Bill Gates: A Role Model Leader and Entrepreneur

Bill Gates: Entrepreneur, Manager, and Leader

Here was a guy with all the money in the world, yet he showed up every day to change the world. 

Good leaders are made not born!!

If you have the desire and willpower, you can become an effective leader. Good leaders develop through a never ending process of self-study, education, training, and experience (Jago, 1982).

Role model is defined as “an individual who is perceived as exemplary, or worthy of imitation”

Definition of Leadership

  
Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. This definition is similar to Northouse's (2007, p3) definition — Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal

While leadership is learned, the skills and knowledge processed by the leader can be influenced by his or hers attributes or traits, such as beliefs, values, ethics, and character. 

Knowledge and skills contribute directly to the process of leadership, while the other attributes give the leader certain characteristics that make him or her unique. 

Principles of Leadership   

1. Know yourself and seek self-improvement - In order to know yourself, you have to understand your be, know, and do, attributes. Seeking self-improvement means continually strengthening your attributes.
2. Be technically proficient - As a leader, you must know your job and have a solid familiarity with your employees' tasks.
3. Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions - Search for ways to guide your organization to new heights. And when things go wrong, they always do sooner or later — do not blame others. Analyze the situation, take corrective action, and move on to the next challenge.
4. Make sound and timely decisions - Use good problem solving, decision making, and planning tools.
5. Set the example - Be a good role model for your employees. They must not only hear what they are expected to do, but also see. We must become the change we want to see - Mahatma Gandhi
6. Know your people and look out for their well-being - Know human nature and the importance of sincerely caring for your workers.
7. Keep your workers informed - Know how to communicate with not only them, but also seniors and other key people.
8. Develop a sense of responsibility in your workers - Help to develop good character traits that will help them carry out their professional responsibilities.
9. Ensure that tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished - Communication is the key to this responsibility.
10. Train as a team - Although many so called leaders call their organization, department, section, etc. a team; they are not really teams...they are just a group of people doing their jobs.
11. Use the full capabilities of your organization - By developing a team spirit, you will be able to employ your organization, department, section, etc. to its fullest capabilities.

Leaders have to lead by example and thereby create the positive atmosphere that encourages others to give their best and build the best team possible. 

A team is only a team if team members act like a team. Otherwise it is just a bunch of individuals doing their own thing for themselves.

The Process of Great Leadership

The road to great leadership (Kouzes & Posner, 1987) that is common to successful leaders:

• Challenge the process - First, find a process that you believe needs to be improved the most.
• Inspire a shared vision - Next, share your vision in words that can be understood by your followers.
• Enable others to act - Give them the tools and methods to solve the problem.
• Model the way - When the process gets tough, get your hands dirty. A boss tells others what to do, a leader shows that it can be done.
• Encourage the heart - Share the glory with your followers' hearts, while keeping the pains within your own.

Bill Gates, My Role Model Leader

What makes him my role model, I was introspecting what might have made him A leader and a role model Is it money, fame …If that’s the case, do I have to change my leadership role model as and when he was not the richest man in the world….Hmmm..I feel he became my role model not because of his money virtue. It’s his true leadership qualities and innovative spirit which I aspire for..!!!

I look Bill Gates as a true role model. He was a guy who already in very early age found his way to the software industry, innovated it in any imaginable way and when he felt he had done it long enough, quit his job and became a hardcore philanthropist.

Early on his life, it was apparent that Bill Gates inherited the ambition, intelligence, and competitive spirit that had helped his forefathers rise to the top in their chosen professions. In elementary school he quickly surpassed all of his peer’s abilities in nearly all subjects, especially math and science.

Bill Gates - A Successful Entrepreneur

The success of Microsoft is the true example of the entrepreneurial skills of Bill Gates.

The success story of Bill Gates is highly motivating for all the upcoming entrepreneurs.

His hard work, dedication and self-confidence helped him to earn everything he has. He is a simple man and slightly conservative in regards of money although he is one of the richest people of the world.

The youth can take inspirations from the life of Bill Gates.So it can be concluded that Bill Gates is one of the ideal personalities of the world who has honestly contributed towards the world's success. 

Why he is my leadership role model

1、Trust subordinates
2、Motivating employees
3、Teaching staff
4、Communication and marketing power of thought
5、The ability to listen
6、Planning and implementation of planning ability
7、Admit a mistake

• Focus: Bill Gates has demonstrated over nearly thirty years the importance of clarity of thought and execution. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not move away from the domain he understood better than anything else – software

• Passion: Simply put, if anything is worth doing, it is worth doing well. From a simple thank you note to a complex proposal, it is critical to place the stamp of excellence on whatever one undertakes. Equally important is the need to constantly innovate. Change is the only constant and the more agile and adaptive we are to change, the more successful we can be.

• Giving back to society: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has provided a new dimension to philanthropy by addressing issues that are global in nature - malaria, cancer, AIDS. Feeling good by doing good may appear old-fashioned but this may yet be the best way forward in combating diseases that kill or maim millions of people every year. 

With friend and legendary investor Warren Buffet also joining hands, a formidable combination has been forged. Bill Gates has shown a remarkable degree of consistency both in his business goals and in his goals in philanthropy - he is a global citizen.

• Learning as a life-long process: Though dropping out of college to his dreams, Bill Gates has probably read and written more than most of us ever will. In the process, he has shown the limits of formal education. Important as formal education is, perhaps it is more important to realize that learning is a life-long process. Knowledge is infinite.  

Bill Gates would go to any length to maintain his exiting monopoly. But he has no qualms. He said that any operating system without a browser would go out of business. So we improved our product or else we would have gone out of business, he added  For him, success is defined as flattening the competition, not creating excellence.

 

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (B&MGF or the Gates Foundation) is the largest transparently operated private foundation in the world, founded by Bill and Melinda Gates. It is "driven by the interests and passions of the Gates family".   

The primary aims of the foundation are, globally, to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and in America, to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology. The foundation, based in Seattle, Washington, is controlled by its three trustees: Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and  

Warren Buffett.  

The scale of the foundation and the way it seeks to apply business techniques to giving makes it one of the leaders in the philanthrocapitalism revolution in global philanthropy  though the foundation itself notes that the philanthropic role has limitations

Bill gates style as Fiedler Model

 "In Fiedler's model, leadership effectiveness is the result of interaction between the style of the leader and the characteristics of the environment in which the leader works"

Relation-oriented leadership:

Leaders who describe their preferred coworker in favourable terms, with a high LPC, are purported to derive major satisfaction from establishing close relationships with felow workers. High LPC leaders are said to be relationship-orientated. These leaders see that good interpersonal relations as a requirement for task accomplishment. 

Task-oriented leadership:

Leaders who describe their least preferred coworker unfavourable terms, with a low LPC, are derived major satisfaction by successfully completing a task. These leaders are said to be task-orientated. They are more concerned with successful task accomplishment and worry about interpersonal relations later

Each factor is defined in the following.

1. Leader-member relations: the degree to which the employees accept the leader.

2. Task structure: the degree to which the subordinates’ jobs are described in detail.

3. Position power: the amount of formal authority the leader possesses by virtue of his or her position in the organisation.

So in this case Bill Gates found most favourable place where positional power is high as he has most authorities in the firm, task structure is also defined as he gives the direction to subordinate/follower to fulfil his vision, and last leader-member relation is also good.

That’s mean Bill Gates is more likely Task-oriented leader who want performance from his subordinate/follower and work has to be done to achieve the goal/objective of the company.

BIL GATES Leadership style

1. Autocratic style

Control is basic to Gate's nature and his management practise. He has an obsession with detail and with checking up. Exp. Used to sign expenses for his right hand man – STEVE BALLMER.

He is trying to monopolise the World Wide Web software market and has had legal problems with the department of justice. Microsoft restricted the ability of its Internet partners to deal with its rivals. Also he dislikes complaints.

2. Delegate style

Brightest talent: Gates paid special attention to recruit and retain the best talent in the software industry. He believed that the recruitment of talented software engineers was one of the most critical elements in the software industry. 

Gates looked for a bundle of attributes in recruits. These included the capacity to grasp new knowledge quickly, the ability to ask probing questions, and deep familiarity with programming structures. Though a great number of potential recruits applied for jobs at Microsoft, Gates assumed that the best talent would never apply directly.

Consequently, Microsoft's HR managers had to hunt for the best talent and offer them a job. Gives autonomy to his manager, he delegates authority to managers to run their independent departments.

Top 10 Bill Gates’ Quotes – Personality Personified

Personality and leadership traits speaks in his sayings..Here are renowned  top 10 favourite Bill Gates’ quotes:

1. “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.“
2. “If you give people tools, and they use their natural ability and their curiosity, they will develop things in ways that will surprise you very much beyond what you might have expected.”
3. “If you show people the problems and you show people the solutions they will be moved to act.”
4. “In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen.”
5. “Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much to so many in so short a time.”
6. “Often you have to rely on intuition.”
7. “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
8. “It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.”
9. “You’ve got to want to be in this incredible feedback loop where you get the world-class people to tell you what you’re doing wrong.”
10. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”

Bill Gates: How I'm trying to change the world now

References

·         Bass, B. (1990). From transactional to transformational leadership: learning to share the vision. Organizational Dynamics, 18, (3), Winter, 1990, 19-31.
·         Bass, B., Bass, R. (2008). The Bass Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, and Managerial Applications. Simon & Schuster, Inc.: New York.
·          Rowe, W. G. (2007). Cases in Leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications
·         Stogdill, R. M.(1989). Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of Theory and Research. Bass, B. (ed.) New York: Free Press.