Leadership Styles and Theories: Elon Musk Case Study Report

This report provides an analysis of Elon Musk's leadership style, focusing on his transformational approach and its implications for Tesla. The report begins by introducing leadership theories, including trait theory, transformational theory, and contingency theory. It then examines Musk's leadership, highlighting his visionary traits and how they have shaped Tesla's organizational culture. The analysis delves into the positive impacts of his leadership, such as inspiring innovation and driving organizational change, while also addressing the negative consequences, including employee burnout and high attrition rates. The report compares Musk's leadership style with those of other transformational leaders, such as Steve Jobs and Barack Obama, to provide a broader perspective. It concludes by summarizing the advantages and disadvantages of transformational leadership and emphasizing the influence of situational factors, employee readiness, and organizational objectives on a leader's effectiveness. The assignment also discusses how leadership styles affect organizational issues like attrition rates, job satisfaction, and employee behavior. This report is a valuable resource for students and professionals seeking to understand the complexities of leadership and its impact on organizational success, available on Desklib.

RUNNING HEAD: MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
0
Management and Leadership
[Type the document subtitle]
System 0032
[Pick the date]

Management and Leadership
1
Introduction
Leadership is a process of motivating and influencing others or a group of people to act
towards achieving goals. Leadership theories emphasizes on why and how individuals become
leaders. Some of the leadership theories that are discussed in below sections are trait theory,
transformational theory and contingency theory (Bertocci, 2009). Further, Elon Musk is
selected as a leader to understand the influence on leadership style on organization. He is the
founder of Tesla and possesses transformational leadership style to run his organization. As
leadership style of a leader has great influence on the workplace culture and on the behavior of
employees because leader has ability to induce and motivate others towards achievement of
objectives. The leadership theories that can be applied to understand the leadership style of Elon
Musk are trait theory and transformational theory. So the below sections highlights the dominant
style of Elon Musk in his organization and the negative and positive impact of his style on
organization and comparison with other leaders who have different leadership style from Elon
Musk and implemented it in the organization successfully.
Leadership
Leadership styles differ because of different traits and situation this statement can be best
understood with the help of identifying a leader traits and style named Elon Musk, founder of
Tesla. Trait theory describes the traits of a leader or characteristic that a leader possesses that
make a leader different from its followers. Each individual have some traits that make them a
bad leader or a good leader. Trait and behavioral theory states that effective leadership style
depend on various variables such as culture of organization, task or nature of job as no one trait
can define the best leadership style (Dobbs, 2016). Whereas, contingency theory states that
leadership styles are depend on the situation and leader change his leadership style as per the
situation in which he lead. The focus of contingency or situation theory is on three elements that
are; task requirement, peer’s behavior and organization culture (Ghasabeh, Soosay, & Reaiche,
2015). Musk dominant style of leadership is transformational style as he possesses traits like
long term vision, innovativeness, decisiveness and team work. Elon Musk is one of the visionary
leaders that focus on setting up bigger goals for employees so that they can contribute best of
their abilities. The positive impact of his leadership style on organization is that he is seen as a

Management and Leadership
2
transformational leader and he changed the organizational environment and workplace culture of
Tesla. He motivates and inspires their workforce to do the best and push them to do beyond their
comfort level. Further, his traits or his transformation style proved harmful for his employees as
he forces them to do overtime and work as per his orders and ideas that make their employees
less productive and led to increased attrition rate in Tesla (Mabey & Knights, 2018).
Leadership style has great influence on the organization and on workforce, a
transformation leader has great vision and induces other to contribute best of their ability and
that has positive influence on organization culture and ethics as each individual will be dedicated
towards its goals and has clear vision (Antonakis & Day, 2017). Further, leadership style of
leader also influence employee behavior and working and this leads to job satisfaction if leader
has skills to lead the employees and can influence them to work has positive impact on the
behavior of employees and that leads to more job satisfaction to them at workplace. Leadership
shapes organization’s culture and leader’s traits define whether employees and organization are
getting affected positively or negatively (Northouse, 2015). Elon Musk transformational
leadership style is the reason of Tesla success but Musk negative traits also affected Tesla culture
and its employee behavior.
There are many other leaders who possess same leadership style as Elon Musk and
leading the organization in positive manner. Steve Jobs and Barack Obama considered as
transformational leaders. Both of these leaders lead in the best way, “Steve Jobs names in the
most iconic transformational leaders in the world”. His simplicity and passion for perfection
drove Apple and his employees are satisfied as he challenged employees to think beyond and
create innovative solutions. His personality traits always inspired others in the business field.
Barack Obama compassion and sense of humanity towards his employees encouraged them to
contribute without any boundaries. These leaders have positive impact on the people and
organization culture and workforce (Nguyen, Mia, & Chong, 2017). Transformational
leadership style has various advantages and disadvantages; firstly it involves quick formulation
of vision and promotes enthusiasm and also inspires and motivates employees to do their best.
Transformational leaders sometimes struggle in detail orientation and lacks reality and truth.
Though transformational leaders are powerful so it carries the potential for abuse and not
consider as always appealing style of leadership so implementing this is beneficial as well as

Management and Leadership
3
harmful and can impact negatively also on workers, employees and organization culture (Setili,
2015).
Conclusion
Leadership theories are school of thoughts that helps in identifying the leadership style
that a leader use and the factors that influence them to use that leadership style. There are various
leadership theories trait theory, contingency theory and transformational theory. All these are
understood with the help of knowing the leadership style of Elon Musk, founder of Tesla. Of
leadership He follows transformation leadership style and the most dominant style that he had.
His style impacts negatively and positively on Tesla and its employees. It is concluded from the
theories of leadership that there are various factors which influence the leadership style of a
leader such as situation, nature of job, readiness of followers and objectives to be attained. It is
also known that leadership style creates various organizational issues such as increase attrition
rate, low job satisfaction and changing employee behavior and organization policies and
practices.

Management and Leadership
4
References
Antonakis, J., & Day, D. V. (2017). The nature of leadership. Sage Publications.
Bertocci, D. I. (2009). Leadership in Organization: There is a difference between leaders and
managers. US: University Press of America.
Dobbs, M. E. (2016). Journal of applied management. Tesla, spaceX and the quest for a fantastic
future, 83-85.
Ghasabeh, M. S., Soosay, C., & Reaiche, C. (2015). The emerging role of tranformational
leadership. The Journal of Developing Areas, 459-467.
Mabey, C., & Knights, D. (2018). Leadership matters: Finding voice, connection and meaning in
the 21st century. New York: Routledge.
Nguyen, T. T., Mia, L., & Chong, V. K. (2017). Effect of transformational leadership style and
management control system on managerial performance. Journal of Business Research,
202-213.
Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and Practice. UK: Sage Publications.
Setili, A. (2015). Does your leadership style destro agility or supercharge it ? Leader to Leader,
56-61.