LEADERSHIP: A case of Jack Ma, the Chairman and Founder of Alibaba Group

Authro: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie
Published: 1st May 2017

Introduction

In the modern business setting, leadership is a clear-cut requirement for continued and sustainable growth. The importance is not referenced to any given economic setting, instead it is something that is considered crucial across all economic sphere. For a company to progress and be profitable, it must have a competent “leader” that can drive it towards such desired outcome (Eberly, Johnson, Hernandez, & Avolio, 2013). Thus, this paper seeks to analyze the importance of leadership on the growth of any given company by referencing the case of Jack Ma, the Founder and Chairman of Alibaba Group.

About Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba

Jack Ma is a 51 year old former Chinese teacher turned business guru. His unique story started in 1995, when he first visited the USA from China (Alibaba Group, n.d.). He started a translation company in the USA with the aim of capitalizing on the increasing boom of Chinese export. In the course of his translation business in the USA, he was introduced to the internet by a friend, who also notified him that the internet has all he could wish for. In rue of that, he decided to search for beer but the search could not return any single Chinese option. In fact it was very difficult for him to actually find anything about China from the internet (Cendrowski, 2016).

Following his experience, he returned home and made the decision to fund China pages, which is a directory of different corporations in China that are in search of customers across the globe, and some people has referred to such as the company’s first internet based business. China pages didn’t make any progress as it flopped almost in an instant. However, he was never demotivated and he took another step into the internet with his new company called “Alibaba.” Once the new company hit the internet, the rest was history (D'Onfro, 2014).

Just like most of the tech founders and CEO, Ma had failed his college exams twice before being optioned to get admission in the third attempt. Although he is the founder of such a huge corporation, his actually profession was “teaching” and he still don’t know how to code (D'Onfro, 2014). The mid-2000s, Alibaba was embroiled in a stiff battle with Amazon, and people used to refer to Ma as “crazy jack” as a result of his bold goals and animated approach to speech.

His actual story did start in the Hangzhou city of 2.4 million people in China, located close to Shanghai, where Ma was born to parents that made a living as professional ping tan performers in the 1964. Ping tan is the Chinese traditional way of singing ballad and telling stories.

Ma was ridiculed a lot due to his size but he turned the charm on with tourist. He will always visit a local hotel where he could meet tourists and learn English. Although he excelled well in the second language, he was never good at mathematics and his low marks in mathematics caused him to repeat the college entrance exams twice (Cendrowski, 2016). However, on the third attempt after rigorous studies, he finally passed and got admission into Hangzhou Teacher’s Institute where he eventually graduated in 1988. Following his graduation, he was rejected in a number of jobs as a result of his stature – including KFC where he was rejected on a manager position.

The company has a website www.Alibaba.com which lets manufacturers post their products on the internet for consumers across the world to source. By the end of October in 1999, the company has successfully raised investments from Goldman Sachs in the value of $5 million and also another $20 million from Softbank, which is a Japanese telecommunication giant that likes investing in technology companies (Forbes, 2016).

Ma has been the source of China’s rise to number one in the global internet community and mobile phone users. Alibaba on the other hand posted an IPO in New York in 2014 which set a world record when it comes to stocks by offering the biggest public stock. However, in the wake of allegations that the company is selling counterfeit goods, its IPO dropped to over 50% below throughout 2015 (D'Onfro, 2014). In an attempt to make its stands clear, the company released a statement that “sale of below part products by manufacturers is something that all e-commerce businesses suffer as they are not there to always control the manufacturing process” (D'Onfro, 2014).

Leadership style and major achievements of Jack Ma

At the present, Ma is worth $25.8 Billion. He is the 33^rd richest man in the world, 22^nd most powerful person in the world, 2^nd richest man in China and 7^th richest person in the technology industry (Forbes, 2016). Ma has also made a number of investments across different industries such as investing in movies like the “Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation” (Forbes, 2016). designing and creating a sport division with other Chinese partners and also forming an online portal with the “Marcy’s” a US base departmental store. In line with above discussions, a number of leadership styles can be established in relation to Jack Ma and they are:

Visionary – A visionary leader is someone who is not deterred by the poor present situation, instead focused on the chances of turning the situation into positive outcome tomorrow (The Wall Street Journal, n.d.). When Ma first came to the USA and was introduced to the internet, he made a quick search for bear and never saw a Chinese page. As a result of that, he developed the vision to create one. Although the first attempt failed, he came back four years later with a bigger and bolder approach, which eventually turned into huge success as known today (Alibaba). Thus, he is a great visionary that always seek the good in bad settings.

Coaching – This style of leadership focuses on individual development, and showing people how to transform their dreams into reality (The Wall Street Journal, n.d.). In the case of Ma, he was quoted as saying “that the best investment is investing in the youth.” When people are around him, he don’t just “give them bread,” instead he “teaches them how to make a bakery and produce as many breads as they want.” He is also a great coach to all his staff and people around him. This can also be reflected on his advisories roles across different corporations in the world.

Pacesetting – A pacesetter capitalizes on opportunities and drive it into a pioneering investments (The Wall Street Journal, n.d.). In the case of Ma, he capitalize on the absence of Chinese page and set the pace for such investment in the modern Chinese internet business. Thus, he is a strong pacesetter.

Perseverant – A perseverant leader is someone who is not afraid of failure (The Wall Street Journal, n.d.). Someone who will still retry irrespective of the number of times he fails. This is typical of Ma, who did retry countless times. He tried college admission on two occasions without success and then passed on the third one. He was rejected countless times for job positions. He was rejected 10 times by Harvard and he even failed in the first adventure of China pages. Thus, he is perseverant.

The major skills the Leader has demonstrated to be a successful leader

Every good leader has certain attributes that makes the person standout. It can be how the person delivers values, the value delivered, or how the person reacts to a given situation as they occur. Some might be acquired through numerous learning process, while others seem to be developed over a period of experience based practice. From all highlights, the main skills that make Ma stand out as a leader is that of communication (Credit Suisse, 2016). He is a great and inspirational communicator with bold goals. This lead to him being referred to as “crazy Ma” during the mid-2000s battle with Amazon in China (D'Onfro, 2014). With his communication skills, Ma is always able to reveal his views and ideas in great detail for his audience to assimilate. His communication has helped him a lot throughout his leadership years and still guides his success part to this present day.

Additionally, Ma is a relentless solder that is never willing to give up. No matter the situations he faced in life (from bad looks, to being rejected in jobs, failing college exams, being rejected by Harvard), he never gave up. He continued to persevere through thick and thin, and it eventually lead him to the destined glory. In the absence of perseverance, people tend to fall easy play to circumstances surrounding them as they can’t really live up to the high pressure. However, this was not the case of Ma as he always sort out a reason to continue trying.

Ma also has the good quality of finding opportunity in every bad situation. After noticing that there was no single Chinese page following a search for beer, he immediately saw that as an opportunity and capitalized on it to push forward for a Chinese page. At the first attempt, he did not succeed. Yet, he continued his push even in the midst of high pressure from competing and well established brands such as Amazon. All the features distinguished him as a unique leader and eventually lead him to the glory which is now celebrated across the world.

Impact of leadership: Situation model

The interactional model of leadership is integrated on the understanding that a leader should always communicate the situation to the followers and the followers should always adhere to leadership goals. Overall the model is based on the understanding that there should be a great deal of relationship between the leader and their followers (Eberly, Johnson, Hernandez, & Avolio, 2013). Both parties should come together with a common goal of meeting set corporate objectives.

In the business setting, a leader is non-functional without the followers and the followers might be moving towards the wrong direction without a leader. Both parties must be carefully integrated throughout the business process if desired goals are to be achieved. The leader should be humble and interact with the followers at constant intervals in order to understand their faults and apply necessary measures for corrections (Eberly, Johnson, Hernandez, & Avolio, 2013). This will also keep the follower motivated and overall productivity will be enhanced and make sustainable in the process.

Thus, the leader-follower-situation model is critical for the success of any leader. A leader that is fully supported by the followers will likely make advanced progress in leadership while the ones that do not have the support of followers can experience countless challenges that will eventually lead to lower performance from the leadership process. In conclusion, the leader needs the follower as much as the followers needs the leader and both part should always come together based on present situation to define the right solution for achieving set corporate goals (Eberly, Johnson, Hernandez, & Avolio, 2013).

Conclusion

From the above discussions, a number of new ideas have been developed about leadership. They include the understanding that strategic leadership is crucial for the overall sustainability of any given corporation. When a company is exposed to the right leader, growth is more or less certain (but the process might be rigorous). In the case of personality, a good leader as demonstrated by Ma much be very perseverant irrespective of the situation face. The person also need to have bold goals and never be discouraged with failure. Failure is only but a teacher that prepares the leader towards destined glory. Finally, once a leader has established desired growth, it is important that the leader keeps the growth by applying necessary management strategies that involves working together with his or her followers. The followers are very important in the corporate world because they are actually the ones that effect the business process while the leader is there to guide the process.

References

Alibaba Group. (n.d.). Senior Management: Jack Ma, Executive Chairman Alibaba Group. Retrieved from Alibaba Group: http://www.alibabagroup.com/en/about/leadership

Cendrowski, S. (2016, 5 18). Alibaba’s Jack Ma Skips Anti-Counterfeit Convention. Retrieved from Fortune: http://fortune.com/2016/05/18/alibabas-jack-ma-skips-anti-counterfeit-convention/

Credit Suisse. (2016, 4 8). 19th Annual Asian Investment Conference. Retrieved from Credit Suisse: https://www.credit-suisse.com/microsites/conferences/aic/en/media-hub/videos/jack-ma.html

D'Onfro, J. (2014, 9 14). How Jack Ma Went From Being A Poor School Teacher To Turning Alibaba Into A $160 Billion Behemoth. Retrieved from Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-story-of-jack-ma-founder-of-alibaba-2014-9

Eberly, M. B., Johnson, M. D., Hernandez, M., & Avolio, B. J. (2013, 9). An Integrative Process Model of Leadership: Examining Loci, Mechanisms, and Event Cycles. Retrieved from University of Washington: http://faculty.washington.edu/mdj3/Leadership%20model.pdf

Forbes. (2016, 8 8). Jack Ma. Retrieved from Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/profile/jack-ma/

Linshi, J. (2014, 9 23). 5 Life Lessons From Alibaba Founder Jack Ma. Retrieved from Time: http://time.com/3423708/5-life-lessons-jack-ma-alibaba/

The Wall Street Journal. (n.d.). Leadership Styles. Retrieved from The Wall Street Journal: http://guides.wsj.com/management/developing-a-leadership-style/how-to-develop-a-leadership-style/