Summary
For any organization that wants to succeed, organizational change is a must. This change has to be planned if the expected goals are to be achieved. However, to achieve these goals, the authority has to originate from the top and that’s why there exist different leadership styles that the chief executive officers can use to achieve the company’s desired goals.
In this report, we covered the Samsung CEO Mr. Lee Kun Hee, and then analyzed his leadership skills as well as his leadership behaviors which have helped the company to become a world leader in the electronics industry. We have noted that Mr. Lee Kun Hee has learnt the art of applying all the three leadership styles: autocratic, participatory and delegative to enhance the management and the success of Samsung Company.
When applying the three leadership styles, the following has come out as his leadership behaviors as we shall see in the report: power to initiate new structures, he also acts as the instrument of goal achievement, he exerts his influence of conditions force and he possesses some form of persuasion whenever he feels that persuasion is required to make the employees realize the seriousness of the matter. These among others have been attributed as the major drivers of the success Samsung Company has achieved in the last two decades.
Introduction
Any organization that wants to succeed must implement organizational change. A planned change within an organization is required if the transformation is to be successful in any way. Successful organizations such as Samsung have been known to develop their leaders who enable them survive during their hard times. Leadership involves managing the affairs of an organization either the whole organization or department.
On the other hand, leadership styles involve the way and the approach the company leadership uses its power in implementing plans, motivating employees, and enforcing change. There exists three recognized leadership styles that any leader chooses to follow (depending on the situation) and they are: authoritarian, participative, and delegative (Jooste & Fourie 4).
Through the above three leadership styles, a leader can decide to use either of the three in order to implement the policies and plans within an organization but a good leader is usually the one with the ability and capabilities of combining the three generalized styles. Since depending with the situation he or she knows when to be authoritative, when to engage the employees and when to delegate the activities to the juniors.
A leader who can combine the three is an inspirational leader since he encourages their workforce to maximize their talents and capabilities; this in return helps the organization in achieving good returns (Kocher, Pogrebna & Sutter 4). If a leader has the ability to combine the three leadership styles, it is very healthy and fruitful for the company i.e. if he or she posses strategic leadership qualities.
A leader who possesses strategic leadership capabilities is an asset to any company since he can be able to detect the necessary leadership competencies within the organization and then develop the much needed solutions, which prepare the organization for the future.
Strategic leadership is usually employed within the executive level and most of the times this type of leadership is mandated to the chief executive officers of a company (John 39). In the case of Mr. Lee Kun Hee he has learnt the art of applying all the three leadership styles while he was the chairman of Samsung and as we shall see, this has enabled the company to emerge as one of the global leaders in the electronics industry.
Company Background
In the recent past, Samsung Company has made itself as an industrial leader in the world of electronics by making quality and innovative brands. Samsung Electronic Company was established in South Korea in the year 1969 by Byung- Chull Lee. During this time, the company only used to make the famous black and white televisions.
Since then, the company has been experiencing steady growth and as a result it has grown to become a multi billion company. Statistics show that by the year 2004, the company was way ahead of other major rivals including Kodak, Philips, and Panasonic. All this success has been attributed to one guy: the chief Executive Officer Mr. Lee Kun Hee.
The company leadership believes that its success has been boosted by the company’s contribution to the society and the mutual prosperity of the brand across the globe. Under the leadership of Lee Kun Hee, the company has been teaching its employees to always ensure their products maintain high quality requirements and also maintains high levels of proficiency (Lee 4).
The Background Of The Company’s CEO: Lee Kun Hee
Mr. Lee Kun Hee was born in January 9, 1942. He was the third son of the late Lee Byung- Chul from whom he inherited the company. He received his (economics) degree in the University of Waseda (in the year 1965) and in 1966 he was to receive an MBA from (University) George Washington, a thing that never was.
Later in the year 2000 Mr. Lee was awarded with an honorary Degree in Business Administration and Economics from Seoul University. He has had a very successful career. In the past, Mr. Lee has served as the Chairman and the Head of Overall (Corporate) Management of Samsung SDI Co. Ltd. He has also been serving as the chairman of the “Korean Sports Association for Disabled” since the year 1998.
He also once served as the chairman of the ‘Federation of Korean Industries’ since 1998. The guy also served as the vice chairperson of Samsung group and Samsung Corporation since 1978. From 1997 to April 2008, Mr. Lee served as the CEO of Samsung Electronics Corporation limited an ancillary of Samsung C&T Corporation (previously also known as Samsung Corp).
Until 2008, he had been the Chief Executive Officer when he resigned due to allegations of tax evasion and other corruption cases. Mr. Lee has also published a well known book by the title of Read the world with your own thinking. He has also received several awards and among them is the Olympic Order by the IOC in 1991, Order of Sport Merit among many other medals.
During his earlier tenure, he became the first Chief Executive Officer to hire people based on their passions and talents irrespective of their gender and this made him among the most admired personalities in the whole of South Korea. Apart from his native Korean language, he can also comfortably speak in English and Japanese. After he was charged with cases of tax evasion, he was indicted in the year 2008; he resigned before being found guilty where he was sentenced to three years in jail.
After his indictment in 2008, he had been serving a three year suspended jail term until the year 2010; the South Koreans president pardoned him as the country was trying to win hosting rights for winter Olympics though the International Olympics committee suspended him for five years thus the country’s effort did not yield any fruits. After being pardoned, in the same year Mr. Lee returned to the helm of the company leadership as the chairman of Samsung Electronics after two years of absence (Kollewe Par 2).
According to my opinion, Mr. Lee can be described as a transformational leader due to the fact that early in his career as the CEO of Samsung in 1990 he saw that the company had been concentrating much on making big volumes of low quality goods (which were unable to compete with the other leading players in the industry) and this forced him to shift from quantity to quality.
Since then, this has made Samsung one of the most successful companies especially in the world of electronics. Currently, he is serving as the chairman of Samsung America, Inc and Samsung Electronics Limited a position he wants to leave for his son.
Application of Leadership Styles and Behaviors
There has been a need for high quality leaders in the hospitality industry for the well being of a company. Lee inherited Samsung chairmanship in the year 1987. On his arrival, he faced several problems. The first problem (in which he was supposed to solve) was how he could provide the momentum for the quantum leap from the economic model that South Korea was using.
The second problem that faced him was the anxiety that was created by the pessimists of the American thinker that the model could not work and so anything reaped from such an economic model could not succeed (Samsung Press Information 4).
Faced by many problems, it is worth noting that Mr. Lee has learnt the art of applying all the three leadership styles. Mr. Lee’s leadership can be said to be transformational. Most of the times, transformational leadership is well suited in instances where an organization needs to reform or change its old ways of production and their mindsets in order to adopt the change or the reform agenda.
Mr. Lee is such a transformational leader and he can be described by these leadership behaviors as exhibited by a transformational and a strategic leader: focus on group process, personality and its effects, the arts of inducing compliance, exercise of influence, initiation of structure, a form of persuasion as we have seen above as well as the emerging factors of interactions. Such a leadership skill can be applied in the hospitality industry by ensuring that all the departments within the industry change to the new requirements of the industry.
I can also describe Mr,Lee Kum Hee as an initiative leader who leads from the front and he is always ready to introduce new products to the company line. As it was seen back in 1973 when information technology was still growing in Korea, he was the brain child behind the purchase of the collapsing American company by the name of Hankuk semiconductor which had been producing ICs in the country at that time. To many this was seen as going beyond the country’s current capability at that time.
With his innovative leadership skills, he helped Samsung grow to a world leading force as it is now recognized in the electronics industry. In the hospitality industry, this could be applied if the industry wanted to introduce new products and services but everyone else thinks the idea risky. It would be good for the initiative to come from the leader so as to avoid the project being washed away even before trial.
We can also describe him as an instrumental leader in goal achievement. Since his arrival at Samsung in the year 1987, he noticed that the company was too more quantity oriented than quality and thus on his arrival, his main aim was to change Samsung into a world leader in producing quality products as it was noted on his first speech where he indicated that “Let us divorce from the tradition of quantity oriented management (economic scale as a source of global competition) and move on to the quantity oriented management (knowledge based and hi-tech based global leadership.” (Chul- Boo par 12).
With this statement, it was sure that Samsung was headed for a change process which could turn from producing the large volumes of electronics, it used to produce, towards producing something the customer would really appreciate. This is what leadership experts most of the time describes as the decree approach whereby the leader seeks a full transformation of the company from the production processes to the mindset of the employees working in the company.
Through his efforts, this was achieved and there were increased sales as a result to the positive reputation the company was building. In the hospitality industry, this can be applied when the industry wants to improve their services, the leadership can apply the innovative skills of Mr. Lee Kun Hee in improving the services on offer.
As the leader of the hospitality industry, one can be instrumental in implementing the desired changes to make the industry more appealing to the consumers.
Mr. Lee can also be described as a loyal leader to the Samsung Company and thus he loved what he did at Samsung and loved Samsung Company with all his efforts being geared towards the company success. He could take any step to fight for Samsung in whatever aspect.
It is noted that, in South Korea the company had been doing fine but it was while in a visit to the United States of America that he discovered Samsung products were not highly held or regarded as they were back home. He visited some of the stores selling Samsung products and to his distress he noticed that items from other firms (e.g. Sony) were neatly displayed whereas those from Samsung were not and some even had dust.
As the leader of the Samsung Company, this did not please him and he felt that as the Company CEO, his pride demeaned and as a result this made him organize a party in one of the big hotels in the country and displayed all the Samsung products and their comparable products from other makers in order to clearly emphasize that Samsung products were also superior and comparable to other major brands in the world.
This improved marketing of Samsung products to a great extent since the leader was acting as its marketer and it really showed the trust and passion Mr. Lee held on his company products. He took upon his responsibility to ensure that Samsung products were placed in the status they were supposed to be and the place they deserved.
In the hospitality industry, this could apply if the industry was fairing well at home but internationally the prospects were not that good, as a leader in the industry, one can market the services offered by the industry in foreign countries by ensuring that everybody there is aware of the quality services that the organization offers.
Mr. Lee is also a persuasive leader. It has always been his desire to see that Samsung as a company observes quality in production processes.
While in a technology advancement meeting, for Samsung electronics in a Tokyo hotel, Mr. Lee met a Japanese design advisor for Samsung Telecommunications and Electronic Division who presented to him a written report indicating the design problems he had faced while working with Samsung and which had not yet been corrected. The meeting revealed video images of the company’s defective produced items.
He was not happy with the findings and he used a total of 500 hours in lecturing on the need for them to be close observing in ensuring no defective appliances were made by the company processing firms without corrective measures as it had happened in the past (Olsen Par 8).
After the meetings with the executives, Mr. Lee tried to spread the information among the other workers in order to ensure there was competence in manufacturing and also helping in creating organizational mindsets which in future would always ensure the products produced were of high quality.
In ensuring that the hospitality industry offers quality products, as a leader, the persuasive aspect of MR. Lee can be applied by informing the employees and other members of staff on the importance of ensuring quality standards are observed since high quality ensures higher revenues for the industry.
Most leaders exercise their influence if something within the company seems not to be operating as he or she would desire. The leaders can exercise their influence by changing the processes employees are used to and warn that anybody not willing to follow the new guidelines can as well quit. In case of Mr. Lee, this happened in the month of July 1993, Mr. Lee introduced the 7.4 system which was meant to readjust the way people worked in the company.
It was readjusted such that the workers reported to job at 7:00 am and went home at 4:00 pm and though at the beginning he faced some resistance, as expected, the system was finally put into place and the newly changed was working (Lee & Lee 3). He clearly showed that every Samsung employee had to change (even those who were reluctant had to change even if it meant forcing them).
This move was simply aimed at instilling both the core and technological competencies that were needed in order to make sure Samsung became a world leader. In hospitality industry, this would be necessary if the leader wanted to change the way the company operated, he or she can exercise his influence to change the way the industry operates so as to ensure the customers’ productivity is maximized.
Another leadership behavior which I can say Mr. Lee possesses is the art of inducing compliance. As any CEO leader would like, Mr. Lee is a leader who loved to see his employees comply with the required regulations to ensure quality was always maintained and adverse actions could always take place if the guidelines were not followed to line.
During his leadership, MR. Lee applied this; in the year 1995, Mr. Lee noticed that the company had been producing defective programs in some of the factories so he had them collected and stuffed in bags. He later called a meeting of 2000 managers and employees of the factories.
Around the factory where they met, Mr. Lee had taken the effort of placing posters which read “quality is our pride” everywhere. As the managers were waiting for meeting objectives, some of the employees who were armed with hammers were signaled to start what they were meant to do. The managers and the employees were surprised by what they saw. The employees who had been selected started breaking down the boxes which were then put a blaze (Lewis Par 19)
Mr. Lee indicated to them that there was no way the company would compete with other giant makers if it continued producing fake or defective products. This helped the company in facing its next expedition which was creating a bench mark on GE Jack Welch, Sony, and Nokia among other electronic recognized leaders.
To achieve this, the company needed to restructure and downsize in order to ensure that the costs were minimized. Though Samsung was hesitant at the beginning due to the culture of the east and its position as a major employer in the country, later it had to apply.
With the Asian economy facing possible collapse, the International Monetary Fund was given the power to control the Korean economy and though this served as a curse to many, it came as a blessing to the Samsung Company since it was able to realign itself in the view of what the IMF was directing where almost 20% of the employees were terminated. Thus, a result of the IMF controlling the economy, the company workforce was reduced. Mr. Lee restructured the company to higher levels (Singh 6).
Mr. Lee resigned in the year 2008 due to allegations of his involvement in tax evasion, corruption, and embezzlement crimes to which he admitted guilt of committing and was sentenced to a three year suspended jail term. Two years later, the president pardoned him and due to the success he had achieved as the leader of Samsung Company, he was given back his chair as the leader of the company, a position which he intends to leave for his son.
Conclusion
Leadership involves planning and implementing of activities in a company. There are three types of leadership styles commonly known by people: authoritarian, delegative and participatory. Mr. Lee can be described as a transformational leader since he helped in the transformation of the company from the quantity oriented company to a quality oriented company; championing the growth of the company through use of knowledge.
This was achieved through investigating what the clients really wanted and what they felt was good with the products from Samsung. Under his mantle, the company has exhibited high levels of efforts in order to transform the company from the old model, which people were used to, into a new model. To achieve these goals, he dwelt on the strategic intent and a vision that carried him on through out his reform initiation and implementation period.
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