Bill Gates' Leadership Style

Group's Members

PROS AND CONS

PROS

Do Thi Ha Anh

Duong Tran Ha Phuong

Le Thi Phuong Dung

Nguyen Hoang Manh

Nguyen My Hanh

Pham Thao Linh

Pham Thi Phuong Thao

Vu Thi Ha Trang

• Bill Gates’ leadership style is a mixture of autocratic, participating and delegate so he can apply each style to the most suitable situation
• Focus on detail
• Delegate style that is very important to recruit and keep the best gifted people in the software industry
• Participating style: He built trust and loyalty partly by taking his employees’ opinion into account
• Competitive atmosphere allowed for the best outcome of problems

1. Bill Gates' Traits

FINDING AND ANALYSIS

Five major traits

- Intelligent

- Skillful and competent

- Determinant

- High in integrity

- Sociable

1. Traits

2. Leadership Style

3. Power

4. Skills

5. Pros and Cons

2. Leadership Style

cons

Task-oriented

Skills

• Task-oriented
• Autocratic
• Delegation
• Transational/Transformational

• In Fielder’s model, there are two kinds of leader: task-oriented leader and relation- oriented leader.
• Gates is more likely task-oriented leader who wants performance from his subordinate/follower and work has to be done to achieve the goal/objective of the company.

• Lack of employ relations
• In the beginning, he was much more concerned about the business than the employees
• His competitive nature impeded his decisions
• His aggressive business philosophy had Microsoft in and out of court rooms almost from the beginning

- Strategic planning skill

- Communication skill

- Teamwork skill

- Motivation skill

Autocratic

Transactional

Tranformational

Delegation

• There are three types of leader: democratic, autocratic and laissez-faire.
• Autocratic leadership style works well if the leader is competent and knowledgeable enough to decide about each and everything.
• Bill Gates adopted autocratic leadership style.

• Has always had more technical skills than interpersonal skills
• When first created Microsoft, only knew how to look at behavior, such as rewarding good work and punishing poor performance (Transactional)
• Later on, becoming more of a transformational by trying to appeal to employee's emotions through tactics such as motivation and support
• Still have some aspects of a transformational leader

• At first, was not a participative leader
• High technical skills, did not feel comfortable giving others influence on decisions
• Learned: he could not do everything on his own
• Only way he was able to delegate was hiring the most talented employees and giving autonomy to his managers

Power

Social Power

• legitimate power
• reward power
• coercive power

Personal Power

• expert power
• referent power

Personal Power

Social Power

• Expert: Gates is a master of his subject and his knowledge and expertise is never questioned, tagging him having the expert power
• Referent: appeals influencing tactics based on loyalty and friendship

• Legitimate: It is used by Bill Gates while dealing with higher-level managers
• Reward: Microsoft is famous for giving huge remuneration packages and bonus to its employees
• Coercive: Bill Gates was an autocratic leader but he never made rash threats & used coercion to manipulate others or to gain personal benefits

FAQ

Recommendation

LITERATURE REVIEW

• Definition of Leadership: “Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.”
• Trait approach: suggested that certain people were born with special traits that made them great leaders.
• The skills approach is a leader-centered perspective that emphasizes the competencies of leaders.
• The style approach focuses on what leaders do rather than who leaders are, suggests that leaders engage in two primary types of behaviors: task behaviors and relationship behaviors.

- Shifting among different types of leadership to apply the most suitable style to each situation.

- Maintaining the culture without pushing pressure on employees.

BACKGROUND

Thank you for listening !

• Bill Gates, or William Henry “Bill” Gates III, was born on Octorber 28, 1955 in an upper-middle-class family in Seattle, Washington USA
• 1967, At the age of 13, Bill Gates attended the Lakeside School, where he first worked with computers and met Paul Allen.

• In 1973, Bill Gates became a student at Harvard University.
• In his junior year, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard University to start his own company – Microsoft, along with his close friend Paul Allen.
• In the later stages of his career, Gates focus on doing charity through his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.
• Gates officially retired as chairman of Microsoft in February 2014

Bill Gates' Leadership Style

Group 9