-The leaders adopting this leadership style involves the followers to
make decision and motivate them to be attractive.
Supportive leadership-The leaders try to make work easier by treating all individuals equally.
Achievement- oriented leadership-The leaders usually sets challenging target for the workers
and predicts them to perform their best.
As per this theory, Branson reflects more than one leadership behavior. It has been seen
from the above case of virgin that, there are no protocols and thus each employee has been
provided freedom for participating in organization decision – making procedure (Alimuddin and
Sukoco 2017). Branson is mainly involved to support workers in doing their innovations as well
as ideas. Moreover, he also adopts supportive leadership style since he supports his workers to
perform difficult challenge without having support from him. On the contrary, Terry Gou
leadership style is different from that of Branson. Terry leadership style is also known as
directive leadership style as he takes full control over his workers and decision- making. It has
been identified from this case study that Terry has adopted policies to claim that the organization
is not responsible to make any kind of suicide attempts by the workers that is considered as

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unethical. However, the above cases study shows that there has been lack of proper
understanding of individual’s interaction within workplace.
Question 3
Iqbal, Anwar and Haider, N (2015) defines motivation as crucial aspect on the employees
performance. The leadership style that are exhibited by both these leaders have huge effect on
their employees job satisfaction. The motivation style adopted by Branson have direct impact on
employees performance. Branson motivates employees to participate in the decision making
process. Branson provides their employees challenging tasks and gives them job flexibility.
Branson adopted ‘Non- policy’ that permits workers for fulfilling workers psychological
requirements (Alimuddin and Sukoco 2017). On the contrary, Terry exhibiting leadership style
impacts workers in adverse manner. The employees are working overtime and performing proper
tasks. In regards to existence requirements, Gou leadership style reflects secretiveness, which in
turn has adverse impact on workers needs. Owing to bad work conditions, the workers commit
suicide, thereby resulting in the existence requirements of their safety.
Question 4
Foxconn being the biggest company according to their customers, the employees are seen
to be not happier owing to stressful workplace. If leaders take proper care of employees, they
give best service to customers (Strom, Sears and Kelly 2014). As a consultant, I will improve
leadership approach as well as organizational culture at this company. In addition, it is suggested
that work load must be reduced for reducing stress on employees physical and mental conditions.
Conclusion

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From the above discussion, it can be concluded that leaders must adopt proper leadership
style in order to improve the performance of enterprise and enhance its growth. Moreover,
effective leadership style also helps in making positive organization culture. Besides this, they
should integrate different strategies for adopting the leadership style within the workplace.
Overall, this study shows that Terry and Branson have adopted different leadership style in their
enterprises for driving success in business.
Source of reference
The references used for this study have been collected from scholarly articles and the pdf
gathered from websites.

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References
Alimuddin, A. and Sukoco, A., 2017. The Leadership Style Model That Builds Work Behavior
Through Organizational Culture. JURNAL LENTERA: Kajian Keagamaan, Keilmuan Dan
Teknologi, 3(2).
Choudhary, A.I., Akhtar, S.A. and Zaheer, A., 2013. Impact of transformational and servant
leadership on organizational performance: A comparative analysis. Journal of business ethics,
116(2), pp.433-440
Iqbal, N., Anwar, S. and Haider, N., 2015. Effect of leadership style on employee performance.
Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review, 5(5), pp.1-6.
Mesu, J., Sanders, K. and Riemsdijk, M.V., 2015. Transformational leadership and
organisational commitment in manufacturing and service small to medium-sized enterprises: The
moderating effects of directive and participative leadership. Personnel Review, 44(6), pp.970-
990.
Nanjundeswaraswamy, T.S. and Swamy, D.R., 2014. Leadership styles. Advances in
management, 7(2), p.57.
Polston-Murdoch, L., 2013. An Investigation of path-goal theory, relationship of leadership
style, supervisor-related commitment, and gender. Emerging Leadership Journeys, 6(1), pp.13-
44.
Rast III, D.E., Hogg, M.A. and Giessner, S.R., 2013. Self-uncertainty and support for autocratic
leadership. Self and Identity, 12(6), pp.635-649.

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Strom, D.L., Sears, K.L. and Kelly, K.M., 2014. Work engagement: The roles of organizational
justice and leadership style in predicting engagement among employees. Journal of Leadership
& Organizational Studies, 21(1), pp.71-82.