Elon Musk is one of the most notable entrepreneurs of the modern age who is advancing and promoting the adoption of many innovative technological solutions. Elon Musk is also the CEO of Tesla, one of the Fortune 500 companies which operate in the industry of car manufacturing. Elon Musk has been the CEO of Tesla for more than a decade, and under his leadership, the company has achieved substantial success.
Although Tesla is the name that is strongly associated with Musk, he was not one of the founders of the company. In fact, Elon Musk acquired a large stake in Tesla Motors in 2004 by investing $70 million of his own funds (Hartmans, 2021). In 2008, Elon Musk was appointed the CEO of the company after it saved the businesses from bankruptcy due to the global financial crisis. The power of Elon Musk in Tesla comes from several sources, which can be described using French and Raven’s framework. Elon Musk is an expert leader of the company since he has achieved substantial success in making businesses a global brand. Moreover, he actually saved the company from bankruptcy and managed to increase its capitalization; therefore, Musk is perceived as an expert (Dietrich et al., 2019). Musk relies the least on his reward base of power because it is known that the company does not have any high bonuses and values enthusiasm as the core motivation of employees.
Elon Musk is not a conventional leader, which is visible in his traits, the three main ones of which are intelligence, competency, and creativity. Elon Musk is a highly intelligent person who, apart from managing Tesla, also acts as the CEO of SpaceX, where he participates in the development of innovative space rockets and engines. Moreover, Elon Musk possesses a high level of competency since he understands how Tesla electric vehicles function and knows how to make them better. Elon Musk is also rather creative because Tesla’s marketing is based on designing products that can attract the attention of people. Speaking of leadership theories, contingency one can describe the style of Elon Musk the best. Essentially, the contingency leadership theory states that the appropriate leadership style must be chosen based on the particular context (Morin, 2018). Thus, Elon Musk can be considered an achievement-oriented leader who sets high goals for the company. Elon Musk is a person who not only made Tesla one of the largest companies on the planet but also reignited interest in the electric vehicle segment.
Elon Musk is an excellent leader who has proper managerial skills, which is evidenced by the growth of Tesla and the rise in its popularity. Essentially, Elon Musk can not only design a strategy that will yield positive results but also inspire others to follow his vision. The fact Tesla was able to go from bankruptcy to reaching almost a trillion-dollar market value demonstrates that Musk possesses both managerial and leadership expertise (Hartmans, 2021). Their managerial abilities of Musk make him a demanding leader who prioritizes the goals of the company, which align with his own vision over the needs of employees.
Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla, who was able to revolutionize the industry of car manufacturing by bringing the interest of consumers to electric vehicles. Although Musk did not find Tesla, he managed to take it from near-bankruptcy in 2008 to almost a trillion-dollar valuation a decade later. Elon Mush achieved success by carefully addressing the context of Tesla’s industry and using contingency leadership to bring change to the segment of electric cars.
References
Dietrich, D., Kenworthy, M., & Cudney, E. (2019). Additive manufacturing change management: Best practices. CRC Press.
Hartmans, A. (2021). Elon Musk is predicted to become the world’s first trillionaire, thanks to SpaceX. Here’s how the dual CEO went from getting bullied as a child to becoming one of the most successful and controversial men in tech. Business Insider, Web.
Morin, J. (2018). Leadership and change management. Scientific e-Resources.