RICHARD BRANSON AND HIS LEADERSHIP

This presentation aims to analyze leadership style of Sir Richard Branson.

I have chosen him because he is one of most inspiring people in my life after I have started to follow him on twitter. He is very active on twitter with 5.7 million followers and 8300 tweets by 29th May 2015. Entrepreneurship, management, leadership, family, business, social and humanitarian issues and environment are the topics Branson tweets about. He is a very good example of a cross-cultural business leader.

Today, Richard Branson is the owner of Virgin Group which consists of more than 400 companies. He has 5 billion dollars fortune and has a private island called Necker Island in the Caribbean. In the slides, background information that prepared Branson as a leader will be given first and then his leadership style will be analyzed according to situational and transformational leadership approaches.

HISTORY OF LEADERSHIP DEFINITION

Nowadays leadership is one of the most popular words in business. Do you want to learn how definition of leadership evolved?

Between  1900 and 1929 leadership was control and centralization of power which would be domination of the leader and obedience of the followers. In 1930s Moore claimed that leadership is less domination but more about influencing attitudes and activities of the many people. So, personal traits of the leader were emphasized. Hemphill defined  leadership  as the directive behaviors of one individual  when he/she  is involved in a group activity in 1949.   Then developing shared goals added to the group theory in 1950s.  When we reach 1960s the leadership definition becomes “acts by persons which influence other persons in a shared direction”. Next decade it doesn’t change much and explained as initiation and maintenance of  groups  or organizations to accomplish shared  goals. In 1980s leadership was based on four terms: leadership wishes, influence, traits, and transformation.

Today leadership is defined as a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.

Source: Leadership Theory and Practice, Peter G. Northouse,  SAGE Publications, Inc. 2013. Chapter 1 

BAŞARILI LİDERLER NASIL DÜŞÜNÜR, RED HAT CEO’SU BOB YOUNG ÖRNEĞİ

Yönetici danışmanı ve Toronto Universitesi İşletme Fakültesinde dekan olan Roger Martin uzun yıllar süren 50 farklı lider ile yaptığı görüşmeleri sonucunda başarılı liderlerin nasıl düşündüğünü şöyle özetlemiş: Aynı anda iki karşıt fikri akıllarında tutarak, herhangi birisini elemeden,  yaratıcı bir şekilde her iki fikirden de iyi yönleri sentezleyerek, daha iyi bir düşünce ortaya koyabiliyorlar. Buna bütünleştirici düşünme deniyor.

Bunun için en iyi örneklerden biri en ünlü Linux işletim sistemi Red Hat’ın kurucusu ve CEO’su Bob Young. 1990 ortalarında Red Hat, Linux işletim sisteminin paket versiyonlarını satarak 1M$ satış rakamına ulaşınca,  yazılım endüstrisinde iki farklı iş modellerinden birini tercih etmesi gerekiyordu. Bir tanesi Microsoft, Oracle, SAP gibi büyük oyuncuların yazılımlarını yüksek fiyata ve ciddi karlarla sattıkları fakat kaynak kodlarını sakladıkları tescilli yazılım modeli. İkincisi şirketlerin CD-ROM’larda yazılımları ile birlikte kaynak kodlarını verdikleri ücretsiz (düşük fiyatlı ve az karlı) yazılım modeli.

Bob Young alternatiflere doğru ya da yanlış olarak yaklaşmadan, bu iki iş modelini sentezleyerek Red Hat’i büyük bir başarıya ulaştırdı. Bu sentez ücretsiz yazılım modelinin düşük fiyatı ile tescilli yazılım modelinin karlı servis yönteminden oluşuyordu. Sonuç Linux işletim sistemi için kurumsal marketti.  İşletim sistemi yazılımı CD-ROM yerine internetten ücretsiz indirilebilirken, güncelleme ve iyileştirme gibi servis hizmetlerinden para kazanılıyordu.

1999 yılında Red Hat borsaya açıldığında ilk gün Young milyoner oldu. 2000 yılında sunucu işletim sistemlerinde Linux  %25, Red Hat ise Linux işletim sisteminin %50  pazar payına sahip oldu.

Roger Martin bütünleştirici düşünme için yapmamız gerekeni ise 4 madde ifade ediyor:

1)Ortada olmayan ama ilgili etmenleri bulun

2)Değişkenler arasında çok yönlü ve doğrusal olmayan ilişkileri değerlendirin

3)Problemi bir bütün olarak görün, parçalar nasıl bütünleşir, kararlar diğerlerini nasıl  etkiler belirleyin

4)Karşıt görüşlerden gerilimini yaratıcı bir şekilde çözümleyin ve yeni çıktılara ulaşın

(Bugün Linux sunucu(web) işletim sistemlerinde %37, superbilgisayar işletim sistemlerinde %97 pazar payına sahip)  

Kaynaklar:

https://hbr.org/2007/06/how-successful-leaders-think

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

MICROSOFT TRANSITION FROM START-UP FIRM TO A MAJOR CORPORATION

How had Microsoft successfully navigated the transition from a start-up firm to a major corporation? The slides below gives the answer for that based on the Harvard Business School Case Prepared by Professor Philip M. Rosenzweig.

In 1973 MITS released  Worlds First Microcomputing Kit Altair 8080 which was built around Intel 8080 with max 4K memory.  It was the start of huge opputunities lay ahead in computer industry. Integrated circuits were growing exponentially in power and were simultaneously dropping in price.Bill Gates and Paul Allen  saw that future computers would be infinitely powerful and would cost nothing.They focused on software  rather than hardware like Apple and started developing  BASIC language for Altair 8080.

In 1980 IBM began to develop its own PC and MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System) became the most popular operating system running on it and eventually the de facto industry standard by convincing other firms to develop software that can run on MS-DOS

In 1983, after failure with first COO experince, Gates hired Jon Shirley: «untimate businessman», who had a 25 year experince in comp. merchandising with marketing and finance knowledge. Recurietment Policy of the company was to recuriet young talented developers but experienced managers. In 1985, Microsoft introduced Windows, a graphics-based operating environment that ran on MS-DOS and allowed users to run several programs at the same time for easy interaction with computers.By 1988, Microsoft had overtaken major competitors such as Lotus Development Corp., VisiCorp, MicroPro, and Ashton-Tate to become the market leader in PC applications software as well as operating systems software.

Microsoft successfully built a good manegement system including finance, support, corporate business, hiring, training, compensation whichs' details given the slides.

As a result Microsoft became a major company by 1991 with the numbers given below: Revenues surpassed $1.8 billion, up 56% from the previous year, and ten times the level of 1986.Profitability remained exceptionally high, with net income reaching $463 million, 25% of revenues.Bill Gates was one of the wealthiest Americans, owning 30% of Microsoft stock with a market value of $4 billion. Windows 3.0, which enabled applications programs to work together in a user-friendly graphics environment sold over three million copies in its first year. Microsoft’s success was reflected in a stock price, increased by a factor of 20 since the company went public in 1986.