Case Study: Elon Musk, Leadership Theories, and Business Management

This case study explores Elon Musk's leadership style and its influence on his success in business management. It examines his charismatic and transformational leadership qualities, along with his proactive learning, risk-taking abilities, and commitment to ethical leadership. The report analyzes how Musk's vision, combined with his leadership skills, has contributed to his achievements in companies like SpaceX and Tesla. Furthermore, the study discusses the advantages and disadvantages of ethical leadership, highlighting its impact on organizational culture and employee relations. The analysis draws upon leadership theories and concepts to evaluate Musk's approach and provide insights into the factors that have shaped his successful career. Desklib provides access to similar case studies and solved assignments for students.

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INESS
Business Management
Elon Musk and the Success of Big Vision

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Executive summary
Business management is a process to manage the business in order to achieve success. Business
management involves the idea of the whole process of running a business and delivering an
unexpectedly outstanding result. To win the market’s battle entrepreneurs must have a unique
idea, management traits and facts commitment, vision and basic business skills. With this report
that can be examined that how things can be done with the business process for a successful
business plan and how Elon Musk achieved success in his career, and the theoretically based
leadership style and qualities of his successful career.
Table of Contents

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Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Leadership style used by Elon musk...............................................................................................4
Musk’s Leadership qualities that has contributed to his success or failure.................................5
Ethical leadership.........................................................................................................................7
Advantages..............................................................................................................................8
Disadvantages..........................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Bibliography..................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
In order to achieve success understand business management, an entrepreneur or manager first
need to make and strategy towards goals and objectives. An entrepreneur is concerned with new
idea and strategy, must have the vision and gets committed to the objectives and goals of the
organization (Burton, 2015). Great entrepreneur Elon Musk is an example for all the managers
and entrepreneurs. He is one of the few founders with innovating ideas in the engineering space
instead of creating the next new step (Vance, 2017). By assessing the report that can be
examined that what are the qualities, an entrepreneur and leader must have to be a great leader,
and also ethical leadership.

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Leadership style used by Elon musk
Elon Musk is one of the greatest innovators in the world. His leadership style is famous across
the world. Elon Musk is a person who makes people believes in his vision.
At the age of 12 when children use to play with video games, Elon Musk created a video game
and made it into the pages of a figuring magazine and earned him $500 (Nagelhout, 2016). There
is lots of achievements in his career, Elon leadership style set an example for all those people
who looking for startups and achieving success.
Elon musk is a Charismatic leader here is some characteristics of his leadership which explains
his leadership style
Charismatic leadership: According to charismatic leadership style leader are mostly passionate
self-motivated and confidant. These characteristics suits of Elon musk’s personality. The
leadership consider that charismatic leader create a powerful image in the market and gain a big
fan following (Zehndorfer, 2015).
Elon musk is self-motivated, as at the age of 12, Elon Musk created the video game when no one
even imagines of doing that at this age. “Failure is an option here, if things are not failing, you
are not innovating enough.”- said by Elon Musk. By figuring these lines, this can be concluded
that he is most confidant leader. Elon has failed on their first three launches but instead of being
upset he always comes back with his new idea. Elon As a prime supporter of X.com (later
PayPal), SpaceX and Tesla Motors, he has made associations concentrated on commercializing
developments taking all things together (Davenport, 2018).
An entrepreneur must have a very compelling goal for the company. They must know what they
are doing and how that can be done and the purpose behind that.

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Elon Musk is always confident with his goals. In 2002 he wanted to set business for space
exploration, but he does not have money and funders would not back him, no one was there to
help to Elon, but he did not lose hope and get self-motivated, he ponied his own money and
started a business. He has determined to revolutionize two more industries, Tesla which was not
an overnight success, another is space x which have faced rocket crashes many times, but he did
not give up as his purpose was clear.
Transformational theory: can come into conflict with leaders who resist change, as Elon did at
PayPal. They are additionally especially expert at spotting what is not working more efficiently
than dissimilar leaders (Blane, 2017), as Elon did with the affirmed California High-Speed Rail
structure. He proceeded to structure and recommend his own Hyperloop, utilizing 12 architects
from Tesla and SpaceX, a structure which he says will take individuals 350 miles "from Sylmar
(a northern area of Los Angeles) to Hayward (east of San Francisco) and would hypothetically
enable workers to go between the urban communities in 35 minutes or less, giving a shorter
voyaging time than even a business plane can as of now give." (Waal & Ravestejin, 2018).
According to the great man, theory leaders are born with the great abilities and right traits for
leading such as, intellect, charisma, communication skills, confidence and social skills (Lord,
2017). This theory can be assessed well by Elon musk career, as he proved that his confidence in
his vision makes people believe in him, his step for social change is tackling to global warming.
According to behavioral theory, individuals need three important aptitudes to lead their followers
– specialized, human, and theoretical capabilities (Waal & Ravestejin, 2018). Specific aptitudes
allude to a leader learning of the method or strategy; human abilities implies that one can
collaborate with different people; while right capabilities empower the leader to think of
thoughts for running the organization or society easily. Elon again proves that he is born to be a

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leader, as he has his technical knowledge whatever it can be either cars or rockets, also his
strategies for his organization or society can be seen.
Musk’s Leadership qualities that has contributed to his success or failure
Though his unique life circumstances, Musk has built up the imperative administration
characteristics of being a proactive learner, hard worker, (3) a bold visionary, which still impact
his achievement today (Yauney, 2018).
A proactive learner: Absence of parental supervision empowered the two young men to make
their own custom made explosives and rockets. Sometime down the road, Musk jested, "It is
striking what number of things you can detonate. I'm fortunate I have all my fingers." An
example of learning and experimentation proceeded for Musk into his grown-up profession.
During the time spent propelling his organization SpaceX, Musk would learn propelled
dimensions of advanced science from his very own examination (Nagelhout, 2016).
Risk taking qualities: Since the beginning, Elon Musk learned not to fear diligent work. Several
incidents of his life proved that he is big risk taker South Africa of his childhood was so loaded
up with threat and savagery, Musk goes out on a limb where others may hang back. In 2002,
when he needed to establish a space investigation start-up and funders wouldn't back him, he
made a risk create good his very own cash to understand his vision (T, 2015).
Leadership from the front: Elon Musk motivates his workers in light of the fact that, in spite of
the fact that he has exclusive requirements for them, he requests considerably more from himself.
leaders must be focused on taking the necessary steps essential for the organization's prosperity
before they will almost certainly get others to submit (Mark Easterby-Smith, 2015).
Elon displays two of the four styles of authority delineated in Path-Goal Theory: Supportive
Participative Leadership (Ma, 2015). In the first place, Elon uses Supportive Leadership by

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associating with his workers and their issues, expressing he harms with them and is worried
about their prosperity. He further takes part in this style of initiative by saying he create to make
their work more secure. This ties in splendidly with Supportive Leadership, which requires a
leader to take care of the prosperity and necessities of their subordinates and create their work as
lovely as could be expected under the circumstances Second, Elon states he will meet with these
harmed workers and get contribution from them on the most proficient method to approach
making their activity more secure, and after that will play out a similar errand to completely
comprehend the representative's point of view. Now, Elon shifts into Participative Leadership,
which requires a leader to include adherents in basic leadership by counseling with subordinates
to get their sentiments and info.
Ethical leadership
Ethical leadership is all about doing the right thing towards company, employee, and society as
well. These moral leaders make the best choice, at the opportune time, for the correct reasons.
They put their morals before the primary concern, this makes their team will be loyal dedicated
and ethical in return (Hoch, 2018).
Elon Musk in his career proved that he is a great ethical leader According to an Email, which he
sent to a staff "My words cannot express how much I care about your security and prosperity. It
makes me extremely upset when somebody is harmed assembling autos and attempting their best
to make Tesla fruitful. Going ahead, I've asked that each damage is accounted for
straightforwardly to me, no matter what. I'm meeting with the wellbeing group each week and
might want to meet each harmed individual when they are well, so I can comprehend from them
precisely what we have to improve. I will at that point go down to the generation line and play
out a similar errand that they perform. This is the thing that all chiefs at Tesla ought to do as a

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make a difference obviously. At Tesla, we lead from the cutting edge, not from some protected
and agreeable ivory tower. Directors should dependably put their group's wellbeing over their
own". With these words, musk is a reliable ethical and productive leader. (Browne, 2019).
Ethical leadership style made positive standards in an organization, amongst employee, and in
society as well. However, there are certain advantages and disadvantages to being an ethical
leader. Here are these advantages and disadvantages of ethical leadership:
Advantages
It ensures that laws and regulations are followed or not : There are several rules and laws
which are used to direct the decision of the company, a common example of sexual harassment
policy that is in effect at a workplace in view of laws which administer that kind of conduct. By
implementing ethical leadership we can create an environment where all the local and state rules
ensure the safe work culture (Lindebaum, 2017).
It is a leadership style that seeks to minimize harm: Moral leaders are accommodating in two
explicit ways. Their activities must incorporate approaches to locate minimal measure of damage
conceivable inside the work environment. Is anything but a choice between what is correct or
off-base. It is a choice between two rights or two wrongs. The leader is entrusted with making
the most ideal circumstance (Lindebaum, 2017).
Disadvantages
It requires comprehensive support: A moral administration style expects everybody to be in
agreement, particularly inside the official group. When one leader chooses to act in an
untrustworthy manner, it makes a snowball that can be hard to stop as it moves downhill. More
individuals will favor the untrustworthy activities should they produce results on the grounds that
a moral interest will, in general, include more work than exploitative ones (Corey, et al., 2014).

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It is dependent upon a leader’s ability to influence others: A moral initiative style is reliant
upon the capacity of a leader to impact others. These leader must be appealing and motivation to
have direct reports need to tail them (Corey, et al., 2014). That prerequisite may make a few
specialists trust their leaders to an undesirable degree, once in a while notwithstanding
overlooking their mankind. Getting to be incognizant in regards to slip-ups can be wrecking if
everybody feels like the closures will legitimize the methods morally.

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Conclusion
It is concluded that Elon Musk is talented, optimistic and a very kind CEO, a noteworthy number
of the initiative features indispensable to his accomplishment can be created in managements all
through the company. His vision is always big and he never gives up. He creates an example to
all the leaders and entrepreneurs as well.
To all the administrations expecting to choice a focused edge ought to put assets into their human
capital by building an office environment supportive for creating quality supervisors. A
workplace culture depends on kept learning, authority by precedent, clear operation goals, and
inspiration is the nursery that engages workers to develop into successful supervisors.
Administrations that compensation the cost to produce a solid office culture will progressively
set themselves detached and experience substantial natural development as workers venture up to
wind up powerful directors and branch out the association.

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Bibliography
Blane, H., 2017. 7 Principles of Transformational Leadership: Create a Mindset of Passion,
Innovation, and Growth. s.l.:Red Wheel/Weiser.
Browne, R., 2019. Read the email Elon Musk sent to Tesla employees explaining the need for job
cuts. s.l., CNBC.
Burton, S., 2015. The Great British Entrepreneur's Handbook 2016: Inspiring entrepreneurs.
s.l.:Harriman House Limited.
Corey, G., Corey, M., corey, C. & Callanan, P., 2014. ssues and Ethics in the Helping
Professions with 2014 ACA Codes. 9 ed. s.l.:Cengage Learning.
Davenport, c., 2018. The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the
Cosmos. illustrated ed. s.l.:Hachette UK.
Hoch, J. B. W. D. J. a. W. D., 2018. Do ethical, authentic, and servant leadership explain
variance above and beyond transformational leadership? A meta-analysis.. Journal of
Management,., 44(2), pp. 501-529.
Lindebaum, D. a. R. E., 2017. What would John Stuart Mill say? A utilitarian perspective on
contemporary neuroscience debates in leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 144(4), pp. 813-
822.
Lord, R. D. D. Z. S. A. B. a. E. A., 2017. Leadership in applied psychology: Three waves of
theory and research.. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), p. 434.
Ma, L. a. T. A., 2015. Traditional Chinese philosophies and contemporary leadership. The
Leadership Quarterl, 26(1), pp. 13-24.
Mark Easterby-Smith, R. T. P. R. j., 2015. Management and Business Research. 5 ed. s.l.:SAGE.
Nagelhout, R., 2016. Elon Musk: Space Entrepreneur. s.l.:Greenhaven Publishing LLC.