Governance Management and Leadership Dynamic
Best CEO Bill Gate
Contents
2. CEO’s Management and leadership
style.
3. What makes the selected corporation
and its leader successful?
Seek forgiveness, not permission.
Learning matters more than school
When you're in charge, take charge
Be the guy who predicts the future
4. What are the lessons learned from
the case study?
1. Corporate background
Background of Bill Gates
and Microsoft
William
"Bill" Henry Gates III was born on October 28, 1955 to a family
located in Seattle, Washington. Bill Gates was not the only child in his family
while growing up in Seattle, Washington. Gates had two other siblings, both
sisters, named: Kristianne (Older sister) and Libby (Younger sister). Bill
Gates at an early age of 13 began finding his interest in computers and took
off with that idea as an entrepreneur. Soon after looking into the computer
world, Bill Gates and his close friend, Paul Allen, invented the new program
that most individuals have on their desktops now, Microsoft. Microsoft has been
a major boost for Bill Gates as he is now one of the richest men in the world.
Also, Microsoft has played a key role in every American because they are all
able to create word documents, PowerPoints, spreadsheets and even emails.
While
Bill Gates was coming up with the ideas of creating the new software program
Microsoft, he came out and said one interesting about people and computers. He
said, "Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one".
Even though people might have thought Bill Gates was a nerd in his upcoming as
a child, many people are dying to work for him since his company, Microsoft is
one of the leading software generators in today's world.
Microsoft
has many important dates that should stand out to every individual that has
ever used this software before. They are:
1980-1981: Bill Gates and Paul Allen hire
Gates' classmate, Steve Ballmer, from Harvard to help run the company. These
are the years when Microsoft formed and made its name in the entire world.
1982-1985: The three gentlemen running the
Microsoft business came out with the first operating system, Windows 1.0. This
windows system had a few major enhancements that most people were not familiar
with at this time. They were: drop-down menus, scroll bars, icons and dialogue
boxes.
1987-1992: Throughout these five years,
Gates, Allen and Ballmer, invented the newest operating system and named it,
Windows 2.0-2.11. The biggest improvement that came about when this operating
system was invented was that it has more speed and more windows.
1990-1994: Even though Microsoft 2.0 was
being released in the first couple of years this was being invented, the newest
operating system was already being constructed. Windows 3.0 gave each
individual the ability to incorporate graphics into their work.
1995-2001: Windows 95 was being brought
upon each individual that owned some type of electronic device that allowed
Microsoft. This is the age in which email was invented, as well as fax and
modems for computers.
1998-2000: During these two years, the new
operating system Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Window Me were released to
everyone throughout the world. This operating system was once described as,
"Works better, plays better".
2001-2005: Windows XP was invented in this
time frame. The advantage this operating system had over all the previous ones
was that this would one was more stable, usable and fast.
2006-2008: This is the time frame in which
Window Vista was invented and most people are most familiar to these days. This
operating system was said to be smart on security.
2009-Today: Operating system, Window 7,
Window 8, Windows 10 and counting..., is the one that every individual has on
their personal desktops these days. This system will allow you to do pretty
much anything that a computer is capable of doing.
Throughout
the thirty-two years that Microsoft has been around, there have been many improvements
in the operating systems and it seems as if it is still growing. For more
information about this type of information, click here for Bill Gates
information and here for Microsoft information
2. The effective corporate organization and its CEO’s Management
and leadership style.
Bill
Gates is an effective leader because he has the many traits of a good leader,
he knows what to do and what are the steps he needs to follow in order to lead
his organization. Bill Gates is an interesting study when looking at leadership
styles. He is the antithesis of what one would expect from a leader. He dropped
out of school, pursued a dream, and took risks based on his personal knowledge
and creativity instead of what others had taught him. His leadership style is
one that would be included in the descriptions of a transformational leader.
That is because he followed a strong vision, had passion for the work he was
doing, and that emotion helped to energize the people who would start following
him.
•
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.
He has pursued the objective of dominance in software in general and operating
systems in particular that has few parallels. Venturing into unfamiliar
territory may be fashionable but carries a high degree of risk. If ever a need
arises for an absolute example for what Peters and Waterman called “Stick to
the Knitting” and Hamel and Prahalad termed core competence, one needs to look
no further than Bill Gates and Microsoft. Focus also means the ability to
pursue one’s goals whatever the obstacles may be. Such a degree of perseverance
is hard to come by.
•
Thinking big: Along with focus, the ability to dream big and pursue that with
single-minded determination sets Gates apart from other entrepreneurs. This is
particularly true of entrepreneurs from emerging economies like India where an
ultra-conservative attitude has stifled growth. Entrepreneurs need to develop
confidence in themselves and their team that they can take on the world and
come out winners.
•
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.
•
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. Even if we keep assimilating it
without a break throughout a lifetime, we would not have scratched the surface.
Knowledge should lead to humility and wisdom – not arrogance and one-upmanship.
•
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.
Leadership style
Autocratic
style; Control is basic to Gate's nature and his management practice. He is
used to focusing on detail. He is trying to monopolize the World Wide Web
software market and has had a legal issue with the department of justice. Microsoft restricted the ability of its
internet partners to deal with its competitors. Also, he doesn't like complaints
very much.
Delegate
style; Bill Gates believes it's very important to recruit and keep the
best-gifted people in the software industry. He believed that find and recruit
talented software staff is one of the most critical elements to improve
competitive power in the software industry. It will improve productivity and
creativity. These advantages included the ability to gain new knowledge more
quickly, deep familiarity with programming structures, work more effectively,
and the capacity to ask probing question. Though a big number of people asked
applied for positions at Microsoft, He thinks that the best-gifted people will
never apply for the job directly. So, In Microsoft, The HR managers had to look
for the best talent themselves and offer a job. Gives autonomy to his manager,
he delegates authority to managers to operate their independent departments.
Building
Confidence in Employees; Confidence is the foundation for successful leaders.
Moreover, building confidence in someone else is a great skill for any leader.
By this skill, Bill Gates improved his employees' work and performance in the
company. In this way, find their confidence & passion to complete their
tasks and take the company to employees the highest peak of success according
to Bill Gates. He says it makes no sense to hire smart people and tell them
what to do. Rather he hires smart people so that they can tell him what to do.
Bill Gates embraces different ideas and different ways of doing things proposed
by his fellow employees. With the help of this skill, Bill Gates has made his
company one of the most successful ones in the world
Being
Open to Receiving Feedback; Like the other successful leaders, Bill Gates
admires customer feedback as an important factor when it comes to expanding the
industry by giving a competitive service. He always looks for constant
opportunities in growing his business by listening to customers' responses. He
always follows how customers accept the new Microsoft products and how the
products serve in the market. He later incorporates all the feedback in his
next products to get better results. To him, this skill will help one to stay
top of the market and survive in the evolving market
The
disadvantage of Bill Gates' leader style; Some people argued that Microsoft was
not a creative and innovative company. They thought Bill Gates reformed
existing products to satisfy markets needs instead of inventing new ones.
Microsoft was not just the market leader, but also the standards provide for
the industry, some critics claimed that winning was so important to Gates that
he would go to any extent to beat his competitor. With his aggressive business
theory, Gates has been in and out of courtrooms to deal with legal problems
almost since Microsoft began
3. What makes the selected corporation and its leader
successful?
Bill Gates is a wonderful role model change maker because
throughout his life he has never lost the passion to help those in need. He
founded Microsoft, a technology giant, and made billions. Then in his later
years at Microsoft, he spent more time to create the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation. Through the foundation, he became the most charitable person in the
world. Bill Gates is definitely a role model change-maker for both his
philanthropic and technological advancements to society. Gates argued for not
losing focus on a company's financial performance, invoking the experiences of
his good friend Warren Buffett. He said its ability to exist and hire people
and pay their salaries is based on a certain financial strength. You can’t ignore the fact that there is sort of an
evolutionary selection thing that goes on there. To use Warren Buffett’s
example, if he continued to fund the New England textile mills, he would’ve run
out of money, and so would that have been a good thing? So even as you take on
these broader criteria…the scale of the company and what it can do will be
based on financial strength. He also
mused about the size of corporations, voicing a
defence of the technology giants at a moment when there's apparent momentum for antitrust actions including breaking up firms such as Google
and Facebook.
It was 15 years ago today that
Bill Gate stepped down as
CEO of Microsoft. While he stayed involved as chairman and chief software
architect, it was the start of his major life transition. Here are
seven keys to his success taken from the history of his life and applied to one endeavour after
another.
Get in early and
learn
I don't know if there are shortcuts in life,
but there are certainly head starts.
Gates had a big one. In 1969, he was
in eighth grade, when very
few schools had any kind of computer system, his school bought an early machine
along with blocks of processing time. Gates was excused from regular math classes
to learn to program and became enthralled with it. His first computer program:
a tic-tac-toe program.
Seek forgiveness,
not permission.
Too many people fail to succeed because they
hold themselves back. Whether it was youthful folly or instinct, Gates didn't
fall into this category. As an early example, when the school's funds
eventually ran out, Gates (with his friend Paul Allen and other students)
exploited bugs to obtain free computer time. When they were caught, he and
the others traded their bug-finding ability for freer computer time.
Value your work.
Another big problem many people have that
they are afraid to ask for money. Here again, Gates never had that problem. At
age 14, he was writing code for a local company's payroll program; by age
17, he and Allen launched a company that used an early computer program to help
count road traffic. Gates also pushed to get paid during the 1970s,
when business was seen as "square" to put it lightly. After he
realized that computer amateurs were using pirated versions of his software, at
21, he wrote an "Open Letter to Hobbyists" telling them
to "pay up" so he could hire 10 programmers and deluge the
hobby market with good software.
Learning matters
more than school
Gates was a good student, he scored almost perfectly
on the SAT and he was from a family that valued education. He enrolled
at Harvard at 17, but didn't declare a major and instead spent his
time using Harvard's computers. By his second year, however, Gates dropped out
of Harvard to start a company with his high school friend, Allen and begin his
real education.
When you're in
charge, take charge
It's funny how perceptions change, but when
he was running Microsoft, Gates had a reputation as a
difficult, extremely competitive boss. Much like his contemporary Steve
Jobs, descriptions of his reaction to employees he disagreed with in meetings
were harsh. One described Gates's criticism as devastating. At the same time
though, he took responsibility. During the first five years, when he was
overseeing all of the business aspects of the company, he also oversaw and
often rewrote every line of code in the company's products. If you're old
enough to have used MS-DOS or the original version of Windows, you've used a
product Gates helped code.
Be the guy who predicts
the future
Obviously easier said than done, but Gates
saw the future first at several key moments. One of them and this is a classic
story came in 1980, when he negotiated a deal to license the DOS operating
system to IBM for a low $50,000, but had the foresight not transfer
the copyright. As a result, Microsoft was able to license the OS to other
vendors who cloned IBM's machine, thus making a much bigger and more profitable
market for his company. More frighteningly, Gates has said recently he's
concerned about the threats of super-intelligent machines on humanity. Let's
hope he's not seeing this prediction as clearly.
Take on a big
enough mission
In some ways, this should be the first item
on the list, as truly successful people first choose endeavours worthy of their
time. In Gates's case, fast-forward to the 2000s, after he transitioned out of
Microsoft and became a full-time philanthropist. Using the examples of John
Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie and the mentorship of Warren Buffett, Gates and
his wife, Melinda Gates, are among America's most generous
philanthropists, focusing on "big problems" that they believe
governments around the world are incapable of solving
4. What are the lessons learned from the case study?
The lesson from the
case of Bill Gates
There
are many lessons that we can learn from Bill Gates. He is no doubt on his
creating the largest PC software company and he doesn't shy of achievements. He
had a strong commitment to his mind.
1.
Aim
high
He had developed a basic program for
the machine, and he was founded only one month for making Microsoft. In 1975,
Bill Gates and Allen were making their very first sale.
2.
Don’t
let success distract you
We learn from Bill Gates is his
ability to look past success, Gates believed that we shouldn’t ignore the
initial patterns of our success, but focusing all of our efforts into why this
success occurred can leave you unprepared for future challenges.
3.
Always
think ahead
Bill Gates has always been known to maintain
a vision of the future, and how it can be bigger and better. Microsoft was
known to beat competitors throughout the years as they were always one step
ahead, looking for the next big thing.
4.
Value
your time
Gates say "No matter how much
money you have, you can't buy more time". Bill Gates understands the
importance of using the time in your day wisely, and priorities tasks which
matter most to him. If he doesn't believe he needs to be at a meeting, he won't
attend. On the other hand, he takes the time to communicate with the people
closest to him and ensures that he makes time for important commitments
What do we think?
As
to be a leader or a business, we do hope that we can take the best lesson from
Bill Gates because he had many points to learn and inspired us to behave in a
certain way or consider the way we do things in our role. Microsoft founder
Bill Gates is one of the most influential business leaders of all time. It's
hard to believe that he's managed to build a software empire without a college
degree. Technically speaking, Bill Gates is a college dropout, and his
experience highlights a poignant observation about education. Drive and
ambition are qualities that transcend the classroom. Brilliance comes from
building, learning, testing, and relentlessly innovating. Interestingly enough,
one's ability to do the above is not determined by a college degree. College is
an important stepping stone between education and employment, but the path is
far from foolproof. Smart people come from all educational backgrounds, and the
following lessons learned from Bill Gates points:
·
Innovators
are Doers, not just Thinkers
Bill Gates uses innovation as a way
to drive impact whether it’s shaping software or saving the planet.
·
Education
isn’t enough
According to Gates said “And we can
say that individual education has changed. That is, for the highly-motivated
student, the ability to go online and find lectures of various length—to see
class materials—there’s a lot of people who are learning far better because of
those materials. But it’s much harder to take a broad set of students in the
institutional framework and decide, OK, where is technology the best and where
is face-to-face the best,”
People are more than institutions.
Look for the candidates who are smart and resourceful enough to take their
learning into their own hands.
·
Empower
People
Put the right information into the
hands of the people that can make the most of it.
Bill says, “The vision is really
about empowering workers, giving them all the information about what’s going on
so they can do a lot more than they’ve done in the past.”
·
Celebrate
success, but learn from failure
Don’t repeat the same mistakes and
don’t wallow in your wins.
Bill says, "It is fine to
celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of
failure."
Bill
Gates is a person who is work hard and very intelligence of working. He is
strongly believed that his works can achieve successfully. If he focuses on
working and trying to know he's good at and can apply his intelligence. He had
played a pivotal role in Microsoft's success and made major contributions to
strengthen the product development, human resources and marketing efforts of
the company
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