Leadership of Former Uber CEO Kalanick-Free-Samples for Students

Question: Discuss the poor leadership of former Uber CEO Kalanick and its work culture and provide solutions and recommendations. Answer: Case analysis: Elaborating more on the kinds of challenges that the company has faced in the past turbulent years, the toxic internal organizational culture can be considered. First of all, it has to mentioned that under the win at any cost leadership of Kalanick, one of the greatest setbacks of the business process management had been the sexism and hard charging business dealings. There has been a huge disregard for maintaining equality and gender diversity in the organizational culture of the company and hence as a result the company suffered numerous harassment lawsuits. Many of the deserving female employees were subjected to bullying and male domination, even in case of promotional structure and remuneration (Larcker and Tayan 2017). In this case analysis, the issues that Uber has faced with their drivers, represents an acute leadership and operational management crisis as well. First and foremost it has to be mentioned that the company has treated its drivers like legally employed contractors instead of real employees. Initially the Uber drivers had the liberty to decide their own working hours, however within new and improved optimization plants of the company like UberEats and uberpool, there are many restrictions posed on the drivers in an attempt of optimization of the profits. However, the major flaw in this plan had been the complete autonomy given to the drivers to reject the trips is providing a greater conflict and confusion to the entire operational processes for both the service users and the drivers (Verschoor 2017). An alarming fact that has to be mentioned in this context is that the company despite being a 70 billion dollar enterprise, has not made any profit in the past year, the impact of which has been the gradual fall of the fare rates all across the year. The culmination of several restrictions and ever decreasing fares have been the fuel to spark the fire of revolt among the Uber drivers, leading to 50% driver turnover rate. Along with internal business problems, the company is knee deep in legal problems regarding service quality and consumer satisfaction as well. Uber is facing lawsuits regarding passenger accessibility, price fixing, passenger safety and background checks. There are various countries where Uber services have been banned, and yet, even in the hour of need, the company is slowly beginning to establish a stable market in the Asia, especially in Singapore. Although even running the business in the only prosperous market various accidents have been reported in Singapore si nce the launch in 2012. It has to be mentioned that the company is facing legal issues regarding intellectual property theft and even violation of various legal transportation laws, and still the innovative market strategies are still keeping the sinking ship afloat. Hence, from the case analysis, the need for a better leadership and managerial intervention is needed if the company has to revive any position in the market. Challenges and possible solutions: Although the need or better and more strategic leadership is conspicuous for this case study, it needs to be mentioned that above anything, for any strategic recommendation to work, the solution strategies for improving the profitability of Uber at this point needs to be targeted. Hence, each and every challenge needs to be identified and characterized before any solution can be implemented. Travis Kalanick undoubtedly had been a leader with vision, however he lacked planning and engagement with both the business and the employees (Matherne and OToole 2017). The former CEO had a win at any cost perception and he led the company in that direction only, and in the tryst, the company developed a habit of surpassing legislation and exploiting and legal loophole they could find. Due to the complete disregard to equality and justice in the organizational leader the company very easily drowned in harassment cases and discrimination. According to the Maheshwari (2017), the autocratic and som ewhat heroic leadership attributes of Kalanick had been effective in generating the path breaking initial success of the Company but soon the imbalance of power caused its demise (Edelman 2015). There are many leadership theories that can be discussed in this context to analyze and discover the most impactful contributing factors to the issues in the case study. The most applicable theory can be the leadership management style theory by Mintzberg (Mintzberg 2013). This theory had been coined by Henri Mintxberg who initiated the ideology if threes specific leadership roles. According to this theory, art, craft and science are the three core traits that together can make a true organizational leader. The component of art encompasses the traits of vision of the leader; in this particular role, the leaders are supposed to be bold, daring and volatile in the decision making. On the other hand, the component of craft deals with experience and expertise, where the leaders must show attributes like helpfulness, wisdom and reasonable decision making. Lastly, the component of science deals with the analytical capabilities of a leader, and it indicates for the organizational leaders to be calm and collected, controlled, serious and organized. According to the theory, leaning too much onto any of the roles might lead to disorganized, disconnected or dispirited leadership management, and there is need for optimal balance between all three of the roles for there to be harmonious and effective leadership. Now analyzing the case study of Travis Kalanick, the leader had qualities that only are related with the role of art, the lack of science and most important craft in his leadership style had been the most important challenge which led to the companys downfall (Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel 2013). Recommendation strategies and action: According to the leadership management theory of Mintzberg, there are two antagonistic leadership approaches, one is heroic and the other one is engaging. Now heroic leadership is more related to the art and science component of the theory, here the leaders entertain a superiority in all decision making, do not share the decisive power and do not entertain change implementation. The leadership style of Kalanick had been heroic undoubtedly; however, there had been no fruitful results of this style. The antagonistic approach is engaging and is interrelated with the component of craft, which has already identified as the required leadership approach for the company (Mastracci 2015). The recommendation strategies should also focus on implementing engaging leadership. On a more elaborative note, engaging management deals with a helpful and compassionate picture of the managers. The workplace has a interactive and collaborative business process management and equality and shared decision m aking is a core structural element. Hence the recommendation strategies are: Hiring a new CEO with engaging leadership styles who will be able to implement the components of craft in the organizational scenario and develop a mutually respectful and trusting relationship among the employees (Holloway 2015). The next recommendation for the company is to implement legal implications for discrimination and harassment, so that the organizational culture can be revived. Customer oriented business process management can be a significant strategy that can improve the brand reputation and can turn in better revenues, hence the new leadership management must focus on better background checks and organized control over the drivers. Lastly, the company with its reputation and lawsuits has resulted in lack of employee engagement and loyalty, hence the new CEO has to be a motivational and transformation leader who can effectively regain the trust of the both of consumers and the employees (Jordan 2017). Conclusion: On a concluding note that can be mentioned that leadership and have a profound effect on how the business process management and the success of an organization will progress. Where is good management skills and leadership qualities can build an organization from a scratch and take it to the Pinnacle of success. The lack of proper for sight and engaging leadership the entire organisation can fall to pieces without the proper direction and guidance. The 1st year had been the greatest example of how leadership mistakes led to an astounding fall for Uber. However the recommendation solutions deduced with the help of management and leadership theories, the company can regain its position References: Edelman, B.G., 2015. Whither Uber?: Competitive Dynamics in Transportation Networks. Holloway, C., 2015. Uber Unsettled: How existing taxicab regulations fail to address transportation network companies and why local regulators should embrace Uber, Lyft, and comparable innovators.Wake Forest J. Bus. Intell. Prop. L.,16, p.20. Jordan, J.M., 2017. Challenges to large-scale digital organization: the case of Uber.Journal of Organization Design,6(1), p.11. Larcker, D. and Tayan, B., 2017. Governance Gone Wild: Epic Misbehavior at Uber Technologies. Maheshwari, N., 2017. Uber taxi cab-handling crisis communication.Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies,7(4), pp.1-17. Mastracci, J.M., 2015. Case for Federal Ride-Sharing Regulations: How Protectionism and Inconsistent Lawmaking Stunt Uber-Led Technological Entrepreneurship.Tul. J. Tech. Intell. Prop.,18, p.189. Matherne, B.P. and OToole, J., 2017. Uber: aggressive management for growth.The CASE Journal,13(4), pp.561-586. Mintzberg, H., 2013.Simply managing: What managers doand can do better. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Mintzberg, H., Ahlstrand, B. and Lampel, J.B., 2013.Management? It's not what you think!. Pearson UK. Verschoor, C.C., 2017. UBER culture causes big losses: harassment and mismanagement have led to steep losses for this high-flying company.Strategic Finance,99(3), pp.23-25.