Abstract
The paper investigates and looks into detail the life of Chinese entrepreneur and business personality in Jack Ma and American entrepreneur, tech innovator and a businessman in Mark Zuckerberg. The study looks into the details of their leadership styles and the type of influence they have on the people. It also looks at the traits that make each of them an effective leader within their business dynamics and beyond. The research further looks into the positive influence they have on the general people and their subordinates. It also further analyzes how they would be remembered in the history for their achievements and what they have done as of now. Finally, it also talks whether or not either of them demonstrates competencies to be regarded as servant-leader type.
Diving into the paper
Jack Ma, born in China in 1964 is a true rags-to-riches story. He grew up poor in communist China, took four years to pass his MA exams which takes place once every year, applied to thirty different jobs and got rejected from all of those including one at KFC where among 24 people applying for job, he was the only one who wasn’t hired. He also applied for Harvard Business School on ten occasions but all of those only got him rejection. However, all those didn’t stop him from achieving his dream when he transformed Alibaba into reality. That was his third internet company and one which transformed everything for him and the world around.
Mark Zuckerberg, born in New York, USA in 1984 had a comfortable childhood with his well-educated family. He developed an interest in computers since his early age. He also started programming when he was just 12 and developed an application which his dad used in his clinic’s reception so that they could notify him of a new patient without yelling out loud. He also created multiple games and other applications. He was offered various positions at Microsoft, AOL and several other companies – all of which he declined. His turning point came when he was in Harvard University and then started a social network site called Harvard Connection. The small project soon hit new heights causing server issues in Harvard University when it launched due to high number of people visiting the website. It was later known as “The Facebook” which now is popular as just “Facebook”. This platform made him one of the youngest person to be in the top 100 wealthiest people in the world.
For a business to be successful, a leader should be able to lead from the front and influence his/her subordinates to follow the vision as well. If a leader shows the sign of weakness and inability to perform during a crucial time, it’s likely that the business won’t succeed. However, if a leader has strong determination, influence capability, clear vision and a good idea, it’s likely that the business will perform. Both Jack Ma and Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated effective leadership capability in their respective business world.
Ma always placed the customers first (both sellers and buyers) as Alibaba can be said to be a digital marketplace. He believed that the company should be able to embrace change and should be flexible, innovative and always be willing to adjust as per the changing business dynamics. Alibaba opening a new payment system in Alipay and now moving towards cloud marketplace in Alibaba Cloud are some of the examples of him adjusting his business and the interest of his subordinates as per the changing business dynamics. Ma never showed arrogance saying that he is above all the people who work for him but rather said that it’s the team that comes first instead of a person and that’s what makes a business successful. He valued integrity and passion which he always passed on towards his team as well. He also demonstrated commitment and believed in the statement, “work happily, and live seriously”.
Zuckerberg like Ma believed in innovation and always stood by it. However, he has his own leadership style. Zuckerberg thinks it’s important to focus on leveraging and impact. That is how Facebook hired employees to work for them. Calculating the numbers, a single engineer working in Facebook is responsible to look after over a million users which are a lot higher than start-ups that have smaller user base but smaller employees or larger companies with more users but a lot more employees as well. That is why the culture comes into play as well which enable best people to join in the project to make an impact. The strong determination and stand showed by him also stands out and is something of an inspiration to his subordinates and others alike. He thinks that being a place where people can move in quickly and be able to make bold decisions is a necessity. This is demonstrated by Facebook, using different hackathons and brainstorming sessions to develop the like button which is now the heart and soul of the company. It was a similar case for newsfeed which at the time of development was controversial but now it’s what identifies Facebook and is replicated by several other companies which are developing or have developed social media platform. Also, the introduction of “development platform” was something that was widely questioned but now more than a million developers use the same platform to develop hundreds of thousands of products for various companies.
Jack Ma didn’t have the comfort that Mark Zuckerberg had in his early age so he had to go through a period of struggle. When he was 35, he started Alibaba.com with 20,000$ which he raised with the help of his wife and friends. He has a lot of positive influence through the stories of his struggle and the success he achieved. He proved the word that rejections and failures don’t mean that all doors to success are closed as this was his third internet company and he was unable to get a job even after several job applications. He was also rejected from Harvard 10 times but he never let go of his dream of being successful. He taught people to keep your dream alive and no matter how hard things might get, never give up and keep working towards your dream. He also valued on culture and from 18 people to now over 200,000 people working on the project, making them rally behind the value of the business of helping people and not just work for the money is something that’s inspiring. He influenced people to ignore anyone who says it’s a stupid idea and work for it with his product in Alipay. It’s a payment system which he introduced. It now has a user base of nearly a billion users, this idea of his was labeled by several others as stupid but it worked tremendously. Get inspired by anything that you see, hear and work, inspiration comes from anywhere. He also inspired people to stay focused and work for what you want to achieve. And, not complain about things if they don’t go in your favor but work and look for opportunities to move it in your side is something that Ma influenced in people though process, lifestyle and beyond.
Like Ma, Mark Zuckerberg has influenced people in a positive direction. His influencing speech, simple lifestyle and humbleness set him as a person to model for several individuals around the world. Being the co-founder of one of the biggest and growing social media platform, he has a lot of responsibility and power to influence people both positively and negatively. Building great things means taking a risk as well so he asks people to be bold and stand along with to the decision they take. With the story of Zuckerberg opening Facebook from a dorm room, he teaches people to be focused on impact as he with the platform wanted to connect all of Harvard but somehow wanted to connect the whole world. He had a clear idea that all people wanted to be connected and that focus on something made the Facebook what it is today. Also, he taught to build more things while learning and moving faster. In the current world, for so many products it’s who comes out first with that innovative idea. There have been several other platforms developed after Facebook in the same dynamics but now it’s a lot of challenge for anyone to beat the business out. He also encouraged people to be open to make a better decision while building upon the social values.
As a small boy, Jack Ma believed everything is possible as long as you give your best to a certain thing. But he must have never realized that he has to go through all those struggles that he did to reach where he is now. After countless failures in the venture he started himself, in a career path he saw and the education he wanted to pursue, he finally had an idea that really worked to transform how China traded and then how world trades. From earning just 12$ a month to now being the wealthiest person of China and one of the wealthiest in the world, he will be remembered for his struggle, commitment, never letting go attitude and the inspiration he had on several young people. He will be remembered to transform how the money flows with the product in Alipay all over China, with the way he transformed entire e-commerce market around the world and now also for bring transformation in the world of Information Technology with Alibaba Cloud.
Like Jack Ma, Mark Zuckerberg is another internet sensation who used the information technology and leveraged it to build a website as in Facebook and several other products around it. His success with Facebook and the tactics he took for it will have him remembered as one of the brilliant innovator and also a businessman. He created things that no one imagined and helped connect friends, family and even people you don’t know together. The platform he developed changed the way we contact each other as well. All those amass him to be a figure who is going to be remembered for all the things he did.
Servant-leader is the ones who create a shift from managing for the result to designing environment that creates results. And, I consider both Jack Ma and Mark Zuckerberg to be the servant-leader. Zuckerberg never believed in hiring people just for numbers shake, so he made the environment around the same so that people with the highest potential will join the company to get results. Like there’s just one engineer overseeing over a million users while if we compare this will small companies in the same field or big, the ratio is a lot higher with one engineer seeing a lot fewer people. And, Ma as well works on the same philosophy, with when he started his company with just 18 people to now when the company has outgrown to be of over two hundred thousand people. He believes that the culture is important and thus believes in youth and equal opportunity to people of all gender and background. Both of them have well replaced their own self-interest with service to others, be it with donations totaling in billions, or helping build platform for people to grow. They believe in influence and not power and control, focus on the strengths and not the weakness of others and listing to what people have to say rather than just giving orders; all of which makes them a perfect servant-leader.
Jack Ma and Mark Zuckerberg both are one of the most popular and influencing figures of the current time. They have changed the way internet works one by revolutionizing the e-commerce, digital payment system and the high-end computing system with cloud base while the other with a social media, virtual reality headsets and more on the horizon. They have demonstrated skills and competencies even in the most challenging situations to be known as an effective leader. They’ve with their speech, actions and path set a positive influence in the lives of people. Not only that but the humbleness and the down-to-earth attitude even after reaching to new heights is what makes them a servant-leader and will make people remember them for the same and all the innovations along with footsteps they are leaving behind.
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