Zuckerberg Vs Gates

Management and Leadership Assignment 3

A young and very smart man who is highly passionate about programming and computers goes to Harvard University. A friend of him and himself has a product idea. At the age of around twenty the young man drops out of university to follow their business idea. It turned out that the business became very successful and many smart business decisions make his company the leading company in its field.

I am sure you have heard of this story before and you might think you know who this text is about. In fact this story is true for two of the most famous and recognised entrepreneurs on the planet: Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Only that, approximately 30 years lay between their stories.

However, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg share more than just their success, career and love for programming. As it turns out Microsoft and Facebook are very similar in their development.

In Microsoft’s early years, Microsoft was known for being a very laissez-fair employer. In a little promotion clip from the early 90’s one could see the “typical day” of Microsoft employees. Next to free drinks and snacks provided by Microsoft the video showed how much room for leisure activities Microsoft gave his employees. Comparing it to promotion clips of Facebook today, the similarity is surprising. This shows that Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates also shared similar values on how to lead a company. However the 30 years older Microsoft is not considered to be a top employer anymore, their values as employer are not considered to be “very modern” or innovative. Facebook’s values however are.

This article will take a closer look on the effect of the age of a company/ leader on the style in which it/he leads. The article will figure out weather companies actually change over time or if new companies are actually as innovative and modern as the perception of society is.

Therefore, we will take a closer look at Microsoft today and analyze their leadership style.

In employee reviews it shows that working at Microsoft seems to be very bureaucratic which usually limits employee’s freedom of what to do. Moreover, many employees feel very high pressure due to tight deadlines.

In more recent videos about Microsoft as an employer one can see that Microsoft is trying to keep up with Google, Facebook, etc… but one can also see that Microsoft is a rather organized traditional working environment compared to famously laissez-fair companies. It seems that Microsoft developed structures and procedures over the time that helped them organising the massive workforce. Microsoft might have noticed that a company their seize works better with conventional managing methods.

But is Microsoft the only company that developed from very modern and innovative to a traditional leading style? A study of the University Bremen showed that young and older leaders tend to have different approaches. In fact younger leaders tend to use a more transformational or transactional styles of leadership, which are both known to be efficient in motivating subordinates. In contrast older leaders are more likely to apply a passive-avoidant style. The study believes that the main driver for the different leading styles is career ambition. Younger leaders show higher motivation of achieving high goals in their career whereas older leaders are more likely to lack that ambition.

The study of the University of Bremen could be seen as an indicator that young leaders do not innovate a new leading style but in fact copy unconsciously the leadership approach of former young leaders who are considered to be old fashioned today.

To conclude, maybe in 10 or 20 years time a 20 year old computer geek will drop out of Harvard to find his own company and will achieve incredible success. His leadership style will be considered to be very modern and innovative and Facebook will become an old fashioned business model.

Transformational Leadership Approach

Here is the analysis of the article “…” by Jannes Fleermann. The article deals with the influence of age on leadership. For this purpose the two entrepreneurs Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are compared. First the similarities are explained. One can