Leadership Styles Comparison: Mark Zuckerberg vs. Bill Gates

This essay compares and contrasts the leadership styles of Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook, and Bill Gates, the owner of Microsoft. The essay begins by establishing the significance of these leaders as role models in large enterprises. It then explores Zuckerberg's aggressive and sometimes democratic leadership, emphasizing his focus on innovation and employee engagement. Conversely, it examines Gates' autocratic and charismatic leadership, highlighting his result-oriented approach and ability to inspire. The essay further analyzes their shared use of transformational leadership, albeit with different methods, and concludes that both leaders have adapted their styles to suit their companies and workforces, recognizing the effectiveness of transformational leadership. The essay includes references to relevant academic sources.

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Leadership Comparison Essay
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1LEADERSHIP COMPARISON ESSAY
Large enterprises and their CEO are considered as role models when it comes to
leadership and management styles (Al-Asfour & Lettau, 2014). In the last decade Facebook
has evolved to become the most popular social media all over the world and Microsoft has
been the most used Operating System since its inception. In this essay, the leadership styles
of the owners of Facebook and Microsoft Corporation will be compared and contrasted.
Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft owner Bill Gates are both
successful in their own methods. They have different leadership styles and approach that sets
them apart from each other.
Mark Zuckerberg is known for his aggressive leadership style. He is known to be very
demanding when it comes to innovation. He expects all his employees will invent methods or
products that would enable him to take his company forward. He likes challenges and
engages in debates with his employees regarding innovative ideas. His leadership style forces
people to be more productive and innovative. Bill Gates, on the other hand, is an autocratic
leader. He is described as a complete authoritarian who would channelize all the workforce to
achieve his purpose. His style produced result and production of Microsoft remains at a
standard till date (Menzel, 2015).
No leader can become successful with only one leadership approach. Thus, Mark
Zuckerberg also shows a democratic leadership approach when needed. This style is adopted
by him when the organization is thinking in terms of any long term plan or large investment.
It is then that employees and the other managers are all included in the decision making
process. In most cases he encourages suggestions on weaknesses and improvements that is
necessary to make. Bill gates, contrarily is result oriented and believes in focus. He is a
charismatic leader who has the capacity to inspire people to achieve better (Shah, & Mulla,

2LEADERSHIP COMPARISON ESSAY
2013). He uses his personality to maintain the decorum in his organization. Till his retirement
he has been described as one of the most over-powering CEO.
Both Zuckrberg and Gates show one style of leadership in common. They both project
the transformational leadership style in many instances. A transformational leader is an
innovator. He encourages people to work harder and think better. Mark Zuckerberg has
revolutionized the ideas of organizational hierarchy where no barriers have been set among
different levels of managers and employees (Koseoglu, & Shalley, 2017). Bill gates applies
transformational leadership in different way. He was an encouraging leader who inspired his
employees towards creativity. He used motivational speeches and discussions to individually
encourage his people. Zuckerberg is goal oriented as well and they both follow the same
transformational style of leadership but their approach and method of application is different.
From the above discussion it can be finally concluded that both Zuckerberg and Gates
show different styles of leadership. They have developed their leadership style depending
upon the company they are running and the workforce they are working with. Evidently, both
of them has recognized the importance of transformational leadership as an effective
leadership method.

3LEADERSHIP COMPARISON ESSAY
References
Al-Asfour, A., & Lettau, L. (2014). Strategies for leadership styles for multi-generational
workforce. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and Ethics, 11(2), 58.
Koseoglu, G., Liu, Y., & Shalley, C. E. (2017). Working with creative leaders: Exploring the
relationship between supervisors' and subordinates' creativity. The Leadership
Quarterly, 28(6), 798-811.
Menzel, D. C. (2015). Leadership in Public Administration: Creative and/or Ethical?. Public
Integrity, 17(4), 315-318.
Shah, T., & Mulla, Z. R. (2013). Leader motives, impression management, and charisma: A
comparison of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Management and Labour Studies, 38(3),
155-184.