Homework Question on Tony Hsieh Leadership Style
- Choose the CEO of one of the following organizations for this assignment: Google, Zappos, Southwest Airlines, Hewlett Packard, Xerox, W.L. Gore, DuPont, or Procter & Gamble. Use the Internet to investigate the leadership style and effectiveness of the selected CEO. Write a six to eight (6-8) page paper in which you:
- Describe the leadership style of the CEO.
- Analyze the CEO’s leadership style and philosophy, and how the CEO’s leadership style aligns with the culture.
- Examine the CEO’s personal and organizational values.
- Evaluate how the values of the CEO are likely to influence ethical behavior within the organization.
- Determine the CEO’s three (3) greatest strengths and three (3) greatest weaknesses as a leader. Provide a rationale to support your response.
- Recommend changes the CEO should consider to improve as a leader in the 21st Century. Provide a rationale to support your response.
- Assess how communication and collaboration, and power and politics influence group (i.e., the organization’s) dynamics for the selected organization.
- Use at least six (6) quality academic resources in this assignment.
- Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources.
- Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:
- Be typed,
- Double spaced,
- Using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides;
- Citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format.
Homework Answer on Tony Hsieh Leadership Style
Background of the CEO
Tony Hsieh was born in 1973. From his childhood, he exhibited passion for entrepreneurship. He pursued numerous business opportunities including door-to-door greeting card sales, a mail order button-making business, and a worm farm (Hsieh, 2010). Hsieh later joined Harvard University, and after graduating in 1995, he was employed by Oracle. However, after only five months, he voluntarily left the company because he disliked Oracle`s corporate culture (Blodget, 2010).
He started a small Internet advertisement exchange company called LinkExchange. After running this business for four years, he sold it to Microsoft for $265 million. Hsieh notes that the quick growth registered by LinkExchange and the negative impact this growth had on the company`s culture were the main reasons why he decided to sell it (Bryant, 2010). According to Hsieh, if the company`s culture is right, then all other things will happen on their own.
Using the proceeds from LinkExchange, Hsieh together with another investor started an investment firm- Venture Frogs. This firm financed numerous Internet startups among them Zappos.com. He later became Zappos` CEO. His intention was to build a unique business culture that is primarily focused on delivering WOW customer service and ensuring employee satisfaction (Hsieh, 2010). As the CEO, he has ensured that the company has service-focused culture. Because of his leadership, Zappos has grown its sales from just $1.6 million in 2000 to $1 billion by 2008. This has primarily been driven by relentless customer service.