Research Paper on Mark Zuckerberg

Introduction

Mark Zuckerberg is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Facebook and is among the youngest billionaires across the globe. The social media site has realized significant growth in the number of users thereby expanding the user base. During an early age, Mark Zuckerberg developed an interest in computers. At the age of 12 years, he created a messaging program known as Zucknet, which helped his father identify new patients in his dental clinic (Roos, 2013). His family used Zucknet for communicating with each other within the house. This paper will discuss Zuckerberg's personality relative to the trait leadership model. It will also explore the behavioral styles as reflected in the accomplishments of Mark Zuckerberg.

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Mark Zuckerberg's Personality Relative to The Trait Model of Leadership

Mark Zuckerberg is an entrepreneur whose mind always oozes with ideas and is ready to experiment. In essence, the various traits that he adopts have led to his success as a young entrepreneur. Zuckerberg is passionate about what he aims at accomplishing and is fascinated by computers, as well as connecting people. He argues that the ability of people to access more information and connect well with one another makes the world better. Zuckerberg is capable of stepping back during his hard days, which enables him to explore more ideas and keep going (Lanaj, Johnson, & Lee, 2016).

Concisely, Zuckerberg is an effective communicator. His communication work culture makes him an effective leader and builds trust. He ensures open communication with his employees. Most of those who work at Facebook affirm that Zuckerberg always walks around, talks to everyone, asks questions, and gets to know his employees personally. His interpersonal skills are excellent. He connects well with his employees, which allow the workers to take risks or even present their interests. As such, the employees only work on the projects on the projects they are interested in thereby establishing a clear direction on whatever they are doing (Lanaj et al., 2016).

Zuckerberg is a visionary leader shown by his involvement in philanthropic work with his wife to create the Chan Zuckerberg initiative. The main aim of the initiative is to develop new technology that would drive science forward. The culture he has established at Facebook encourages people to be innovative and stick to their vision. He demands constant innovation and expects individuals to deliver more than what they might be required to accomplish. Inside the boardroom, he is always firm and stands for his ideas even if it would force him to go against the opinions of board members (Koseoglu, Liu, & Shalley, 2017). Additionally, Zuckerberg partners with the right investors with similar ideas as his and executes them. Each of these investors brings some set of values, priorities, as well as competencies to Zuckerberg's projects.

The Behavioral Styles That Are Reflected in Examples of Zuckerberg's Leadership and Accomplishments

Mark Zuckerberg is an aggressive leader when he does not get timely results. As such, he has ensured that the atmosphere in his office is free to enable people to think independently and innovate. He encourages his employees to strive and achieve the best results. In case some people have suggestions, Zuckerberg is always open to their ideas and gives the employees time to be innovative. Even though he is a great philanthropist, Zuckerberg is down to earth. He chats with regular people from different regions across the globe. Moreover, he organizes regular question and answers session for connecting with individuals. An example of where he has contributed to making the world a better place is by donating $992 million to Silicon Valley Community Foundation in 2013 (Bronk & McLean, 2016). In 2014, Zuckerberg donated $75 billion to San Francisco General Hospital. He also donated $100 million used to save failing systems within Newark Public Schools in New Jersey.

Ideally, moving fast is a behavioral trait that Zuckerberg adopts. Through this trait, he coordinates well with his employees to build more things. When many companies grow, they may slow down when such organizations are afraid to take risks or make mistakes. With the moving fast trait, Mark Zuckerberg has been capable of achieving success within ten years, which took thirty years for Bill Gates to accomplish. In essence, he adapts to different situations and comes up with amicable solutions to problems that may arise. In this manner, he listens to the reviews of Facebook users and acts on them accordingly. He listens to the users quantitatively and qualitatively (Bronk & McLean, 2016).

Zuckerberg incorporated a range of changes in Facebook due to the feedback, as well as the experience of users. Various innovations came about on Facebook based on the manner of interaction with different people. When Zuckerberg was faced with allegations of privacy, he allowed the public to provide their views and gave controls to the users on whatever they post. Through the views, he has included the experience of users and made decisions on privacy concerns. Furthermore, pledged to donate ninety-nine percent of his Facebook shares to Chan Zuckerberg Initiative aimed at supporting health and education. In 2016, Zuckerberg decided to invest around three billion dollars for prevention, cure, as well as management of diseases and various health conditions (Lanaj et al., 2016).

The Full-Range Model of Leadership and Where Zuckerberg Falls On This Continuum

Importantly, the full-range model of leadership consists of laissez-faire behavior, transformational, as well as transactional leadership. Zuckerberg fits in the transformation leadership style. The style is depicted in social and interpersonal skills of the leader. The skills are reflected in a range of personality traits like an adjustment to situations, assertive, and being friendly to his employees and Facebook users. Zuckerberg has idealized influence as the followers respect and has trust for the leader. As such, the users look to emulate his behavior and are committed to achieve their visions and make sacrifices. He is dedicated and develops a strong sense of purpose (Bronk & McLean, 2016). The Facebook CEO is confident and empowers the users. Additionally, Zuckerberg is committed to his vision, goals, and objectives and communicates his expectations clearly to the employees and users. His confidence is expressed in the ability of the users to achieve such expectations.

Since Zuckerberg values the intellectual ability of Facebook users, he encourages innovation and promotes creativity. He encourages people to reframe their problems by incorporating a holistic perspective to understand the problems and approach them from different angles. As a transformational leader, Zuckerberg is ready for change and is capable of developing amicable solutions to solve both current and future issues that might arise to affect the organizational processes. He gives personal attention and listens to the concerns of other people and provides feedback, advice, as well as support (Koseoglu et al., 2017). The CEO designs relevant strategies for developing individual followers, which promote high levels of motivation and improve performance. His trait of being a powerful communicator is evident in the way he interacts with the employees and other people across the globe. He asks questions and talks to different individuals to understand what they think about and the decisions made.

Precisely, Zuckerberg knocks down any traditional barriers in the workplace and allows the employees to communicate freely. He is willing to share thoughts and voice ideas aimed at promoting change. In this way, the users have trust for their leader. Risk taking is an attribute of a transformational leader. The attitude of moving fast and breaking things has allowed his workers to learn more things and accomplish the set goals effectively. This culture accelerates production within the organizational platform and makes it easy to find a middle ground for the stipulated processes (Roos, 2013).

Evidence That Zuckerberg Adapts His Behavior To Subordinates and The Situation

Mark Zuckerberg micromanages Facebook products and is decisive. His subordinates study him and have come up with techniques, which influence the success of the leader. However, the subordinates do not challenge him even when bad times arrive. He adapts his behavior to the subordinates by holding question and answer sessions for the employees. The forum involves open discussion in which Zuckerberg shares personal thoughts on the direction of the company. Furthermore, he organizes a birthday bash for the employees annually during which they express their ideas freely. The work environment of Facebook includes vending machines, which have computer accessories hence enabling the users to swipe identification cards and acquire valuable items (Koseoglu et al., 2017).

Zuckerberg believes that comfortable employees in the workplace promote productivity. Ideally, the CEO allows subordinates to choose the projects that they are interested in hence the employees realize the best outcomes. His transformational leadership traits give the workers courage, power, as well as freedom. In essence, the leader believes that people with a clear direction on what they aim at achieving are capable of producing positive results. He asserts that the hiring of employees ought to be based on passion rather than the skillset of such individuals. Zuckerberg sought out assistance from Andrew Bosworth to enable him to create a clear vision for the company. Currently, Bosworth works as a software engineer at Facebook (Koseoglu et al., 2017). Bosworth described the leadership of Zuckerberg as tireless and fearless. Due to the efficient results obtained from his leadership, the CEO exposes unthinkable talent within the subordinates. He encourages employees to move in the right direction and accomplish the set objectives.

Unique Information That Helps to Identify Zuckerberg Individual as A Leader

The transformational leadership of Zuckerberg is seen to move Facebook to some promising future. By motivating continued growth within the company, he has flourished and shown his leadership skills. He grants the employees various opportunities, which offer improvements and understand Facebook suggestions. Zuckerberg strives to turn mistakes that may arise in the company into opportunities for growth hence bringing forth efficient solutions. Through this information, it is evident that Mark Zuckerberg is a great leader. The theory provides competing information regarding the leader.

Conclusion

As the CEO and co-founder of Facebook, Zuckerberg adopts the transformational style of leadership. His personal traits enable him to build the right relationship with the subordinates. The employees would see him most of the times and connects with them. Notwithstanding his busy schedule, he is still accessible to the workers. He promotes a culture of interaction as he positions himself with the level of employees. He also seeks guidance from other leaders due to the thirst to learn more from the business leaders.

References

Bronk, K. C., & McLean, D. C. (2016). The role of passion and purpose in leader developmental readiness. New directions for student leadership, 2016(149), 27-36.

Koseoglu, G., Liu, Y., & Shalley, C. E. (2017). Working with creative leaders: Exploring the relationship between supervisors' and subordinates' creativity. The Leadership Quarterly, 28(6), 798-811.

Lanaj, K., Johnson, R. E., & Lee, S. M. (2016). Benefits of transformational behaviors for leaders: A daily investigation of leader behaviors and need fulfillment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(2), 237.

Roos, J. (2013). The benefits and limitation...