Leadership Assignment: Transformational Management at Tesla during COVID-19

Question

Task:
Write a report on leadership assignment on the impact of the current post-pandemic situation on Management and Leadership in a specific organization.

Choose a company or organization and investigate how their Management and Leadership styles have changed over the course of the pandemic, and what new skills Managers and Leaders need to be successful in the post pandemic world.
First select an organization and describe it, including business name, sector, and company size as a minimum and justify your selection
Analyze the leadership styles that were prevalent in the organisation prior to the pandemic, and identify any changes that occurred over the last 18 months, taking into consideration process and people management aspects (you may make assumptions, providing theoretically sound rationale)
Advise which personal decision style is recommendable in the current situation. Make a suggestion based on your views and provide theoretically sound rationale for your decision
Reflect on the impact of the digital age on required management skills

Answer

Introduction:

The report on leadership assignment is formed to analyse and discuss the present impact of COVID-19 on the management and leadership condition of an organisation. It is seen that the pandemic has forced companies to change their existing leadership and management style in last 18 months. In the post-pandemic world, managers and leaders try to incorporate new skills for getting success in the business. Hence, for discussion, the report considers the leadership style of Tesla, which is an America based company of electric vehicle. The study selects this company as it successfully operates in the market before and after pandemic with its innovative product ideas. The leadership of the organisation depends on Elon Musk, the CEO of it (Tesla 2021). Tesla mainly designs and produces electric cars, solar panels, battery energy storage from home to grid-scale, solar roof tiles and other related products. The company operates in the Automotive industry. Founded in 2003, the company presently has around 70757 employees. The company is selected to discuss pre-COVID and post-COVID leadership style of its CEO of it.

Leadership Style Prevalent in the organisation:

Tesla conducts the business under the leadership of Elon Musk. Hence, to understand the company’s leadership style, it is essential to emphasis on the leadership pattern of Musk. The leadership and management style of Elon Musk is crucial as he formed many businesses such as SpaceX and Tesla Motors with his innovative ideas. Apart from this, he also founded some lesser-known companies like The Boring Company and Neuralink. Hence, such profitable business ideas make Elon Musk’s leadership style as one of the most discussed topics in the modern business.

He is characterised as innovative and workaholic while his working process is also dynamic and challenging. From theoretical aspect, it can be said that Elon Musk followed transformational leadership style before pandemic. In this leadership style, the leaders along with their followers develop one another to getting higher levels of motivation and morality. This leadership model is consisted with fairness and integrity and the leader sets some clear goals in from of the followers. The leader has high expectations and motivates others to achieve goals by providing adequate support and recognition (Saeed and Mughal 2019). Hence, to become a transformational leader, a person needs to make an inspiring vision for future and needs to share it with people to get it. The leader needs to make a strong and trust-based relationship with people.

Elon Musk also has followed the specific criteria of being a transformational leader. He tries to perform everything in a better way by implementing constant improvement. He has carried big concept and ideas and has tried to unite his team around the vision and objectives he sets (Eliyana and Ma’arif 2019). It is therefore crucial to mention that from conducting an aerospace company to rocket manufacturing, Elon Musk always has incorporated his unique ideas and carries out these by influencing people through his leadership style. Thus, under his leadership, Tesla has followed five main features in its business activities and that are required to analyse briefly:

Innovation: Tesla is well-known for its innovative business ideas and knows the basic principles of what he wants to achieve before going into the details. His foresight and innovative team power help him to achieve ambitious goals.
Inspiring: According to employees of Musk, working with him is demanding and rigorous. However, it also gives them a formative experience in their career path. This is because Musk is a highly inspired leader and he has the capability of motivating people for his unattainable ideas by making proper ambitions, projects and plans (Linkedin 2021). Hence, according to his team, he has transmissible enthusiasm as well as energy for his work. Employees sometimes share his passion and commitment for getting the next level ideas, inspiration or source.
Fast-acting: Elon Musk acts fast due to his short-temper and takes business decisions on the basis of that. However, this is a negative side of his leadership as it leads the management and business process to change quickly. However, in some aspects, this nature also acts positively. It is seen that this nature helps the business of Tesla to grow and innovative before pandemic.
Ambitious: Elon Musk always remains ambitious in his work by keeping his optimistic and practical view in the business. He has the capability to understand the need of his team for achieving the goals in the business.
Obsessive: The obsessive and workaholic nature of Elon Musk has inspired people effectively. He always finds product-related issues for developing the quality in the item. Thus, he follows the feature of a nano-manager.

Thus, by describing the leadership style of the company’s CEO, it is seen that the company follows transformational leadership style during pre-pandemic scenario to develop innovative items. Furthermore, Tesla centralised its corporate structure where decision is generated by a central group or a team.

New Leadership style occurred in Tesla due to pandemic:

The pandemic, caused by COVID-19 virus, forces businesses in many countries to remain close. The uncertain condition has drastically affected financial condition of many companies. Tesla also has suffered a seven-week shutdown in the US after which it made $104 million profit (See appendix). The company has made payment of around 10000 employees during lockdown and provided healthcare and other supportive benefits during this time (PTI 2021). The company states that its progress during the first half of 2020 leads the business to achieve success during the second half of that year as output production starts to improve. Hence, to understand the success of this company, it is essential to analyse the performance of it during COVID-19 pandemic.

Tesla realises the adverse consequence of COVID-19 pandemic on the business and hence it takes the safety measures for employees from wellness and financial contexts. Considering the latest COVID-19 guideline, provided by the Governor, and the federal and state government’s classification regarding vehicle manufacturing, the company has resumed its operations. To restart business, the company has prepared its own safety plan based on proper analysis and preparations. Before initiating production, the company provides proper training to its people virtually. The company implements return-to-work plan for all of its offices and production units across the world. The company introduces a cross-functional response team for tracking health and safety guidelines as per the requirement and to assess risks related to jobs.

Thus, it is seen that Tesla has improved its management system from the ground of employee wellbeing to continue a profitable business. To develop situation of employees, the company intends to arrange a meeting regarding crisis team management so that recognise potential hazards un the work. Moreover, the company confirms the process of communication regarding the COVID-19 requirements between management and employees. The company confirms that management has a defined plan to motivate agreement and to address non-compliance. Furthermore, the company also emphasises on hazardous waste management to confirm that the company can manage hazardous waste. Moreover, the company also emphasises on chemical management to verify storage of all chemical items along with delivery systems to encourage start-up. Hence, after returning in the work, Tesla starts to evaluate the plan for making it on the basis of management and employee input. It is seen that the company has organised a team for managing pandemic at the leadership level. The company encourages employees to bring their concern to the management for maintaining open communication. The main objective of the company remains to recognise events with a meaningful connection to day work of employees and identify similar situations with equal possible consequences for the purpose od prevention. These conditions can be applied to compare, evaluate and improve management systems continually related to safety and health of workers. The company focuses on workforce development after pandemic by offering thousands of job opportunities to the local communities across the US. The job related to vehicle service, manufacturing and solar roofing installation and training are offered to employees.

Thus, it is seen that Elon Musk has changed and upgraded management system of Tesla after pandemic to increase well-being of employees.

Considering the situation, it can be said that Elon Musk has adopted transactional leadership style after suffering 18 months due to pandemic (Cho et al. 2019). This is stated on the base of following assumptions taken from above analysis:

Firstly, in this leadership style, transactions take place between a leader and his followers in the form of rewards, punishments and other forms of benefits for completing the job. Similarly, Tesla has also provided special healthcare benefits and training facility to its employees after pandemic to improve their physical well-being and working efficiency.

Secondly, in this type of leadership, the leader emphasises on work motivation and productivity. Likewise, Tesla also tries to motivate its employees to increase productivity after few months of no work by making open communication with them.

Thirdly, this leadership style forms a system to where employees can easily follow the leader and his command. Musk also manages his leadership style in a systematic way where each activity is managed at the leadership level (Asbari 2020). Hence, it becomes easier for him to effective communication with his team members.

However, Elon also follows innovation in his business and hence the feature of transformational leadership is also presented there. His innovation and creative idea are the main base of Tesla. Hence, the new leadership style of Elon Musk is a mixed characteristics of both transactional leadership and transformational leadership style.

Recommendation of personal decision style:

Personal decision-making style can be analytic, conceptual, directive and behavioural. The existing situation of recessive economic and business condition needs effective decisions to improve the business. The existing and new leadership style of Elon Musk helps the company to earn positive return during the post-pandemic situation. However, to improve situation, Elon can improve some personal decision style. Elon can adopt analytic style and behavioural style.

Analytic decision-making style: In this style, the decision-maker considers and analyses adequate information before taking any decisions. For instance, direct observations and facts are considered to observe the current situation (Hine et al. 2018). This style requires high level of tolerance for indistinctness and the leaders can adopt with the ongoing condition. Hence, style is effective for any unexpected situation. In the post-pandemic scenario, this process will help Tesla to overcome any uncertain risks in the business by foreseeing the market condition.

Behavioural style: This style can explain people who prefer stability and structure and can motivate them to manage harmony. The leader collects information to adjust with the solutions that he believes other will respond (Abubakar et al. 2019). Hence, this style has strong concern on employees in the organisation and tries to develop their career. The leader emphasises on the well-being of employees and get suggestions from others in this aspect. This style will help Tesla to maintain job satisfaction as well as well-being among employees during post-lockdown situation.

Hence, these two personal decision styles can be helpful for Elon to overcome the ongoing situation.

Impact of Digital age on required management skills:

The digital revolution leads a business to change its personal relations, rules and communication and business. The effect of technology helps the company to obtain freedom. The digital revolution changes. To implement analytic and behavioural decision style in the business, the leader of Tesla can incorporate digital technology. For analytic purpose, the leader can incorporate big data analysis tool to collect and analyse data and make decision on it. According to Saggi and Jain (2018), IT managers explain that Big Data Analytics can give an incentive to make decisions and managers can apply their analytic insights.

For behavioural analytic, the leader needs to improve his problem-solving, critical thinking, originality, creativity and strategizing skills. The managerial skills of Elon Musk depend on digital age and hence he does not need to implement any significant change to develop management skills.

Conclusion:

The report discusses leadership of Elon Musk, to understand the existing leadership style of Tesla before pandemic and how it has changed after pandemic. From analysis, it is seen that Elon follows transformational leadership style and applies innovative and creative concepts into the business. However, the pandemic has forced the company to change its management process and focuses on the well-being of employees. Hence, from this viewpoint, it is understood that transactional leadership style has also incorporated into the business. The analysis finds that Elon should take analytic and behavioural style in business for improving the personal decision style. In this aspect, digital era plays crucial role. Big data analysis can help companies to make analytic decisions.

References:

Abubakar, A.M., Elrehail, H., Alatailat, M.A. and Elçi, A., 2019. Knowledge management, decision-making style and organizational performance. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 4(2), pp.104-114.

Asbari, M., 2020. Is Transformational Leadership Suitable for Future Organizational Needs?. International Journal of Social, Policy and Law, 1(1), pp.51-55.

Cho, Y., Shin, M., Billing, T.K. and Bhagat, R.S., 2019. Transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and affective organizational commitment: a closer look at their relationships in two distinct national contexts. Asian Business & Management, 18(3), pp.187-210.

Eliyana, A. and Ma’arif, S., 2019. Job satisfaction and organizational commitment effect in the transformational leadership towards employee performance. European Research on Management and Business Economics, 25(3), pp.144-150.

Hine, K.A., Porter, L.E., Westera, N.J., Alpert, G.P. and Allen, A., 2018. Exploring police use of force decision-making processes and impairments using a naturalistic decision-making approach. Criminal justice and Behavior, 45(11), pp.1782-1801.

Linkedin 2021. LEADERSHIP STYLES Elon Musk Tesla founder and CEO of SpaceX. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/leadership-styles-elon-musk-tesla-founder-ceo-spacex-mohammed-hamed/ (Accessed: 2 December 2021).

PTI, A. 2021. Tesla overcomes Covid-19 shutdown to post surprise profit of $104 mn in Q2, Business-standard.com. Available at: https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/tesla-overcomes-covid-19-shutdown-to-post-surprise-profit-of-104-mn-in-q2-120072300123_1.html (Accessed: 2 December 2021).

Saeed, M. and Mughal, Y.H., 2019. Role of transactional leadership style upon performance: Mediating role of culture. Leadership assignment Journal of Managerial Sciences, 13(1), pp.47-57.

Saggi, M.K. and Jain, S., 2018. A survey towards an integration of big data analytics to big insights for value-creation. Information Processing & Management, 54(5), pp.758-790.

Tesla 2021. Elon Musk | Tesla. Available at: https://www. tesla.com/elon-musk (Accessed: 2 December 2021).

Ft 2021. Tesla profits held back by Elon Musk’s pay and cheaper models. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/98344e83-086f-426b-97e7-ca8fc0e5033c (Accessed: 3 December 2021).

Appendix:

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