Leadership and Motivation: Starbucks and Howard Schultz Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Howard Schultz's leadership at Starbucks, examining his approach to leadership, emotional intelligence, and motivational strategies. The report delves into Schultz's leadership style, highlighting his ability to inspire and motivate employees, particularly during challenging times. It explores how Schultz's emotional intelligence played a crucial role in navigating crises and fostering a positive work environment. The analysis includes specific examples, such as Schultz's response to the financial slowdown in China and his focus on employee well-being. The report also discusses the challenges faced by Starbucks and how Schultz addressed them. Furthermore, it examines the motivational strategies employed by Schultz, including his communication style and efforts to connect with employees on a personal level. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of leadership in creating a culture of motivation and success within an organization, using Starbucks as a prime example.

Running head: LEADERSHIP
Leadership
Name of Student:
Name of University:
Author’s Note:

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Part A:
Leadership is not only the concept of leading but also contributing to the overall
development of a particular organisation. Effective business leaders establish attainable
objectives for their organisations. The setting up of the specific, measurable as well as realistic
objectives is done by the leaders to focus on the production of results which lead to the long term
success and sustainability. In this connection one of the most effective and thoughtful leaders
who leads by example and has remained undeterred in majority of situations is Howard Schultz.
Schultz was a visionary person and joined the company as a manager in Starbucks. His ideas as
well as his love for coffee emerged as the top reasons which helped him lead the company to
success and achievement (Northouse, 2015).
Emotional intelligence is something which can negatively impact a particular workplace
and in certain situations can lead to poor morale in case it is low. This is true in case of
organisational leaders as well. It needs to be ensured that criticism, opinions and suggestions are
taken positively and kept in mind for future consideration. The majority of all competencies
which are determinants of high workplace performance are related to emotional intelligence.
This is best represented by Howard Schultz of Starbucks as he has always shown his concern and
emotional consideration towards his employees (Brunetto et al., 2012).
Schultz has shown high degrees of emotional intelligence and he has been able to do that
effectively by seeking alliances and the partnerships within the Starbucks Organisation. There
have been very rare cases in which the capable CEO has thrived on adversity or has tried to
obtain economic benefit from unethical channels. The instance most importantly where Schultz
has shown a high degree of emotional intelligence is in the case of transformation of the status

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quo into a global brand which invincible in more than fifty countries. Schultz supported the
employees of his organisation suffering from HIV showing aspects of social justice in the
personality traits which he possessed. The emotional intelligence of Schultz was multifaceted. At
the time of a financial slowdown in China, it triggered panic and also resulted in huge fiscal
losses. The responsible CEO Schultz made sure that all the employees would be aware of the
situation and encouraging memorandums were specially delivered to them in order to ask them
to show special consideration for the consumers. As a proper analysis it can be said that reading
the news and moving on for Schultz would have been easy and he could easily have let go of the
opportunity to exert any positive influence on his employees. However he chose to inspire the
people of his organisation to improve their overall service to their customers on a particularly
depressing day. The management of the responsibilities by Schultz was extremely dignifying and
praiseworthy.
Due to the initiatives taken by Schultz in the leadership context his relationship with the
employees is extremely positive. The employees look up to Schultz and consider him to be one
of the torch bearers of leadership. The positive aspects of leadership of Schultz are responsible
for the success of the company.
The majority of the problems in the organisation is stemmed from its own reasons for it
success. Tremendous amount of energy was spend by Schultz on the growth and the
development which led to his ignorance of overseeing and maintaining majority of the elements
that made Starbucks successful in the first place. This is the problem which was faced in
Starbucks. Schultz had explained that there was a moment when the stock had dropped and
Starbucks stores were also failing due to problems of cannibalization from other Starbucks
stores. The Private email which was send by him was leaked and led to a firestorm of media

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attention (Cavazotte, Moreno & Hickmann, 2012). All of a sudden it was realised that the
Starbucks organisation had become a soulless corporation which was actually motivated by the
bottom line rather than providing a quality product and also an experience. At this time the plans
of Howard Schultz to turn the company around did not receive much attention in comparison to
whatever had gone wrong. There also have been instances though very few where Schultz
showed certain dark sides of leadership and at certain times there was also the inclination of
Schultz towards politics. Therefore it so happened that when the company needed support, the
requisite amount was not given by Schultz.
However, Schultz has never been a stranger to failure and always possessed a healthy
respect throughout his tenure. He always believed in celebrating, in learning and in not getting
carried away by mistakes. Schultz internalised his failures and also utilized his lessons learned in
order to emerge stronger and even more successful in the long run.
Thus it is clearly understood from the proper study of Starbucks, that Howard Schultz is a
CEO to reckon with. His leadership and his willingness to help employees contributes to the
overall wellbeing of the organisation. The style of Schultz revolves around the motivation and
inspiration of his followers. He allowed encouraged and sought feedback as well advice from his
employees always giving effort from his own side. Considerable power was given by Schultz to
his employees in decision making and also in the flexibility to choose own working hours. The
ideals, goals and approach towards organisation employees can be described as the driving force
to successful leadership.
There is a bright and a dark side to everything including leadership. There might be cases
when leaders are confused and uncertain of the connected between their leadership and

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performance. There needs to be a deeper knowledge of what is good or great leadership which is
bound to enable them to breakthrough and be responsible for affecting the change in the team
performance, organisational or company performance in the best way possible.
Part B:
Motivational strategy of leadership focuses on the creation of more leaders not merely
followers. It is crucial for any organisation to have proper leaders where they can contribute to
the overall success of the company by motivating their employees and their subordinates as well.
There are different human needs. These can be categorised as physiological, safety, social, self-
esteem and finally self actualization. Assisting an employee fulfil these needs motivates him to
become a better worker. This motivation is important in the context of leadership because
without proper guidance and leadership employees are bound to feel lost which can result in a
disruptive and chaotic work environment. Without proper motivation the employees fail to work
to the best of their ability. In case it is used effectively, the leadership and the motivational
theories enable the leaders to lead employees and also the company towards success.
The motivational communication that was put forward by Schultz was at the time when
the Asian Market lost 1 trillion dollars. It impacted the losses on all the stock exchanges
worldwide. The major companies’ CEOs ignored this news. It was however Howard Schultz
who decided to send the employees a motivational letter based on the topic. This was due to the
reason that he wanted to alleviate their concerns and also encourage them to show special
consideration towards the customers. This was a famous topic on the social networking sites
because of the fall of the Asian market. This led many people to reduce their investments or
become concerned about the fail directly or indirectly affecting their business as well as their

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business and investment decisions. Total of around two lakh workers were aware of the situation.
It was always Schultz priority to do as much as he could for his employees as they would do for
him and his company. Doing the correct thing for the people and the communities which an
organisation intends to serve is bound to ensure greater success for the company. In this
particular case it is clear that the issue which had taken place could clearly have been neglected
by Schultz and he could have easily assumed that the company employees would get to know on
their own and that would not have been entirely wrong as well since it would be possible for the
employees to check the social sites and devise their thought processes accordingly but in this
case Schultz did not consider all these reasoning before sending the letter. This instance showed
that he cared about his employees and was not solely a CEO or a person of authority but actually
someone who cared (Choudhary, Akhtar & Zaheer, 2013).
It is necessary for a company to ensure that it has the right amount of employees and
possesses right skills in the correct places at the right time. This has always been clearly
understood by Schultz. It is the duty of the managers to make sure that the worldwide retail
locations are staffed with the correct and capable employees (Fioravante, 2013).
In this connection it can be said that employee motivation has far reaching effects and
influences employee performance majorly. There should be employee motivation in proper
measure in order to drive revenue. One of the most important effects of employee motivation is
that of job satisfaction which is true and very much applicable in the case of Howard Schultz
motivation. The employees feel valued and hence their interest in work either remains intact or
increases. The positional success reasons should be clearly mentioned to the employees and then
he or she is bound to remain connected with the cause and the mission of the organisation.

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Another impact that the employee motivation has is in their performance towards the
organisation. In case an employee is acknowledged for his customer service and his dedication
towards work and the handling of work, the significance will be understood by him clearly. In
case negative impacts of motivation are also taken into consideration, the employee is bound to
take that into consideration as well.
In the case which had been mentioned above, Howard Schultz took an issue which was
somewhat unrelated issue to motivate his employees. This proved to be beneficial for him as well
as the organisation as it put a proper message to the employees. This considerate action of the
CEO clearly showed that only organisational matters were not the driving force behind his
motivation but he actually cared about the employees who worked for him. This went a long way
in making the employees of the entire organisation realise the calibre as well as the emotional
connect of Schultz towards his company which made them respect him even more.
Every employee is given a say in the Starbucks Company and this helps them become
aware of their importance and indispensability towards the company. It is evident from the fact
that Schultz gave importance to all the employees equally as he sent the motivational mail to all
the employees. The impartial attitude of Schultz in this respect went a long way in securing the
loyalty of the employees of his organisation.
There was no dishonesty in the claims which were made by Schultz and hence it was
necessary to understand that the perception of honest claims and promises was maintained in the
organisation. This was important as employees are bound to relate to a positive self image.
Wrong motivation is bound to get on the nerves of the employees and this is bound to negatively
impact them as they might even feel that they are better off outside the organisation.

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In this connection it can be finally concluded that there are certain things which go a long
way in assisting individuals maintain a legacy of positivity and allegiance towards the
organisation. The employees who are motivated can easily go the extra mile to work for their
company not only to prove their own worth but also to make an invaluable contribution towards
the success of the company and its corporate invincibility and brilliance.
Part C:
The article which is to be analysed is “Servant Leadership as a framework for
organisational change”, International Leadership Journal, vol. 8, no.1, pp. 27-41. This basically
focuses on the servant leadership as an ideal leadership approach for introducing and also
implementing organisational change. The servant leader is basically someone who believes in
giving primary importance to the individuals who serve the company. The person is basically
someone who gives immense amount of care to the priorities and needs of the others. Servant
leaders focus primarily on the growth and also the well being of the people and the communities
to which they belong. The servant-leader shares powers, puts the needs of the others first and
helps people develop and perform to the best of their abilities as much as possible (Baldomir &
Hood, 2016, pp. 27-28).
The article discusses that the change is one of the key aspects of any organisation. A
successful approach comprises the leaders realising the need for each of the members of the
organisation to be a part of the change of the organisation which they want to see and which they
work towards. In this particular study servant leadership is basically discussed as a model for
effective leadership and successful organisational change. There are certain characteristics and
types of servant leadership which are mentioned in terms of the factors. These include altruistic

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calling, emotional healing, wisdom, the persuasive mapping and also organisational leadership.
Altruistic calling refers to the wish to bring about a positive change in the lives of the people
who look up to the people as leaders. Emotional healing is defined as the ability and willingness
to be of help to those people who are facing moments of trauma or emotional stress. These
situations are extremely important in this case. The wisdom is basically the ability to be aware of
all the happenings and also make sound judgements after a proper study and proper thought
regarding all the possible outcomes (Baldomir & Hood, 2016, pp. 29-31).
Persuasive mapping is also very important and is a fundamental skill in the organisational
scenario. It is possible for the servant leaders to convince their followers to understand the
importance of their contribution so that they can work for more hours in order to bring about
more and more possibilities to the employers (Peterson, Galvin & Lange, 2012).
Organisational stewardship is willingness to be accountable for any sort of change or the
overall well being of the organisation. Servant leadership covers all these aspects of being
concerned towards the welfare of the organisation. In this connection the emotional intelligence
has a lot of significance. Emotional intelligence is basically rooted in the social intelligence. It is
crucial because the role of EI in the workplace is based on the influence of the output, the
knowledge as well as the ability to manage the elements which are associated with work life. It is
clear that the dimensions of emotional intelligence in the work setting are involved with the self-
awareness, motivation, self management, social awareness and also the relationship
management.
Emotional intelligence plays a crucial role in types of servant leadership during the
organisational change as it allows the employees to work with a proper vision and also gives

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them the added push to perform even better than they already are. There are often issues such as
the lack of focus on the important work aspects as well as company objectives during times of
change. Thus it necessary to maintain proper focus on the followers and ensure that the
employees do not lose their vision at the time the organisation is facing an upheaval.
The approach of servant leadership aims to reduce the stress on the followers during the
process of change. The servant leadership theory leads to the fact that the altruistic calling is the
major force behind the necessary changes. A leader who is genuinely concerned is aware that
problems might arise in case of an organisation especially in times of change (Baldomir & Hood,
2016, pp. 32-33).
Wisdom is also utilised by the servant at the time of problems within an organisation or
outside it depending on the kind of change which is being faced. Just as there are dark sides of
leadership or roles of authority, there is an existent dark side to servant leadership as well. There
are problems which arise at the time of organisational change and at times when there are several
new or fundamental issues in the company. The most common problem is the lack or the non-
existence of authority. In case a person on top always strives to meet the needs of his
subordinates and understand their situations there is the possibility of the employees abusing that
power and the leader might lose his or her importance. Servant leadership is only effective when
considered for the correct kind of people. In case a person of authority loses his or her
importance and his or her significance is misused, the person loses the actual right of his position
and subsequently there is the chance of his decisions being completely disregarded in the future.
This ultimately affects the fate of the organisation (Baldomir & Hood, 2016, pp. 32-35).

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As is evident from the article, it can be clearly stated that servant leadership is a very
important and crucial factor for organisational change more so when the organisation comprises
the right kind of people. It is so because sacrifices made for the right kind of people have a
proper importance and this is useful and essential for the growth of the organisation as a whole.
The role of the leader is undoubtedly important as the leader is someone who leads from the
front and constantly works towards the betterment of the organisation always keeping the
employees in his stride.

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References:
Baldomir, J., & Hood, J. P. (2016). Servant Leadership as a Framework for Organizational
Change. International Leadership Journal, 8(1).
Brunetto, Y., Teo, S. T., Shacklock, K., & Farr‐Wharton, R. (2012). Emotional intelligence, job
satisfaction, well‐being and engagement: explaining organisational commitment and
turnover intentions in policing. Human Resource Management Journal, 22(4), 428-441.
Cavazotte, F., Moreno, V., & Hickmann, M. (2012). Effects of leader intelligence, personality
and emotional intelligence on transformational leadership and managerial
performance. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(3), 443-455.
Choudhary, A. I., Akhtar, S. A., & Zaheer, A. (2013). Impact of transformational and servant
leadership on organizational performance: A comparative analysis. Journal of Business
Ethics, 116(2), 433-440.
Fioravante, P. L. (2013). An effective leadership revelation-blending dark side and positivist
traits. The Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 15(1), 107.
Haynes, K. T., Hitt, M. A., & Campbell, J. T. (2015). The dark side of leadership: Towards a
mid‐range theory of hubris and greed in entrepreneurial contexts. Journal of Management
Studies, 52(4), 479-505.
Liu, D., Liao, H., & Loi, R. (2012). The dark side of leadership: A three-level investigation of
the cascading effect of abusive supervision on employee creativity. Academy of
Management Journal, 55(5), 1187-1212.

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Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
Peterson, S. J., Galvin, B. M., & Lange, D. (2012). CEO servant leadership: Exploring executive
characteristics and firm performance. Personnel Psychology, 65(3), 565-596.
Yoshida, D. T., Sendjaya, S., Hirst, G., & Cooper, B. (2014). Does servant leadership foster
creativity and innovation? A multi-level mediation study of identification and
prototypicality. Journal of Business Research, 67(7), 1395-1404.