Jack Ma’s Democratic leadership approach
Introduction:
Over the years there have been may leadership style implemented by leaders all over the world. Every leader implements the best leadership styles that suites his/her situation and to insure that he/she leads themselves and others to the right path of success. This report aims to present the democratic leadership style of jack ma. Democratic readers are those who have great with their people skills like collaboration and communication ( kumaran 2012, p.105). This report will firstly give a background about Jack Ma, his family and organization. Then the report will analyze jack ma’s leadership approach and give some evidence and examples for the analysis. After that will discuss some challenges faced by him and will show what have been learned from this report, and finally, will give a conclusion for the report.
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Background:
- Current role and organization:
- Work history:
- Educational background:
- Family background:
- Industry involvement:
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Leadership approach:
Jack Ma’s leadership style can be assigned to a variety of styles such as, charismatic leadership, democratic leadership, transformational leadership and visionary leadership. Ee and Yazdanifard (2015) states that Jack ma used many management styles to find the best need for his company. However, this report will focus on presenting the democratic leadership style of Jack Ma which also known as participative leadership.
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Democratic leadership:
Democratic leaders are those who appreciate the participation of the follower in discussion and decisions making ( Jakhar, 2017 ). Democratic leaders value the participation and involvement of their followers but still make the final decision. Democratic leaders collect the ideas of all of the group members and at the end they have the final word (Andrew 2015, p.125). In addition, involving more people to participate means that there will be more ideas and suggestions to come up with the best outcomes. Democratic leadership depends on the collective work and information sharing of the members and the guidance of the leader. Moreover, employees feel more encouraged to contribute in the task or project when a democratic leadership is implemented. Furthermore, Workers will be more commitment to their job because of their involvement.
Also, “Democracy in leadership is often most effective when a leader is working with highly skilled or experienced workers.” (Jakhar, 2017). Therefore, implementing democracy leadership with lower skills workers might be time consuming or results in making the wrong decision. The table below ( Muenjhon et al 2018, p.65 ) shows the advantages and disadvantages od democratic leadership. Overall, theses leaders are very welcoming for their followers’ participation.
Jack ma has a democratic leadership style because he encourages individuals ideas. He does not believe in supervision, he believes that the power of accomplishment is in uniting his workers under a common goal (sattar, 2019). This is very beneficial for Alibaba as the workers will be motivated to work on achieving the common goal and will be more productive, rather than working just because of their fear of supervision. Moreover, his employee will be willing to work toward the success of Alibaba because of their appreciate and valued participation. In addition, employees participation and their common goal will unite them more strongly to be more productive and creative. In addition, this leadership style is beneficial for jack ma because he higher people with better skills than him. “ I always want to hire those people who are smarter than me” (jack ma, 2017).
Challenges :
Despite facing rejection from several colleges and jobs, Jack Ma is now one of the most famous names in the business world. He is the Founder and Executive Chairman of the Alibaba Group and his current net worth is $40.6 billion, making him the richest person in China (Forbes). Most people are familiar with his achievements, but not with the challenges that he faced, or how he overcame them to become one of the greatest leaders in the world.
When Ma set up Alibaba in 1999, the Chinese economy was not developed to accommodate the e-commerce industry. Ma had to endure resistance from government agencies who were concerned about online privacy, as well as physical shop owners who were threatened by a new business model. He also had to convince the Chinese population about the safety of online transactions (AN). The company suffered to a point where it was almost bankrupt (Mimaroglu). However, through sheer persistence, Ma saw the company through these hard times. In this instance, he could have been more effective by being more transparent about the security controls regarding privacy.
Another challenge that Ma faced was regarding personnel. Ma allowed only limited promotion for his existing partners, up to the rank of manager. His goal was to attract new hires to apply for high managerial jobs (Ray). However, this decision backfired, because it led to segmentation of the business into various unproductive layers. A number of the best people thereby left the company with their resources. To increase his company’s performance, he should have made his existing teammates feel valued and used their strengths rather than look for external resources.
While challenges are unavoidable in business, Jack Ma has proved that a good leader can achieve a solution through persistence, hard work, and patience. However, if he had made different decisions at the time, he could have saved himself much time and effort. As a leader, sometimes the challenge is to find the most effective way to overcome difficult situations.
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Reference list:
Works Cited
AN, Srikanth. “Jack Ma – The Inspirational Story of Alibaba Founder.” Shout Me Loud, 18 Apr. 2019, https://www.shoutmeloud.com/jack-ma-alibaba-founder.html.
Forbes. “Jack Ma”. https://www.forbes.com/profile/jack-ma/#1b051fd21ee4.
Mimaroglu, Alp. “How Jack Ma Overcame His 7 Biggest Failures.” Entrepreneur, 9 Sep. 2016, www.entrepreneur.com/article/275969.
Ray, Sanjana. “How Jack Ma Overcame His Greatest Failures to Become the Richest Man in China.” Your Story, 16 May 2017, yourstory.com/2017/05/jack-ma-success-story-2?utm_pageloadtype=scroll.
Andrew, JD 2015, Leadership : Research Findings, Practice, and Skills, Cengage, Florence, KY.
Ee, C T J Yazdanifard, R 2015, ‘The Review of Alibaba’s Operation Management Details that have Navigated them to Success’, Double Blind Peer Reviewed International Research Journal, vol.15 , no.4, pp. 51-56, viewed 2 April 2020, < https://globaljournals.org/GJMBR_Volume15/8-The-Review-of-Alibabas-Operation.pdf >.
Jack ma 2017, Jack Ma’s hiring tip: ‘If you think he will be your boss in five years, hire him’, online video, 21 June, South China Morning Post, viewed 12 April 2020, < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWjN3sVNwMQ >.
Jakhar, S 2017, Why and how emocratic leadership style is one of the most effective management styles, Linkedin, viewed 4 April 2020, < https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-how-democratic-leadership-style-one-most-effective-jakhar >.
Kumaran, M 2012, Leadership in Libraries : A Focus on Ethnic-Minority Librarians, Elsevier Science & Technology, Witney.
Muenjohn, N, McMurray, A, Fernando, M, Hunt, J, Fitzgerald, M, McKenna, B, Intezari, A, Bankins, S, & Waterhouse, J 2018, leadership: Regional and global perspective, Cambridge University Press.
Sattar, S 2019, Leadership Qualities, Skills and Style of Jack Ma, The Strategy Watch, viewed 4 April 2020, < https://www.thestrategywatch.com/leadership-qualities-skills-styles-jack-ma/ >.
