Leadership in American Business. Specifically

¶ … leadership in American business. Specifically it will discuss Bill Gates and why he is characterized as a dynamic and successful leader. Bill Gates is the richest man in the world, and what helped him amass that fortune is his great leadership style, plus the courage to do what he believed, no matter what others said. Gates does not have a college degree, yet is a natural leader, with numerous qualities that have helped him and his company become one of the most successful companies in the world.

Bill Gates was born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle Washington. His father is a Seattle attorney, and his mother was a schoolteacher and eventually the chairwoman of the philanthropic group United Way International. Gates attended public school in Seattle, and then attended the private Lakeside School, where he first discovered his love for computers when he was only 13. Gates attended Harvard, but never graduated. Instead, his love of computers grew, and he developed a new version of the BASIC computer language while he was still attending the school. Gates left Harvard in his junior year to devote his time to Microsoft, the company he and friend Paul Allen first developed in 1975. Devoted to developing software for the Personal Computer (PC) market, Microsoft has been a success almost ever since, and many believe it is largely due to Gates' leadership and foresight into the computer market (Editors, 2007). What made Bill Gates the perfect leader at the perfect time? It was a combination of things that all add up to a leader that is both intuitive and incredibly tuned in to the computer/software marketplace. One biographer notes, "He entered the mainstream of the computer world just as it was on the basis of a major revolution" (Witzel, 2003, p. 129). He and Allen both worked at the technology giant Honeywell in the summer of 1974, giving them a background in large-scale technology operations.

With the development of the first microprocessor and PC computers, the pair realized that software was no longer machine specific, and they could develop software that would run on multiple platforms (Witzel, 2003, p. 130). This was the foundation of Microsoft, which originally began operations in Albuquerque New Mexico, but quickly relocated to Seattle. The company was not successful at first, but in a stunning move, Gates began negotiating directly with computer companies. In the late 70s, the company began liaisons with Apple and Tandy, and by 1980 that included IBM. They had their foot in the door with the companies that would lead the PC revolution, and that was directly related to Gates' ability to predict the future and the needs of a burgeoning computer industry (Witzel, 2003, p. 131). By the early 1980s, all the computer manufacturers had halted production on their own operating system and utilized Microsoft's MS-DOS, the standard for computer operating systems for the early PC boom (Witzel, 2003, p. 131). The only company that did not was Apple, and they suffered because of this choice for many years, because their computers could not run the most popular and common MS programs, such as MS Word.

Gates is a visionary, but many also believe that one of his strongest leadership styles is a natural entrepreneur and marketing talent. Writer Witzel continues, "He is also a natural entrepreneur, with a marketing instinct that in the past has allowed him to forecast developments before they happen, and an understanding of where market power lies" (Witzel, 2003, p. 133). Because of his well-known penchant for control, Gates is also involved in every aspect of these areas in his company, and still oversees the planning and marketing of all of his products, although he is scheduled to hand off the decision-making and much of the control in Microsoft in July of this year. He wants to focus his leadership abilities on the philanthropic foundation he and his wife founded.

Another aspect of Gates leadership style is his ability to realize size matters. When you think of some of the biggest names in the computer industry, such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and others, it is clear they have been in business for decades, and they have spread their operations around the globe. This helps them weather storms of recession, new technology and competition from others. Early on, Gates recognized that Microsoft had to emulate these giants, not only to command the marketplace but also to manage to survive the ups and downs of a volatile computer marketplace. Biographer Witzel notes, "Big firms can absorb losses and innovate their way out of trouble; smaller firms, with fewer resources, go to the wall" (Witzel, 2003, p. 133). Thus, Gates recognized this and created Microsoft to be a giant, influential corporation to ensure its continued success and existence.

Another aspect of Gates leadership style is his attention to innovation. He is extremely motivated to continue Microsoft's domination of the software market, but he knows that Microsoft cannot rest on its laurels, so to speak, and it must continually develop the next cutting-edge software and techniques that will continue to keep it in the forefront of the industry. The computer industry is always changing, and recognizing that, as well as reacting to it, is the mark of a good, dynamic, and perceptive leader. Gates is all those things, and they have helped him create the giant that is Microsoft.

Gates is detail-oriented, but he is also extremely organized, which is another aspect of a successful leader. He writes, "Paper is no longer a big part of my day. I get 90% of my news online, and when I go to a meeting and want to jot things down, I bring my Tablet PC. it's fully synchronized with my office machine so I have all the files I need" (Gates, 2006). He also spends much of his time in his office reading and answering email, and if he cannot get to it in his office, he will spend a part of the weekend preparing for the next week, and cleaning up emails he has not responded to. He also keeps his PCs extremely organized and utilizes desktop software to search and organize his files so he can find them quickly. All of these traits add together to create a leader that is in control of his company, but also the information he needs at his fingertips at any time of the day or night, and that makes a leader that is prepared to make decisions whenever they are necessary.

Another key ingredient to Gates leadership success is his decision to empower employees to compete among themselves and create results. Gates encourages employees to be paid for their results, which creates a competitive nature in the company. While many critics feel this undermines the team effort of the company, employees do have continual access to Gates himself to expand ideas and bring up new technologies. This access is unlike many other large organizations. It may relate to Gates need to control everyone and everything to do with the company, but it also encourages innovation and new ideas from some of the best employees in the business. Gates believes in recruiting the best and the brightest computer specialists, and paying them well, and this adds to employee empowerment (and pressure to perform).

Finally, many people believe Gates biggest leadership quality is not his computer knowledge, but his innate business sense. A reporter notes, "Gates had managed to ensure that Windows was licensed to run on all IBM-compatible machines sold - which meant 90 per cent of the personal computer market" (Hanlon, 2006, p. 46). This helped him create a company that dominates the world software market, and of course, led to the charges of antitrust in 1998, when Microsoft was tried for unfair competition and ordered to share some of its programming and development with smaller companies. A final settlement did not come until 2004, when the company was not required to split up or reorganize.

Another aspect of Gates' career is that he is flexible enough to branch out and create new, innovative technologies to create change in the world. The most influential and successful leaders are not only leaders in the world of business, but in the world of people, as well. Gates and his wife, Melinda, have founded one of the largest charitable organizations in the world. The Microsoft Web site notes, "He and his wife, Melinda, have endowed a foundation with more than $28.8 billion (as of January 2005) to support philanthropic initiatives in the areas of global health and learning, with the hope that in the 21st century, advances in these critical areas will be available for all people" (Editors, 2007). A true leader recognizes there is more to life than their company, and they utilize their leadership skills to create a difference in the world. By stepping down at Microsoft, Gates is indicating he has entered this new level of leadership in his life, and that his priorities are now involved with creating a better world for the underprivileged, poor, hungry, and sick.

By channeling his energy in another direction, Gates shows that he is not a one-dimensional leader only involved in promoting his company, but a three-dimensional leaders interested in helping the world be a better place. Just one of the programs that has gained media attention is the eradication of malaria, a disease almost non-existent in America but still prevalent in many other parts of the world. Another writers notes, "Malaria strikes 300m people every year, mainly in the farming parts of Africa where mosquito eradication programmes are nonexistent. Of those infected, 1.1m die, most of them children below the age of ten" (Vesely, 2003). The Gates Foundation, along with pharmaceutical companies, are committed to eradicating this, and other diseases such as smallpox, that have been out of control in many other parts of the world, largely due to a lack of funding and support.

Ultimately, Bill Gates leadership style is one of total control. Microsoft controls the software/operating system marketplace around the world, and Gates is equally controlling of his business empires. Another biographer notes, "By making MS-DOS and Windows the universal, all but inescapable entry into personal computing, Gates created a degree of market control that, until the Internet arrived, gave Microsoft's business a very high degree of predictability (and profit)" (Heller, 2006). However, this control comes directly from Gates own leadership style. He is legendary for feeling the need to minutely control every aspect of Microsoft's operation, from approving computer codes to approving expenses. Biographer Heller continues, "Control is basic to Gates' nature and his management practice. He has an obsession with detail and with checking up (he even used to sign expenses for his right-hand man, Steve Ballmer)" (Heller, 2006). Gates' attention to detail is only one of his management techniques, but it is one of the most well-known and discussed.

Perhaps one of the only things Gates failed to fully visualize was the impact the Internet would have on the PC world. In the early 1990s, the Internet really caught on with computer users, and Microsoft failed to create an Internet browser at the beginning. Instead, Netscape was the first company to develop a successful browser, and it became the industry standard in the 1990s. Microsoft eventually developed Internet Explorer, and bundled it with its' Microsoft Word and then Office software, in a move that many called an attempt to monopolize the computer industry. Gates, usually so perceptive, failed to predict the Internet phenomenon, and it was one of his very few failures as Microsoft's leader.