Business Management: Examining Elon Musk's Leadership Through Theories

This essay examines Elon Musk's leadership qualities through the lens of various leadership theories, including trait and behavioral theories, situational and contingency theory, transformational and transactional leadership, distributed leadership, ethical leadership, and critical leadership. It highlights Musk's passion, vision, and task-oriented approach, relating them to specific theoretical frameworks. The analysis emphasizes Musk's focus on contributing to society and inspiring employees, linking these qualities to contingency and transactional leadership styles. The essay concludes that Musk's effective leadership, characterized by honesty and a commitment to ethical practices, is crucial to his success and provides valuable insights for leaders in the workplace. Desklib provides this solved assignment and many more to aid students in their studies.

Business management and strategic management

Business management and strategic management
Leadership of Elon Musk CEO of Tesla
Leadership plays an important role in managing the overall activities of the company. Without an
effective leader it will not be possible for the company to achieve success in the market. So, in
this paper the discussion will be made on the effectiveness of the Musk’s leadership qualities in
context to the leadership theories. The theories that will be discussed in the paper are related to
trait and behavioral theories, situational and contingency theory, transformational and
transactional leadership, distributed leadership, ethical leadership and critical leadership.
It has been observed that Elon Musk is one of the effective leaders with various different traits of
leadership. He is one of the biggest entrepreneur, investor and also engineer. He is one of the
best leaders who know how to manage the overall activities and workers in the workplace.
The qualities which are possessed by the Musk are many in context to leadership. It has been
examined that he is passionate towards the activities of the company. After the sale of PayPal, it
has been observed that he has sufficient money to live a lavish life. But still he invested all the
funds into Tesla Motors and Solarcity. The personal loans are taken by Musk so that the overall
operations can be managed. Also the financial decision which is taken by him resulted in
borrowing the money to pay the rennet for a short period of time. This can be the incident which
can proved his entrepreneurial moves and he stated that if I ask from the investors to invest the
money then I feel good to put money as well (Bolman and Deal, 2017).
He has given everything to achieve what he wants. In starting Tesla has also remained
unprofitable for long time but now it is one of the biggest companies. So, it can be stated that he
is passionate towards his work. By considering the incident the theory which can be described is
related to trait theory. This style of leadership emphasizes on considering the different
personality traits or the characteristics that have a connection with different leadership in relation
to the different situation. In this style of leadership it can be seen that the leadership traits
possessed by Musk is related to intelligence and action oriented judgment. Like by having
sufficient amount he invested and taken loan. He is passionate towards the work and boosts the
overall activities of the company. Due to his passionate and intelligence the company is one of
the largest company on the global platform (McCleskey, 2014).
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Business management and strategic management
Vision is also one of the qualities which are analyzed in Musk. It has been seen that to be a great
leader it is important to have a vision. It has been stated that Musk invested in internet banking
from starting and the present day involvement is towards pushing forward the space travel and
self-driving cars. So, Musk focused on the future and has the capability to achieve the set goals.
Also, it can be stated that there are many leaders who are playing as the checkers but Musk is
playing as the StarCraft (Dobbs, 2016). It is important for the leader to communicate its vision
with the followers and Musk has done the same and achieves success in the highly competitive
market. The theory which can be related to this is situational leadership theory which is
considered. This theory is based on the assumptions. It can be stated that Musk shared the vision
with the employees and trusted the team that they will focus on involvement in the activities. So,
according to the situation Musk consider the right step which will boost the overall growth in the
market (Fairhurst and Connaughton, 2014).
One of the famous leadership theories is behavioral theory which emphasizes on the overall
behavior of the leader. This theory emphasizes on the two aspect related to task oriented and
people oriented. In task oriented the behavior of the leader is related to organizing, initiating and
gathering the data. People orientation is related to encouraging, observing, listening and
coaching. Musk focuses on one of the lesson related to leadership in which it has been seen that
“put the right people at the right role”. This is one of the approach related to task oriented which
is considered by Musk and at the time of appointing the employees the people are placed on the
position by considering the qualification of the employees. So, the leader focuses on the
capability of the employees before assigning any work to achieve success in the market
(Rimmer, 2018).
Working for the greater good is also one of the leadership quality possessed by Musk. Musk
focuses on contributing towards the society and also brings the human race forward so that future
can be improved. It has been observed that Musk allowed the automobile manufactures to use the
Tesla valuable battery technology as it boost the use of clean energy. Also the statement is given
Musk that “Tesla motors was made so that proper advent in context to sustainable transport can
be considered. The company will not consider any law for the people who want to use the
technology (Hess and Andiola, 2017). So, due to this attitude the company achieved success as
the leader focused on inspiring rather than winning. In this context contingency theory is one of
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Business management and strategic management
the best theory on which the leaders should focus so that effectiveness can be boosted. Musk
considered this concept in which it has been stated that the effectiveness of a leader is related
with how leader control the situation and how the style of leadership fits according to the
situation. So, it can be stated that effectiveness of leadership can be boosted if right decisions are
taken by the leaders. Like Musk considered using the technology by the people so that it boost
the overall image of the company just because of one correct decision which was taken by him
(Thompson and Glasø, 2015).
One of the popular styles of leadership is transformational and transactional. In transformational
leadership style it has been seen that the leaders works with the team to search the need of
change. They create vision and also guide the employees so that they can give their best. But in
transactional leadership style the focus is given on supervision, organizing and performance. The
leaders consider this style to emphasize on the particular tasks and also to consider rewards and
punishments to motivate the followers (Donohoe and Kelloway, 2016). Musk considered
transactional leadership style in which he focuses on inspiring the employees by motivating them
to achieve success in the workplace. To motivate the employees Musk focused on making the
policy related to incentive and also related to reduce the noise on the floor so that employees can
give their best towards the activities in the workplace (Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2015).
Also, distributed leadership is related with the conceptual approach that will help to understand
the work and also equate the work with shared, collective and extended leadership practices
which create the capacity related to change and improvement. So, Musk focused on guiding the
employees in the workplace so that they can adapt the change and bring improvisation in the
overall activities which are assigned to them in the workplace (Marques, 2017).
One of the leadership theories is related with ethical leadership in which the focus is given on the
ethical beliefs and values in context to the rights of the others. So, it is related with trust, honesty
and fairness that should be there in the leaders so that positive outcome can be attained. It has
been observed that in case of Musk he is honest towards the activities and also guide the
employees to work by considering the overall policy in the workplace (Shapiro and Stefkovich,
2016). He follows every laws and ethical framework which is required to manage the overall
activities of the company. So, this also states that Musk focused on considering the policies by
giving equal rights to the employees so that they feel motivated is the approach which is
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Business management and strategic management
considered. So, he is honest towards the work and manages the overall activities with proper
justification and by emphasizing on critical leadership. So, it can be stated that one of the best
quality of Musk related to honest can help him to achieve success in the marke.
Therefore, it can be concluded that leadership is one of the essential factor that should be there in
the workplace as it can help in boosting the overall efficiency of the employees in the workplace.
It can be seen that Musk is one of the effective leader who motivated its employees and also
focused on different aspects so that positive outcome can be attained. Also, the leadership
theories are related with the overall quality of the leader possessed. So, it is necessary or the
leaders to emphasize on these approaches and theories so that it can be easy to lead the
employees in the workplace. Leaders in the workplace are the one who can motivate the
employees to be efficient towards work.
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Business management and strategic management
References
Bolman, L.G. and Deal, T.E., 2017. Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership.
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Dobbs, M.E., 2016. Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. Journal of Applied
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Donohoe, M. and Kelloway, E.K., 2016. Transformational leadership training for managers:
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Fairhurst, G.T. and Connaughton, S.L., 2014. Leadership: A communicative
perspective. Leadership, 10(1), pp.7-35.
Hess, M.F. and Andiola, L.M., 2017. Fraud Risk Brainstorming at Tesla Motors. Issues in
Accounting Education, 33(2), pp.19-34.
Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., Meinecke, A.L., Rowold, J. and Kauffeld, S., 2015. How
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McCleskey, J.A., 2014. Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and leadership
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Rimmer, M., 2018. Elon Musk’s Open Innovation: Tesla, Intellectual Property, and Climate
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