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Running Head: EXAMPLE OF A GOOD LEADER – BILL GATES

Example of a good leader – Bill Gates

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Running Head: EXAMPLE OF A GOOD LEADER – BILL GATES

Abstract

Bill Gates is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world. He is the co-founder,

chairman and up until 2006, the chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation - the world’s

leading provider of software for personal computers. Bill Gates is also co-founder of the Bill and

Melinda Gates Foundation, the biggest charity in the world. Bill Gates of leadership style is

described as both Autocratic Leadership and Transactional/Transformational leadership. He has

always had more technical skills than interpersonal skills. When he first created Microsoft, he

only knew how to look at behavior, such as rewarding good work and punishing poor

performance (this would be Transactional). Later, becoming more of a transformational by trying

to appeal to employee’s emotions through tactics such as motivation and support. He still has

some aspects of a transformational leader.

Keywords: leader, autocratic leadership, Transactional, Transformational

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Running Head: EXAMPLE OF A GOOD LEADER – BILL GATES

Introduction

“I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they

will be moved to act.” - Bill Gates. Bill Gates is a businessman, a visionary, an entrepreneur as

well as one of the greatest philanthropists of all time. Bill Gates has is the co-founder of

Microsoft. He has established Microsoft to pave the future of the microcomputer. He had a

vision. “When Paul Allen and I started Microsoft over 30 years ago, we had big dreams about

software,” stated Gates. “We had dreams about the impact it could have. We talked about a

computer on every desk and in every home. It’s been amazing to see so much of that dream

become a reality and touch so many lives. I never imagined what an incredible and important

company would spring from those original ideas.”

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Running Head: EXAMPLE OF A GOOD LEADER – BILL GATES

“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” -

Bill Gates. Bill Gates has traits that help define him as a leader and these are what he uses in his

leadership approach. He has vision, knowledgeable, assertive, authoritative, competitive,

charismatic, dynamic, demanding, generous and ambitious. Bill Gates is very assertive and

authoritative in nature especially in the early years of Microsoft. He has been known to have a

heated temper during board meetings. A former Microsoft employee posted on the Ubuntu

forums that Gates was known to tell people “that’s the dumbest ****** idea I’ve ever heard

since I’ve been at Microsoft.”

The traits that Gates have shown that he is an autocratic leader. An autocratic leader is

one that makes all the decisions and prefers not to delegate any responsivity to their

subordinates. Gate had a tendency in the early years to micromanage his company. This made

him a very autocratic leader. Autocratic leaders typically make choices based on their own ideas

and judgements and rarely accept advice from followers. Autocratic leadership involves

absolute, authoritarian control over the group. This is exactly how Gates managed in the early

days of Microsoft driving it to the success it is today.

Gates’ leadership style can best be explained and understood by Fiedler’s contingency

model of leadership. Fiedler’s model of leadership is prescriptive in nature, meaning it will

dictate or prescribe which leader will be most effective in a particular situation. Gates tends to

act most effectively in situations where task oriented behavior is appropriate. Bill Gates is

infamous for his people management skills. He was a tough taskmaster. He had the habit of
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Running Head: EXAMPLE OF A GOOD LEADER – BILL GATES

dismissing people and their ideas should he be of a different opinion. He made remarks that

could get a peer crying. He would be sarcastic beyond reason and he could take anyone to task or

to the cleaners with his aggressive behavior. But how did Bill Gates become the leader that he is

today and the leadership techniques that he uses?

Pursuing what he loves.

Gates had a fascination with computer where he was young and he spent much of his

time learning how to program them. Gates was not a model student in school because he was

bored by all subjects except for math and science. But Gates decided early on in life that it is

important to pursue what he was passionate about. His pursuing what he loves led him the many

breakthroughs in his life. One of the earliest was his business that he created with his friend –

Traf-O-Data. Even though the company had only modest success, ( From this project they earned

around $20,000), it was the experience that Gate needed for the creation of Microsoft some years

later. Gates then enjoyed success with the programming language BASIC and that was followed

up by MS-DOS for IBM.

It does not matter what you do in life, what is key is that you do something that you truly

love doing. It will show in the results of your work. If you only have “a job”, your motivation

and the results will show. But if you have something that you are “passionate about!”, You will

find that you will love going to work and you will become successful at whatever you do.

Work tirelessly.

Gates’ worth ethic was one of not quitting or taking the easy way. He knew that success

would be something that would not come overnight and that he had to work tirelessly for it. With
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Running Head: EXAMPLE OF A GOOD LEADER – BILL GATES

this determination, Gates spent years developing code and programming. “A leader gets in there

and rolls his sleeves up because success it is not just about thinking up a good idea. Leadership

requires action and the passion to put the effort into turning that good idea into a sustainable

revenue machine.” (Rampton, 2015) Bill Gates was known to have only taken three days a year

of vacation during his first five years at Microsoft.

Hire carefully and be willing to fire.

Microsoft has always had the policy to hire the best. In the early years, they recruited and

hired employees directly after their graduation. The reasoning is that they wanted employees that

were fresh and did not already have preconceived ideas. Some will be better than others, while

some will be outstanding. Gates has always hired the smartest people who can ‘get the job done.’

Gates thought was - Hire your friends and past colleagues, as they will have loyalty to you and

you personally know whether they have what it takes to realize your ‘vision.’ In the early years

of Microsoft, Gates hired his friends who he knew would be able to realize his vision and ideals.

David Thielen, author of; The 12 Simple Secrets of Microsoft Management, wrote in his book,

"One of the enjoyable things about working at Microsoft is that even the least talented are pretty

damn smart, the average are superb, and the best leave you trying every day to match their

work."

Constantly evolving.

Gates has never been simply satisfied with the success he has achieved. As Gate once

said, “It's fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” He

also reminded others: “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” Even
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Running Head: EXAMPLE OF A GOOD LEADER – BILL GATES

today after he stepped down from his position, he still answers emails and goes to the office once

a week. He mostly meets customers on those days, although he has been known to be involved in

meetings that last one or two hours for the development of new ideas and products. This is one of

the things that make Gates such a leader. A leader should always try to find ways to improve.

Gates enjoys staying relevant. He is known to go to a family cabin in Washington and read thesis

papers to remain up to date with what is going on in technology.

Helping others by giving back.

Bill married Melinda French in 1994 and they have three children. It was with Melinda's

constant support that Bill accomplished his long-cherished dream of starting a foundation aimed

at helping the poor and the needy. Together they started the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,

and it has been endowed with more than $35 billion. Some years ago, he visited Chicago's

Einstein Elementary School and announced grants benefiting Chicago's schools and museums

and donated a total of $110,000, a bunch of computers, and provided Internet connectivity to

number of schools. Secondly, Bill Gates donated 38 million dollars for the building of a

computer institute at Stanford University. Once of the goals of the Bill and Melinda Gates

Foundation is to be able to eradicate child mortality. “If I had to pick just one data point to focus

on, it would be the number of children who die every year before reaching the age of 5.” –

Melinda Gates. Figure 1 shows the story of what an impact their charity has had on child

mortality. In 2000 their foundation joined with many partners in launching Gavi, the Vaccine

Alliance. Since then, Gavi has helped more than 70 countries vaccinate 600 million children.

(Gates Foundation 2017). The numbers are truly astounding! It is the opinion of this author, that

this is one of the great things about Bill Gates. He has used his wealth and his notoriety to get
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Running Head: EXAMPLE OF A GOOD LEADER – BILL GATES

others to donate to the cause. Imagine what the world would be like if more of the top CEOs and

wealthy of the world would follow suit and do such admirable work.

Figure 1: Global number of deaths of children under age 5 (in millions)

In 1999, Bill Gates was asked in an interview what his tips were for good management.

The following were his comments:

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Running Head: EXAMPLE OF A GOOD LEADER – BILL GATES

Unfortunately, there isn't a magic formula for good management, but maybe these tips will help

you be more effective.

1. Choose a field thoughtfully. Make it one you enjoy. It's hard to be productive without genuine

enthusiasm.

2. Hire carefully and be willing to fire. You need a strong team, because a mediocre team gives

mediocre results, no matter how well managed it is. One common mistake is holding on to

somebody who doesn't quite measure up. It's easy to keep this person because he or she isn't

terrible, but a good manager will replace the employee in question or move them where they can

succeed unambiguously.

3. Create a productive environment. This is a particular challenge because it requires different

approaches depending on the context. One element that almost always increases productivity is

providing an information system that empowers employees.

4. Define success. Goals must be realistic. Project schedules, for example, must be set by the

people who do the work. People will accept a `bottom-up' deadline they helped set more readily

than one they had nothing to do with. Unachievable goals undermine an organization.

5. To be a good manager, you have to like people and be good at communicating. This is hard to

fake. If you don't genuinely enjoy interacting with people, it'll be hard to manage them well.

Establish a wide range of personal contacts within your organization and encourage people to

give you feedback on what they are thinking about the company and your role in it.
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Running Head: EXAMPLE OF A GOOD LEADER – BILL GATES

6. Develop your people to do their jobs better than you can. This can be threatening to a manager

who worries that he's training his replacement. If you're concerned, ask your boss: `If I develop

somebody who can do my job super well, does the company have some other challenge for me or

not?' Many smart managers like to see their employees increase their responsibilities because it

frees the managers to tackle new or undone tasks.

7. Build morale. Make it clear there's plenty of goodwill to go around and that it's not just you, as

some hotshot manager, who's going to look good if things go well. Give people a sense of the

importance of what they're working on. When you achieve great results, everybody involved

should share in the credit and feel good about it.

8. Take on projects yourself. You need to do more than communicate. The last thing people want

is a boss who just doles out stuff. From time to time, prove you can be hands-on by taking on one

of the less attractive tasks.

9. Don't make the same decision twice. Spend the time and thought to make a solid decision the

first time so that you don't revisit the issue unnecessarily. People hate indecisive leadership, so

make choices. That doesn't mean, however, that you have to decide everything the moment it

comes to your attention, nor that you can't ever reconsider a decision.

10. Let people know who to please. Maybe it's you, maybe it's your boss, and maybe it's

somebody who works for you. You're in trouble - and risking paralysis in your organization -

when employees start asking themselves: Am I supposed to be making this person happy or this

other person happy? They seem to have different priorities.' – Bill Gates
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Running Head: EXAMPLE OF A GOOD LEADER – BILL GATES

Conclusion

There are many things that can be said about Bill Gates – some good and some bad. But

what cannot be argued is that Bill Gates is a well-respected businessman. He has used his status

to try to make the world a better place, even if his methods of getting to the top were not exactly

those that all leaders should emulate. There is a very fine line between being a leader that is well

respected and being a leader that is despised by his employees. Bill Gates has straddled that fine

line perfectly. There is a difference between being a manager of people and a leader. Bill Gates

is the perfect definition of a leader. He may have been an autocratic leader in the early years but

it is the opinion of this author, that when starting a new business, one must be an autocratic

leader to start employees on the path that will lead to success.

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Running Head: EXAMPLE OF A GOOD LEADER – BILL GATES

Resources:

Cohan, P. (2015) 8 Leadership Insights from Bill Gates And Steve Ballmer Retrieved from:

https://www.inc.com/peter-cohan/8-leadership-insights-from-bill-gates-and-steve-ballmer.html

Foley, J., & Soat, J. (2007). TITAN OR TYRANT? InformationWeek, (1144), 36-40,42,44.

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Gates, B. (1999). Ask bill gates. Management Today, 38. Retrieved from

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Running Head: EXAMPLE OF A GOOD LEADER – BILL GATES

Gates, B & Gates, M. (2017) Goalkeepers. Retrieved from:

http://www.globalgoals.org/goalkeepers/datareport/

Tomev (n.d) Former MS employee recalls Bill Gates' management style. Retrieve from:

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=435346

Mardesich, J. (1995). The top 25 executives: Bill gates. Computer Reseller News, (658), 120.

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d=9445

Richey, M. (1999). The 12 Simple Secrets of Microsoft Management. Retrieved from:

https://www.fool.com/archive/portfolios/rulemaker/1999/12/20/the-12-simple-secrets-of-

microsoft-management.aspx

Rampton, J. (2015). How Bill Gates Became a Leadership Legend. Retrieved from:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/250607