Leadership in Workplace: Fundamentals for Success - Essay Sample

Introduction

Leadership in the workplace is one of the fundamental pillars of success in the workplace or in and organization. Normally, leadership basically exceeds that specific job title or position of an individual in an organization. It entails the practical skills of an individual or a group's ability to lead or guide others, either as a team or as an entire organization. The act of leadership is a basic concept that results in many questions and arguments; for instance, the argument of whether leaders are born or made. Despite the lack of full support of the argument, leadership constitutes special traits and skills that one can develop within their lifetime. Every organization strives to have effective leadership to enhance the performance of its activities as well as ensuring an effective and friendly working environment. Effective leaders are, therefore, critical for exercising the power of those around them in every organization. Being a good leader is usually a daunting task, and one needs to avoid various pitfalls that are associated with workplace leadership. To be an effective leader, one needs leadership skills such as effective communication, innovative, organizational, confidence, self-awareness, integrity, and adaptability. More so, effective leaders usually lead with honesty and are open to change. In addition, workplace culture, which refers to behaviors and values that define the uniqueness of an organizations psychological and social environment is a major issue of concern for leaders. Leaders usually introduce specific strategies to improve workplace culture. For instance, effective communication, flexibility, and transparency can be used to improve workplace culture. Jack Ma, who is a great leader of Alibaba Company, has exercised effective leadership in the organization contributing to its rapid growth over the past fifteen years. He has been vital in the transformation and improvement of the organization's culture through the application of various strategies to enhance its growth, performance, and productivity. Currently, he is one of the most admired and emulated leader for his effective leadership qualities, skills, and the strategies he uses.

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Who is Jack Ma?

Jack Ma, was born on October 15, 1964, in Hangzhou, in China, southeastern part. He was born in a family of three, a family that was relatively poor. The state of China at that time was economically declined under communism. He had hobbies just like anybody else and played games when he was a kid, for instance, the collection of crickets. He had a hard young life, for example offering visitors tours to get English lessons in exchange. He had failed in college entrance examinations twice after completing his high school education. However, he passed during the third trial and attended Hangzhou Teachers Institute and graduated in 1988. After many trials in seeking employment and dozens of rejections, he settled as an English teacher despite low incomes from the job. He had no internet experience until a trip to the United States that was aimed at helping a Chinese firm recover a debt when he decided to find an internet company for China. After the failure of the first two ventures, he convinced his friends to invest in Alibaba, which was a site that enabled exporters to post their products that the customers could buy directly. His first job gave him experience. He has a trait of not giving up and considers giving up as the biggest failure. He has failed in all his first trials, primary school, secondary school, and first entrepreneurial ventures but has a behavior of not giving up. For instance, he stated in his interview, "We keep fighting. We keep changing ourselves. We don't complain." (Lee and Song 2016). This Cleary shows how resilient and strong he is. Therefore, from the roaring success of Alibaba Company, it is evident that Jack has significant leadership traits and behaviors that we can emulate, for example, uniting people for a common goal, never giving up, be ready to face rejection, avoid complaining, having a clear mind and valuing attitude.

What Strategies Can a Leader Use to Improve Workplace Culture?

As stated earlier, organization culture is an important element for its success. Organization culture can be improved by various strategies such as embracement of transparency in the workplace and motivation. Transparency has a great impact on the entire company, and the people served. It is a key element to giving the employees a voice in the workplace and build their trust with the company. Through transparency, there is effective communication and collaboration in the organization hence effective connectivity. This connectivity ensures the efficient sharing of information that is crucial within the organization. Sharing the success and challenges of the organization is a motivation boost for the teams to assess and assess their positive or negative results in order to feel motivated or search for brilliant solutions to the challenges. Another strategy to build a better organization culture is through motivation. Motivation provides employees with morale to work. Appreciation is effective to boost the working rates of workers. This shows that the organization is able to recognize the efforts of employees and rewards them for showing gratitude. In addition, motivation is evidence of employee recognition of the activities, either an individual or as a team. It should come from the leaders, peers, or from everyone. Cultivation of strong coworker relationships and inspiration of employees' autonomy are also strategies to improve organizational culture. This is because relationships between employees matter a lot. In addition, no employees like to be micromanaged and show mistrust of employees and their organization responsibilities and duties.

Did Jack Use Any Strategies to Improve the Culture of Alibaba Company?

The astonishing growth and success of the organization, it is evident that Jack Ma is an effective leader has induced various strategies to improve the workplace culture of the Alibaba Company. He has induced the strategy of motivation in the organization. He calls for rewarding of his employees with effective and appropriate salaries as well as motivating them for their success. This has helped in building working morale for the employees and thus enhancing the success of the company. For example, when he commissioned his friends to start Alibaba Company, after the realization of the initial profits Jack gave each employee a can of Silly String to go wild with as a form of motivation (Wang and Rafiq 2014). This is an effective strategy that built a good organizational culture that induced a team spirit and psyche for working in the company. The practice of flexibility was another strategy to improve the culture of the organization. He induced a technique of providing the employees with flexibility while working. For example, he explained to them and trained them on how they could work from their places or in his apartment. This improved the capacity of employees to maintain belief in the organization and reduced employee turnover. This helped in workers retention (Barboza 2014). More so, Jack applied a strategy of transparency within the organization. This enhanced effective communication that was effective for sharing crucial information about the organization. There was transparency about the performance of Alibaba Company, their successes, and challenges. This built trust within the organization and instilled a teamwork spirit. Employees were united and could celebrate their success together or discuss effective solutions to the problems and risks that faced or would face the organization. This transparent company culture gave the employees an insight into the organization's operations and future. There was a great trust within the organization as a result of transparency.

In addition, Jack used a strategy of cultivating a strong coworker relationship in the company with the aim of driving employee engagement. However, building such a relationship is usually a hard task that requires special tips. For instance, Jacks sense of fun was a key factor. More so, he used to commission his team during breaks to do handstands to keep their energy levels up. This was a strategic tip that would improve employee relationships in the organization. This relationship was an effective step to build trust and teamwork spirit in the company. This team spirit ensured a shift in the mentality of the employees from working on their own towards individual goals to work as a unified team towards the realization of company goals (Kim, Zhang and Zhang 2016). Establishment of clear organizational values and goals was another strategy in Jacks leadership that improved the workplace culture. These made a clear view of the organization to the employees, as well as a precise understanding of the company's expectations from the workers. Constant feedbacks were also a strategy that ensured effective communication, and plenty of organization information that was crucial to the operations of the company, that is, effective and timely response to the organization issues.

With the application of the above vast of effective strategies, Alibaba Company excelled at a rapid rate to become one of the best successful companies in china. The above strategies were effective in building the organization culture, and therefore facilitated the performance of the organization to become a great company in china and realize significant profits. A large portion of success is gratitude to Jack, who was the founder, the Chief Executive Officer, and a significant leader of the company. His contributions to the company are overwhelming and admirable.

Is There a Comparison Between the Organization Culture of Alibaba Company and the Organizational Culture of Businesses Managed Using New Zealand European Principles and Ideas?

Nonetheless, there exists a comparison between the organization culture of Alibaba company and the organizational culture of businesses managed using New Zealand European principles and ideas, for example, Talley's group. The differences that exist is that Alibaba company operates inbound of China organizational culture of businesses principles and ideas while Talley's group operates under the principles stated in New Zealand European principles and ideas of businesses. More so, Alibaba is an online commerce company whereas Talley's group is an agribusiness company that sells vegetables, dairy products, and seafood. The similarities that exist are that every business exists for a reason. Both businesses exist to make profits and serve the needs of customers (Corbett and Rastrick 2000). The success and growth of both organizations are built on the concepts of innovation and entrepreneurship. More so, both organizations usually have well laid down and clear values, rules, goals, and objectives that guide their operations. Another similarity that exists about the organizational culture of businesses principles and ideas between the two states, china, and New Zealand is that businesses may be privately owned. Therefore, both Talley's group and Alibaba Company are private organizations. Nonetheless, Talley's group operates within New Zealand and hence based on the Leo language and Maori culture in the processing of their products while Alibaba uses English in their commerce activities since it operates on the internet.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is evident that leadership and organizational culture are fundamental elements to the success of any organization. Organizational culture is strategized mainly by the leaders. Therefore, at the heart of organizational success, performance and productivity are thriving company culture. There is great importance to ensure that there are a good organizational culture...