Elon Musk and The Leadership Grid

My interpretation of the leadership grid we to believe that the opportunism leader would be the most effective leadership style based on the grid scale. The opportunism refers to a leader that uses a combination of all five styles of management, the country club management, team management, middle-of-the-road management, impoverished management, and authority compliance management. A combination of all the styles would culminate into a leadership style that would allow the leader to not only have a well accomplished team but to also be aware of all types of physical and emotional conflicts displayed by the team members that could result in unhappy or unwilling participants of the task to be accomplished.

Although I feel that the opportunism leadership style would be the most effective leadership style I have a hard time believing that most leaders can accomplish this style. Although I think it is important for everyone to understand their strengths and weaknesses I believe those who spend more time working on their weaknesses spend less time pursuing avenues that would amplify their strengths. I believe that a leader that can amplify his or her strengths is more beneficial to the growth of their team than one that tries to work to overcome his or her weaknesses to produce a mediocre weakness amplification.

The particular leader that I chose to represent a good example for a leader was Elon Musk. Musk was the Co-founder and CEO of PayPal. An online banking system that allow users to transfer payments securely and efficiently over the Internet. The use of PayPal has significantly changed the way that we use online banking today. In 2002 he sold PayPal to eBay for $1.5 billion, 165 million of which went directly to Musk.

After the sale of PayPal Elon Musk decided to go after his passion of both electric cars (Tesla motor company) and privatizing space (SpaceX). Musk conceptualized in 2001 the “Mars oasis” project. A project that’s sole purpose would be to land a greenhouse on Mars containing crops that could grow in the Martian environment. In 2008 must assume leadership of the company Tesla motors is CEO and product architect. His goal was to create a company that would knock down the barriers that have burdened most car manufacturers from producing electric transportation. His passion for the stars and for making our planet a much more sustainable one drove him to use his own money to start ventures that others might deem as career suicide.

After doing research on Elon Musk and his companies and even after learning about the bleak in Morton’s leadership grid or managerial grid I would put Elon Musk at authority/compliance (9,1) I find this leadership style as one that might not be so effective in the long run. However, is very apparent that although Mr. Musk spends a great deal of time telling others how his company will be ran has been shown to create exponential leaps in the industries he has pursued. The idea of a leadership style that emphasizes the tasks and jobs that could be accomplished expeditiously can give way to a leadership style that imposes an authoritarian complex toward its leader. The idea that a person who is trying to accomplish an elaborate goal such as entering outer space or revolutionizing an industry such as the car manufacturing business, could do this without a strong team backing him up would be foolish. The fact is that although this authoritarian leadership style has significant drawbacks to its personnel it does have significant bearing on accomplishing goals that might seem unreachable.

I believe that the way that Elon Musk overcomes the obstacles associated with authority- compliance leadership style is that his team understands before they are even part of the tasks associated with the goal, the “WHY” associated with this particular venture. I believe that the fact remains that his team would not continue to be as successful as they are if they weren’t all committed to the “WHY.” I believe that the kind of people that would be associated with accomplishing these types of goals and following such an authoritarian figure would not do so if they were not dedicated to the outcome of such an outlandish destination. I believe that companies and leaders that can properly communicate the WHY to its followers are more likely to not only accomplish goals that are outlandish but also to endure hardship in order to reach those destinations.

I do believe that the characteristics of Elon Musk’s leadership style to somewhat coincide with paternalism/paternalism leadership style. This idea of a benevolent dictator does have the capabilities of describing Elon Musk’s leadership style. However, this idea of a father’s love in regards to his organization’s followers and regarding his team members as his family could possibly be associated with his leadership style. The problem with this outcome however is that his sole devotion to the overall outcome of these two ventures with signify that no one has more pride and the motion toward the overall outcome of his goals and less the accomplishments of his team members who supplied the overall output. Given the choice I believe that Elon Musk would try to accomplish all of his goals and ideas by himself if he had the opportunity.

My overall impression of Elon Musk in his businesses come from the utmost respect for both him and his ideas. I often wonder how far I would go with my ideas and aspirations given the unlimited supply of money. My overall opinion of Elon Musk is only based on articles and biographies that I have read over the years. I do not have any first person accounts with Mr. Musk however I do believe that my assumptions are based on sound evidence.