BS4S16 Leadership & Management Report: Tesla and Elon Musk Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of leadership and management theories, specifically focusing on their application to Elon Musk and his companies, Tesla and SpaceX. The report begins with an introduction to leadership, highlighting key characteristics and the influence of leaders in multinational companies. It then delves into the life and career of Elon Musk, exploring his leadership qualities and the impact of his vision on Tesla's success. The main body of the report critically evaluates leadership theories such as the Great Man theory, Path-goal theory, and transformational leadership, using Musk's actions and decisions as case studies. The report assesses Musk's leadership style through the lens of these theories, particularly focusing on the Path-goal theory and its application to employee interactions and organizational culture. The report also analyzes the criticisms and practical implications of these theories, offering insights into effective leadership practices. The report concludes by synthesizing the findings and offering a critical evaluation of Musk's leadership within the context of contemporary organizational settings.

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Leadership & Management
Tesla and Elon Musk

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT 1
Introduction
Leadership is basically a process to influence the behaviors of others and works for the
goal and objectives of the company. In multinational companies, some strategies are
used by the leaders to lead their employees to accomplish those objectives for which
the company is working. There are some characteristics involved in great leaders such
as confidence, communication, power of influence, decision making and goal setting
strategies (Burton, 2015).
Every organization has its leader, president or CEO. The leader of any organization
expectedly finishes his job which is specified by informing the values of the association
the individual signifies (Patole, 2015).
Leadership abilities are required by a manager to control the organization's work
environment effectively. A successful manager will probably identify aptitude skills to
accomplish key objectives also manage its leadership improvement. A leader assesses
the effectiveness of the initial strategies and encourages a healthy and safe
environment that helps a culture of quality (Bush, 2010). Leaders have a great effect on
our everyday lives. In all sorts of challenges, there is constantly the requirement for
strong leadership. The accomplishment of a business or industry is resolute by the
leaders it picks or acquires. Leadership goals, successful career, and safe work
environment these words can be implemented on Elon Musk and his organizations
Tesla and Space X.
Elon Reeve Musk was born in June 1971, a South African – American born business
person. Elon organized X.com in the mid of 1999, which later changed in PayPal. Apart
from this Musk established Tesla in 2003 and SpaceX in 2002. Musk transformed into a

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT 2
multimillionaire in the age of 20 when he sold his new business, Zip2, to a division of
Compaq Computers. Musk emerged as really newsworthy in 2012, when his
organization SpaceX launched a rocket that would send the essential business vehicle
to the International Space Station. He strengthened his portfolio with the purchase of
Solar City in 2016 and set up his staying as a pioneer of the business by taking on a
notice work toward the start of President Donald Trump's association (Biography, 2016).
With Tesla, Elon is the fellow benefactor, CEO, and products architect of the company,
the company committed to creating reasonable, mass-showcase electric vehicles just
as battery items and solar roof. Musk directs all item development, building, and
structure of the company’s products. After 5 years its development, in 2008, the
organization uncovered the Roadster, a sports car equipped for accelerating from 0 to
60 mph in 3.7 seconds, too voyaging about 250 miles between charges of its lithium
particle battery. With a stake in the organization taken by Daimler and a vital association
with Toyota, Tesla Motors propelled its first sale of stock in the mid of 2010, raising
226$mn (Biography, 2016). Elon is well known for his big vision and optimistic thoughts.
His followers believe in his vision and ideas. Through his childhood living conditions,
Musk has built up the vital administration characteristics of being (1) a proactive
student, (2) a diligent employee, (3) a strong visionary, furthermore, (4) an enduring
positive thinker, which still impact his achievement today. Organizations can't repeat
Musk's lifetime of involvement in their representatives. In any case, organizations can
breed initiative characteristics, (for example, those exemplified by Musk) in their
representatives by (1) building up a learning culture, (2) driving from the front, (3)
keeping a mission explanation, and (4) encouraging energy in the work environment.

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT 3
There are millions of followers of Elon Musk; he has created a huge fan base by his
innovative ideas and big visions for his business (Vance, 2017).
This contextual analyzes the characteristics of good leadership skills, and what styles
and qualities an individual should have in order to be a good leader and also a
manager. This report will also assess the leadership and management theories such as
Great man theory (Trait theory), Path-goal theory, and transformational theory. It will
also analyze the critic view and its practices on Elon’s career and leadership style.
Leadership theories and its implementation
Leadership and Management have been an essential topic in the corporate, political
and military arenas. However, in spite of the problems and challenges incurred in a
leading organization, leadership has until recently, established limited attention in the all
sector. Past some decades has seen a marked growth in the time and resources
dedicated to recognizing and expanding corporate leaders.
Leadership and management theories endeavor to contribute to better leadership by
examining the key characteristics that make a leader successful and analyze actions
that elements include the management system might take to progress the quality of
leadership. Leadership and management theories consider several different key points
that analyze how a leader drives an organization and its employees.
Leaders are naturally thought to be more inspiring, visionary humble and ethical while
managers are usually expected to be more managerial and structured. Each job has
important value to the company and can run the company towards the accomplishment
of purpose and objectives the right situation.

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT 4
Leadership and Management are often measured basically overlapping process.
However, both are the two different aspects of management which cannot be divided.
There are various facts of management states that leadership and management are two
different concepts (Bohoris & Vorria, 2015).
There is a various definition of leadership and the most common description of a Leader
is an individual who has supporters and admirers, and also who gain supporters and
admirers and influence but with respect to integrity and compliance. Several theories
state that leadership is not diverse from the social influence procedure occurring
between all the fellows of the group and several others state that leadership is
everything, an individual doing in order to achieve the success of its organization
(Sharma & jain, 2013).
However, one question always raised by many that leaders are born or made, and there
are various answers to this question and it is unexceptionable that to be a great leader
is not easy, an individual should have several qualities such as confidence, risk-taking,
innovative ability, and visibility (Sharma & jain, 2013).
Several theories state that management is an art, and some others define that it is a
science. Basically, management is a procedure which is utilized to run a business and
helps the organization to perform well and earn the profit.
Hence a well-managed organization must have the mix of a leader and a manager to
accomplish the goals.
When we talk about a great leader and also a good manager, there is one of the
examples that is Elon Musk; he is a well-known personality in Silicon Valley. Musk is the
co-founder and CEO of Tesla. Manage the operation of the company. Tesla was

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT 5
established in 2003 (Tesla, 2018). Tesla is one of the companies which create electric
and infinitely scalable clean energy generation and storage merchandises. Elon musk
always initiates social change across society (Musk, 2013).
Some intellectual people introduce several leadership and management theories. Path-
goal theory is one of the theories which can explain leadership qualities.
This theory stipulates the style or behavior of a leader that best fits the employee and
work culture towards achieving aims and objectives, and it aims is to motivate
employees and give them satisfaction, safe environment and freedom to share their
feedback (Ma, 2015).
Elon Musk is one of the greatest leaders of the 21st century. A Path goal theory can be
applied to Elon’s successful career. Elon’s leadership practices over a collection of
situations are flawlessly described by Path-Goal theory. One example can consider by
the incident, where one of Tesla’s employees get injured at the company's plant. When
Musk comes across this issue he sent an e-mail to the Tesla staff. According to that e-
mail “It breaks my heart when anyone gets injured, I told that every injury needs to be
reported directly to me unexceptionally, I want to meet every staff member whoever
gets injured so that we could understand the situation and could take actions
accordingly and also find the area which needs to be improved, then I myself will go to
the production floor and do the task like exactly they do (Browne, 2019). With this e-mail
with an impressive message, Musk demonstrates the two of the four styles of
leadership. (1) Musk used supportive leadership by stating that he cares his
organization staff members and also he is eager to take necessary action for their
injuries. He additionally engages to be supportive by saying that he wants to create a

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT 6
safe work environment. This shows the supportive leadership which needs a leader to
be caring to his staff members and create a safe culture and environment. (2) Musk said
that he will go to all the injured staff members and get information from them on how to
create their job safer and after that he will try that task once himself so that he could
understand the staff’s perception (Mckenzie, 2018). With this scenario, Musk utilizes
participative leadership, this leadership style states that a leader needs to include
followers and while verdict making they talk to the staff members and appreciate them
to give their opinion and feedbacks. Elon is a great manager as he knows that Tesla’s
employee are the valuable assets for the company and there is nothing important than
staff’s safety. This theory also states that leaders not only will advise the valued aims
and objectives of the organization but also give a path that how to accomplish them
(Juneja, 2018).
There are many crises of this theory; it states that the link between leadership qualities
and efficiency is dependent on several variables such as employee’s characteristics and
work culture’s characteristics. According to this theory a leader must know about their
staff members and the conditions they end up in with the aim that the best probable
initiative style can be picked Elon seems to have known that this situation of harmed
laborers did not call for mandate or accomplishment situated initiative, yet rather strong
and participative (Gliddon, 2018).
However, some of the qualities will be effective in some situation and but not
everywhere. A leader can be directive only when the task is new and not repetitive, and
also if staffs are not able to do the task that directive approach may be unnecessary,
however, there is supportive style can be used (Juneja, 2018). In the case of Tesla,

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT 7
Musk’s approach for an injured employee does not show that he is directive or
achievement-oriented, hence, yes he is supportive and participative too (Snyder, 2018).
There are various diverse models out there of Musk displaying order and
accomplishment situated authority. Apart from the Path goal theory, Great man theory
also evaluate that leaders contain those traits and characteristics which make them
diverse from others. There are several traits this theory describes such as big vision,
confidence, integrity (Lord, 2017).
GMT changed into trait theory. This theory contains those traits and characteristics
which play a major role in order to achieve success also make people believe that they
are able to achieve the goal. There are several personality traits which a leader has
such as innovative, self- motivational charisma, communication skills, and social skills.
There are two assumptions of this theory: (1) Leaders are born not made and have
several personality traits which were natural. (2) Great leaders mostly arise when there
is a great social requirement (Amanchukwu, 2015).
This theory again assessed in the 19th century, some historian commented on this
theory and states that a leader is an individual gifted with several unique qualities that
capture the imagination of the commonalities and is a person who achieves success
against all odds for his supporters and admirers (De Vries, 2011). The theory induces
that individual with noteworthy impact reserve the privilege to be there a consequence
of their uncommon advancement. Moreover, the speculation battles that these qualities
remain stable after some time and across different get-togethers. Thusly, it prescribes
that each and every mind-boggling leaders share these trademark paying little regard to
when and where they lived or the definite activity in the history they fulfilled (Ray, 2013).

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT 8
Elon Musk has all the traits which this theory indulges. Musk has that ability which
makes him different from other people. Here are some personality traits which can be
very well implemented on Musk’s successful leadership.
According to Trait theory, Innovation is considered to be a good quality of a leader.
Musk is born innovative, while other children use to play the video game, Musk has
created his own video game at the age of 12 (oliver, 2017). Musk's inborn feeling of
interest stems to a great extent from the surprising measure of autonomy he
encountered as a tyke. Since his family was separated when he was just nine years of
age, Elon and his sibling Kimbal have left a great part of the opportunity to investigate
the world all alone (Nagelhout, 2016). Musk created his own company in his adult
career space x after that he created Tesla. Tesla was one more approach to being
innovative in his career. Musk launched Tesla with the mission to accelerate the
transition across the world and sustainable energy. Today Tesla is not only producing
electric cars but also produces all the products which are infinitely scalable clean energy
generation and storage products (Tesla, 2018).
Elon musk words while press conference states that “their purpose while founding Tesla
10 years prior was equivalent to it is today: to quicken the coming of reasonable
transport by putting up convincing for sale to the public electric vehicles to showcase at
the earliest opportunity. If they could have done that with their 1st product, they would
have, however that was basically challenging for a new business that had never
constructed a vehicle and that had one innovation emphasis and no economies of
scale. Company’s first item would have been costly regardless of what it resembled, so
they decided to manufacture electric vehicles, as that appeared as though it had the

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT 9
most obvious opportunity with regards to being focused with its fuel options (Press
release, 2017).
Innovative ideas of Musk are always brought criticism but his followers always believe in
his visions.
Being self-motivational also the quality of a leader. According to this personality trait
Leaders are mostly self-motivational they do not need anyone to motivate themselves
and they motivate their staff and employees (Moffett, 2018). The very first action is to
begin that something is possible to do; then the probability would arise – Musk said
(The Guardian, 2019). Musk was wavering optimistic and motivated person and a
leader. Elon’s ability to fail does not separate him from others, he makes himself
different by being self-motivational and optimistic and enthusiastically convinced that he
will be successful next time. After prolonged expansion of Tesla’s new model, a vehicle
burst into fire while test drive but did not fed up and gave his contradiction to people,
“For clients concerned about the risk, there is no doubt that it is safe to charge a battery
of a car rather than a big tank filled with the huge quantity of flammable liquid (Yauney,
2018).
“Once you figure out the question then the answer is relatively easy.” – Elon Musk
(Patrick Davidson, 2018).
These lines by Elon musk prove that his visions are always big. Achieving big success
is only possible when the vision is big.
Elon Musk did just not create Tesla but he also introduces the Space X which aims to
reduce the cost of space exploration by producing the reusable rockets (Tesla, 2018).

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT 10
One of his qualities of being bold visionary in his teenage Musk often spent time pouring
over religious and philosophical texts. When someone asked which kind of work he likes
to do and his the response was equally unique as unique himself: the comic science-
fiction novel (Yauney, 2018).
Musk's one of the extraordinary vision of an incredible future with zero outflows. At
Tesla, Musk is attempting to create an entire doable imperativeness environment
network, Tesla in like manner manufactures a unique game plan, Powerwall, Power
pack, and Solar Roof, enabling property owners, associations, and utilities to regulate
supportable power source age, amassing, and usage. Backup Tesla's vehicle and
imperativeness things are Gigafactory 1 – an office planned to through and through
reduces battery cell costs. By getting a cell age house, Tesla makes batteries at the
volumes needs to meet age objectives, while building a substantial number of
professions. Elon Musk's dreams are in every case huge (Musk, 2013).
However, a significant number of the attributes referred to as being critical to be a
successful leader is common masculine qualities. In contemporary research, there is a
need for critical changes in such an approach (Rehman, 2016). With the case study,
Elon has such traits which are commonly a man has. So these traits do not strongly
prove that he is born leader.
Apart from all the qualities, being transformational also makes a leader unique from
others. Transformational Leadership Theory presented by James Burns, This theory
defines a continuum on which transformational models are opposite. Such leaders on
the interchange of rewards in return for the staff’s struggle, whereas such leaders focus
on advanced order intrinsic requirements, transcending a person’s temporary goals.

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT 11
This theory can be found in all process and levels of any company. Transformation
leaders are usually visionary, motivator risk taker, inspiring and daring. These leaders
often have charismatic appeal. However, charisma alone is not sufficient for fluctuating
the method an organization utilizes. There are 4 aspects of Transformational theory are
Inspirational motivation, Idealized influence, individualized consideration and Intellectual
stimulation (wiltshire & Malhotra, 2018).
Elon Musk is the quintessential example of a transformational leader, as he displays all
four aspects with his leadership style.
Inspirational motivation is one of the aspects of this theory. The substance of the
transformational theory is the movement of big vision, mission, and a lot of features to
the people. Their vision is convincing to the fact that they appreciate what they need
from the organization. These leaders direct their devotees by giving them emotional
support to cope-up with the challenges. They work vigorously and ideally to authorize
the spirit of coordinated effort and responsibility (wiltshire & Malhotra, 2018).
In what was apparently the best showcase of authority in the historical backdrop of
Silicon Valley, Elon rose to the event when his organization space x endured a
cataclysmic misfortune amid the third dispatch of its Falcon I rocket, bringing about both
a fizzled mission and lost NASA payload. This occasion was so crushing for the
organization that previous head of ability securing for space X, Molly Singh, said ”it
could send the organization into descending winding, from which we might not have
ever recuperated. A disappointment in the initiative would have crushed us not just from
the eyes of the press or potential purchasers, yet it would have obliterated us inside"
Musk's response was to walk over the past the press and address his company