Management Essay Sample. William Henry Gates: Leadership in Microsoft

William Henry Gates

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It is nearly impossible to identify successful corporations without an association with a successful person. Most successful corporations are founded as small businesses and grow to big enterprises over time (Gates & Rogak, 2012). Primarily, they transform to public corporations is the pursuit of further financing. In fortressing this claim, this essay will select a successful business person and seek to understand organizations they have related with over their lives. Specifically, it will discuss Bill Gates, currently among the richest entrepreneurs in America. Bill Gates is the founder and the current chairperson of the worlds largest corporation, Microsoft (Gates & Rogak, 2012). Bill Gates attribute to a block of achievements among them mainframe era, PC era and minicomputer era. This essay believes that Bill Gates is the most suited study person on the list because Microsoft continues to dominate the soft and hardware industry.

Organizational Affiliation

Mainly, Bill Gates associate with Microsoft. He began his lifelong journey with Microsoft in 1975 (Brink, 2011). Inspired by an article on electronic devices, he decided to assemble a computer using microprocessors, adds the author. Early in his journey, he realized that there was a lot of workable magic in software engineering and he devoted to pursuing it. Later on, Gates secured a contract worth $ 80,000 from the international business machine (IBM) requiring him to develop a company software (Brink, 2011). This occurrence was the beginning of a long journey between Microsoft, his company and IBM. He set up Microsoft at Albuquerque only to later relocate to Bellevue for strategic reasons (Brink, 2011). He continued with Microsoft until it was compulsory for him to secure further financing. He sold the company to the public in 1986 (Tricker, 2012).

Industrial Recognition

Microsoft operates in the industry of computer software and hardware as well as the manufacture and distribution of electronic devices (Tricker, 2012). The company suffers some competitors including Apple, Google, IBM, and Oracle, adds the source. The company is extensively recognized in the industry but is still far from success. With average annual sales of $ 84 billion, it is still behind Apple. However, it boasts of outstanding success ahead of IBM Google and Oracle. In the industry, the company enjoys recognition as the fastest growing corporation with an average growth of 7.7% (Tricker, 2012).

Length of Leadership at Microsoft

The span of Bill Gates's leadership at Microsoft begun at its inception in 1975 (Tricker, 2012). His stay in the company has seen him occupy powerful positions such as the board, CEO and Chief software architect. From the inception of Microsoft, in 1975, he acted as an executive until 2006. During this time, he regularly collaborated with other managers. Currently, he is the largest shareholder in the company.

Most Suited Leadership Theory

The responsibility of product strategy had been at the hands of Bill Gates for a long time, (Gates & Rogak, 2012). He is exceedingly aggressive and continues to expand the companys products base, adds the author. Every time the company launches a new product, he is at the fore line in defending it. Also, he is very competitive and believes in success. A colleague admitted that after beating Bill Gates in a game for 35 out of 37 times, it only took Gates a month of practice to be unbeatable. Moreover, he is a collaborative leader. Microsoft records that until 2006 when he was still an executive, Gates ensured the participation of other managers within the corporation (Gates, & Rogak, 2012). Even better, he is an extraordinarily committed leader. In many instances, he was recorded saying that the work he did not do during the week would complete over the weekend. He is not a time wasting leader.

Greatest Achievement

The most outstanding achievement by Bill Gates is inspiring the era of computing. While at Lakeside with Paul Allen, they learned basic programming. They are the first persons to produce Altair 8,800 that would later sell to MITS. The main contributor to their success was the feature of the program allowing advanced users to alter them.

Lifetime Challenge, How it Resolved and the Power Used

Through his journey with Microsoft, Bill Gates has suffered a block of challenges. The most disturbing amongst them is when MITS, his largest clientele base found out his age. Thinking he was too young, they stopped buying from Microsoft. However, Gates is not one of the persons who fail due to challenges. It only took him a few years of outstanding and persistent success to convince his buyers to trust him again. In combating this challenge, Bill Gates used coercive power. Through coercion, he leads his clients to believe that by shunning his company, they were staring at failure.

Comparison with Competitor

The main competitor against Bill Gates is Apple CEO, Tim Cook. The main difference between them is that Bill Gates is extremely aggressive and risk tolerant (Gates & Rogak, 2012). Bill Gates believes in innovativeness, a belief that is mostly risky. For instance, during his early times, he dropped from Harvard College. This step was subject to instant rejection from his parents. However, he did not give up his conviction but pursued his dream. On the contrary, Tim Cook is Risk Averse. From Apple, he is constantly heard discouraging risky innovations for fear of jeopardizing the company. In the view of this essay, Bill Gates is the most effective between them as he is innovative, a key requirement for great leaders.

Three Desirable Traits

The first outstanding desirable trait of Bill Gates is innovativeness. He was the founder of Microsoft and developed a ground for the company's software. Second, Gates is a committed entrepreneur. Despite being at the helm of Microsoft, he commits his weekends to furthering the progress of Microsoft. Precisely, he takes up uncompleted assignments of employees and completes them over the weekend. Finally, Gates is visionary. Through his visions and plan, Microsoft progressed from a humble business to a large corporation with over 78,000 employees.

Summary

Conclusively, it is true that all successful corporations have relationships with powerful persons. In the case discussed in this essay, Microsoft links to Bill Gates, its founder, and current leader. The essay also learns that Bill Gates is a contemporary business person with a list of desirable traits. They include innovativeness, risk taker, courage and most importantly, tolerance. Similarly, the paper also establishes that Bill Gates is a great achiever. Specifically, he furthered the language of computers alongside his friend, Paul. Moreover, the paper realizes that his journey with Microsoft has been not without challenges. The most outstanding challenge is when he was too young for his achievements and his clients distanced from him. As a result, he watched the sales of Microsoft decline because his customers could not trust his products. Finally, the essay ascertains that Bill Gates is the longest standing leader at Microsoft. He has been a leader in the Company since 1975 and has continued to date.

References

Gates, B. & Rogak, L. (2012). Impatient optimist (1st ed.). Melbourne, Vic.: Hardie Grant.

Brink, A., (2011). Corporate Governance and Business Ethics, NY: Springer.

Tricker, B., (2012). Corporate governance: principles, policies and practices, NY: Oxford University Press.