Great business leaders play a critical role in ensuring that the businesses they are in charge of soar to a great height and leave behind a lasting legacy on the global map. These outstanding and exemplary business leaders have created a niche for themselves and for their organizations that are hard to beat or match. As a result, the products of these business groups have become a household name both in the countries of their origin and globally as well. Most notable contemporary business leaders include Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway), Bill Gates (Microsoft), the late Steve Jobs (Apple), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Reed Hastings (Netflix), Larry Page (Google) and Marissa Mayer (Yahoo) among many more notable business leaders. This essay is going to focus on Warren Buffett the former Chief Executive Officer and founder of Berkshire Hathaway in terms of his career progress, achievements, failures, leadership styles and attributes.
Warren Buffett, a renowned investment guru, a philanthropist and founder of Berkshire Hathaway was born in 1930 in Nebraska. He is considered one of the richest as well as one of the most respectable businessmen globally. Warren Buffet is on record for demonstrating keen business abilities from a young age. As a result of these keen business skills, he formed Buffett Partnership Limited in 1956 and nine years later in 1965, Warren Buffett assumed the control of Berkshire Hathaway. Warren Buffett was mandated with overseeing the overall growth of a business conglomerate dealing with holdings in energy, insurance, media, food and beverage industries (biography.com, 2016).
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Warren Buffett is considered as an outstanding business leader because of his ability to identify companies that are undervalued and turning them into household names. One such company was a Berkshire Hathaway, a textile company where he began by accumulating stock in the early 1960s and managed to assume full control of the company by 1965 (biography.com, 2016). In addition to Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett has made great inroads in several other multinational corporations. These companies include Coca-Cola where he was the director from 1989 to 2006, Citi Group Global Markets Holdings, the Gillette Company, and Graham Holdings Company all of which he served as director. In addition to these responsibilities, Warren Buffett expanded his company by buying assets in Washington Post, Exxon and GEICO (insurance) (biography.com).
Warren Buffett Leadership Style
Warren Buffett is on record for applying a laissez-faire leadership approach in managing his company. This leadership style allows the employees to carry out their tasks without significant guidance from their leaders or supervisors (Chris, 2015). The leadership style, grants employees a considerable freedom to make the right decisions on what course of actions to take in performing their tasks. Warren Buffett gives his personnel much leeway and freedom since he believes that people are likely to perform at their best when allowed autonomy in their work. As a result of this kind of leadership style or theory, his company has managed to achieve significant growth globally. Given that Berkshire is in the business of buying other companies, Buffet usually believe that the companies’ CEOs are already self-sufficient who are focused on making profits, and as a result, they do not require additional supervision (Chris, 2015). Warren Buffett leadership style is meant for striking a balance in over-management and under management in order prevent demoralization of talented workers or creating problems where leaders are not quite qualified for the job.
Warren’s Achievements
Warren Buffett is considered as a super-investor with a net worth estimated at approximately $ 64 billion which places him as the third-richest individual in the world as per the Forbes magazine. Nonetheless, some experts consider Warren Buffett as the greatest investor. According to Krach (2016), Warren Buffett success in business is attributed to his early venture into the business industry at quite a tender age. He had the ability to turn unprofitable businesses such as Berkshire Hathaway which was a group of failing textiles mills into what it is now (Krach, 2016). Warren Buffett is considered a successful man due to his ability to make inroads into various industries and making substantial investments. Such industries include the media (Washington Post), Energy (Exxon) and insurance (GEICO) beverages (Coca-Cola), couriers (Wells Fargo, American Express), airlines (Delta Airlines, American Airlines) among many more that he has invested. Today, Berkshire Hathaway Company is considered to have the world’s greatest volume of assets with a total of 44 publicly-traded stocks under his name.
Career Challenges
In spite of the great achievements associated with Warren Buffett business ventures, he has faced challenges in almost equal measure. Warren’s first major investment was in the then struggling Berkshire Hathaway, a New England textile industry (Covel, 2016). At the time, Warren Buffett felt that it was a worthy investment avenue after analyzing its financial statements. According to Hovel (2016), Warren was forced to keep on injecting funds into this company for close to 20 years with hopes that this company would make a turnaround and become a profitable venture. It turned out that he was wrong all this while and he was forced to sell the company in 1985. This wasted much of time and money. Warren Buffett is on record for admitting that this was indeed his greatest investment mistake which was due to be caught up in a value trap (Covel, 2016). His decision to sell off this company was more of a managerial decision than it was for leadership since his decision was influenced by the budgeting and cost factors presented by the losses made.
Warren Buffet Successor
Warren Buffett is still the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway in spite of his age. There are still speculations as to who will succeed Warren Buffet a man who has been at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway leadership for the last 64 years. During these years, Warren has managed to build an empire that has created a legacy which would require a person equal to the task to continue. Ajit Jain who is in charge operations in Berkshire insurance is placed at the forefront of succeeding Warren as per the constant praise heaped upon him by Warren Buffett (Perumal, 2017). Ajit Jain is accredited with his outstanding performance at creating an insurance business starting from 1985 with 37 billion as float plus a large cumulative underwriting profit which is considered a feat that no other insurance CEO has ever matched. According to Perumal, 2017, this constant praise for Ajit Jain makes most people that he might be Warren’s most likely successor and eventual CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.
Personal Reflection
Warren Buffett is quite an outstanding business leader who possesses positive and a few negative attributes. What draws me so much to him is his daring spirit which pushes him to make investments even in failing businesses as well as his leadership style which allows his employees autonomy and freedom. However, I feel that sometimes he might end up making rash decisions which could affect his businesses negatively.
In conclusion, it is clear that Warren Buffett has succeeded in making a name for his company as well as for himself. This will see him enter into the annals of history as an individual who brought changes in the business world. His immense achievements are a proof of how determination and risk taking can propel a person to significant levels of success.
References
Chris, J. (2015). 9 Warren Buffett Leadership Style Doctrines . Retrieved on 19 April 2017, from http://www.josephchris.com/9-warren-buffett-leadership-style-doctrines.
Covel, M. (2016). Warren Buffet might be repeating the worst mistake of his career . Retrieved on 19 April 2017, from https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/worst-mistake-of-warren-buffetts-career-2016-3.
Krach, K. (2016). 7 Things to Know about Warren Buffett’s Amazing Achievements . Retrieved on 19 April 2017, from https://medium.com/@KeithKrach/7-things-to-know-about-warren-buffet-s-amazing-achievements-2cc616efff66.
Perumal, P. (2017). Warren Buffett Name-checked a Key Executive in a Letter to Investors and said if ‘you could Swap me for him, don’t Hesitate’ . Retrieved on 19 April 2017, from http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffetts-words-of -praise-for-ajit-jain-2017-2.
Biography.com. (2016). Warren Buffett: business leader, philanthropist (1930–). Retrieved on 19 April 2017, from http://www.biography.com/people/warren-buffett-9230729.
