People, Culture, and Contemporary Leadership: Elon Musk's Impact

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Elon Musk's leadership qualities, focusing on his contributions to his organizations, including SpaceX and Tesla. It examines key factors behind his success, such as risk-taking, innovative ideas, and his approach to managing obstacles. The report explores ho...Read More

Running head: PEOPLE, CULTURE AND CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP
People, Culture and Contemporary Leadership
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PEOPLE, CULTURE AND CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP
Summary
Leadership is the skill of person to ‘lead’ through their outstanding vision and risk taking
abilities. Among all other traits these two traits of the leader make him different from the
mass. This study is centred on the famous entrepreneur Elon Musk. This leader through his
visionary perspectives and leading capabilities has been able to achieve enormous success in
several ventures (Mair 2016). In this study, there would be discussion of Elon Musk and his
contribution to his organisation success.

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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................3
Two key Factors for his Success....................................................................................3
Measuring his Effectiveness of the Leader....................................................................4
Contribution to the Organisation....................................................................................4
Conclusion......................................................................................................................5

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Introduction
Elon Musk has created a number of billion dollars companies and is given the title of
“the world’s most remarkable living entrepreneur”. This entrepreneur has all the
characteristics of a good leader. Elon Musk is known for his risk taking capabilities and
innovative ideas. There are also some controversies regarding this entrepreneur, but no one
could deny his leadership skills in the tech-world (Yauney 2018). Musk has a many positive
leadership traits that time and again influenced the entrepreneurs and they have followed him
to get success in their respective business.
Two key Factors for his Success
Managing the obstacles
Elon Musk is the risk taker and he believes that there would be obstacle in most of the
new steps he is taking towards success. This being the vision of the entrepreneur, he is never
afraid of the problems or obstacles, rather he uses his mind in solving them effectively. The
employees of his companies get full support from their leader in tackling the obstacles as
well. The Guardian once reported that Musk is always engaged in his work and companies
even after the office timings. The entrepreneur in known for his innovative ideas and
executing them with help of his efficient work force. The work culture of these companies are
well maintained and organised.
Craving for Improvement
Learning and improving the work ideas is the base of Musk’s success as a leader.
Musk also gives special importance to time management and the feedbacks from his teams.
In an interview he mentioned-

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PEOPLE, CULTURE AND CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP
“I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about
what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of
advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning
yourself.”
According to him continuous learning and improving the efficiency is at the heart of success
in any industry.
Measuring his Effectiveness of the Leader
As leader, Musk is known to be quite accessible to his employees. This entrepreneur
holds a numbers of successful business venture in his name. He is always ready to experiment
with new ideas. Taking calculative risks for the betterment of the company is his forte. Other
than that, Musk keeps learning from his faults and experiences. As a leader he keeps good
track of the work and employees performance of his firms (Allio 2018). He is dedicated to his
work and invests his time in fruitful outcomes. He is the visionary for many young
entrepreneurs who are striving to get a break in their business endeavours. The ted talks of
Elon Musk has influenced many to follow their dream. In this way, he is an efficient leader
who have the capacity to influence the lives of people. Musk continuously reviews his
business strategies so that he can update them as necessary. The workforce of Musk’s
companies are motivated by their renowned leader and his work process. He has a huge
number of followers who look at him for their motivation.
Contribution to the Organisation
Elon Musk is the CEO of multiple number of organisations including SpaceX and
Tesla Inc. He strategically distributes his time in the innovation and research for of the
companies. His company SpaceX is unique in itself. Even after Musk took the
responsibilities, Tesla has started to improve their innovation in their models. He is the

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PEOPLE, CULTURE AND CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP
pioneer of the electric cars. The creative ideas of Elon Musk along with the technology has
helped Tesla to reach in its present condition in short span of time. On the other hand SpaceX
has been successful in various space exploring experiments under his leadership (Muegge and
Reid 2019). This company has achieved many milestones under the visionary leadership of
this mind. Elon’s ventures are ruling the world of space technology as the private venture.
The dedication of the leader has influenced the employees to achieve higher goals in the
organisation and surpass their best self. In the automobile industry, Tesla started to
manufacture sports car and then invest that money to build more affordable car (Rimmer
2018). The electric cars with zero emission gave Tesla a unique push after its development.
Conclusion
Leadership as a trait is known to be rare and the skills of the leaders need to be
developed through regular experiments. Elon Musk is one of the most known leaders in the
tech world not for no reason. Managing multiple companies at once and leading the
possibilities towards success shows efficiency of Musk as a leader.

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References
Allio, R.J., 2018. Becoming a leader–first, take charge of your own learning process.
Strategy & Leadership, 46(3), pp.21-28.
Mair, M., 2016. Enlightened entrepreneurship: the success of Elon Musk.
Muegge, S. and Reid, E., 2019. Elon Musk and SpaceX: A Case Study of Entrepreneuring as
Emancipation. Technology Innovation Management Review, 9(8).
Rimmer, M., 2018. Elon Musk’s Open Innovation: Tesla, Intellectual Property, and Climate
Change. In Intellectual Property and Clean Energy (pp. 515-551). Springer, Singapore.
Yauney, R.H., 2018. Leadership Development: A Study of Elon Musk. Marriott Student
Review, 2(2), p.4.