Report on the leadership of Starbucks

Part 1

A systematic understanding of Leadership

1. Two fundamental questions for leaders to ask themselves

In my opinion, the two fundamental questions that leaders should ask themselves can be “Do I spend sufficient time with my team?’ and “is my potential activated when people move away from me?’

1. Two critical aspects of leadership

I feel leadership requires transparency and creativity. A transparent leader creates an open channel of communication with his followers (Mitterlechnernet al.2019). A creative leader always proposes new kinds of unique and innovative ideas on different business operations.

1. Leadership theory

A leadership theory explains the reasons and the ways by which individuals can become leaders. Broadly, the method focusses on the traits and abilities of the individuals for guiding individuals and teams towards the goals and objectives of the organization.

1. Two very different leadership styles appropriate for the current business environment

I feel transformational and transactional leadership can play active roles in today’s complex and ambiguous business environment (Jonge al. 2016). Through these leaderships, a leader can bring about positive change in the business and lead to its growth and development.

1. In-depth understanding of leadership styles

In my opinion, the most critical leadership styles can be autocratic style, authoritative style, pacesetting style, democratic style, coaching style, affiliative style, and Laissez-Faire style.

Evaluation of the contribution of the leader towards vision and mission

1. Organizational Vision and mission

The corporate image talks about the position of the business in the future, which is desired by the company in the long term. The organizational mission is short-term in nature, which defines the objectives and approaches of the organization towards reaching those objectives.

1. Contribution of the individuals in the execution of vision and mission

I feel that individuals play active roles in working towards the strategic foundation set up through the vision and mission of the organization (Sharma et al.2019). The individuals communicate the purpose of the organization through internal and external channels.

1. Contribution of the leaders in the execution of vision and mission

I think leaders form and implement strategies for the organization and direct all the individuals towards the common goals or objectives of the organization.

1. Contribution of the stakeholders in the execution of vision and mission

I feel that stakeholders contribute to the organization’s process in delivering the intended results (Kaufman and Burbaugh2017).  Firms are accountable to a large group of stakeholders for executing a strategy and realizing their visions and missions.

1. Evaluation of these contributions by the leaders

The leaders evaluate the participation of the individuals and stakeholders to judge the appropriateness of their contributions and make amendments if required.

Ability to apply leadership strategies

1. Leadership strategy

I strongly feel that an approach is required in leadership for articulating the strategic vision of an organization. A plan also helps in motivating and persuading the employees to achieve the objectives of the organization.

1. Change leadership

In my opinion, a change leadership can be regarded as an ability to influence and motivate followers by advocacy, vision, and drive (Abdulwahedand Hasna 2017). This is required for building up a stable platform for change and transformation within the organization.

1. Organizational potential

I strongly agree that organizational potential relates to the organizational capabilities and effectiveness of meeting their goals and targets. Strengths are displayed in significant areas like leadership, structure, decision-making, and operational processes.

1. Business context

A business context can be defined as a particular context, which requires the usage of specialized vocabulary (Mazzetto2017). A setting can be in the form of an individual organization, the business community, or a specific project or an initiative.

1. Understanding leadership strategies by aspiring leaders

In my opinion, an ambitious leader should primarily understand his objective of delivering the business strategy of the organization. The leader should realize the need and potential for driving a change in the organization and nurture the possibilities of the employees to guide them towards the change.

Motivational theories

1. Motivation theory

A motivational approach aims towards finding out the driving force of the individuals, catering to which they work towards a specific goal or outcome. Many intrinsic and extrinsic factors play a crucial role in stimulating motivational goals among the employees of the organizations.

1. Two categories of motivation theory

I strongly feel that motivational theories are affected by two kinds of factors, that is, intrinsic and extrinsic (Hunt and Chalmers2017). Some of the inherent motivators are achievement, competency, and duties. Extrinsic factors are rewards and recognitions, which arise from the external environment.

1. The contemporary term for employee motivation

Employee motivation can be also be explained through an existing definition consisting of the perceptions and the treatment of the employees. This definition supports a fair procedure, devoid of any biasness or partiality.

1. Appreciative inquiry technique

The appreciative inquiry technique corresponds to the change management process implemented in an organization for identifying the extent of its wellness. The method believes that an organization tends to grow in a direction similar to the attention of the people.

1. Critical evaluation of the motivational theories by aspiring leaders

I think aspiring leaders should understand the utility and drawbacks of different motivational methods as it would help the person in understanding the various influences and factors of motivation for implanting into the minds of the employees.

Potential Leadership Style

1. My potential leadership style

My possible leadership styles are democratic and Laissez-Faire style. Through a democratic form, I will take the opinion of people in making a decision, and through laissez-faire, I will give them liberty in some of their actions.

1. My key strengths

Some of my key advantages are integrity, empathy, ability to persuade and influence, and positivism. All these strengths are crucial for a person if he or she aspires to be a leader of the organization in the future.

1. My key challenges

Some of my key challenges are the inability to handle pressure in tough times, constant motivation, and feeling complicated people (Sari2019, April). These challenges might hinder my process of becoming a successful leader.

1. My personal development as a leader

Primarily, I will undertake a practice of discipline and develop situational awareness. These elements will help me overcome some of my challenges. I will also try to inspire others and communicate with complicated people to understand them in a better way.

Part 2: introduction

The overall study report has discussed the leadership concept of one of the largest leading coffee industry in the world named as Starbucks. However, the company had initially faced a lot of challenges as well as specific issues regarding sustainability. The process had been overcome a lot after Kevin Johnson stepped in as the CEO of this industry. The study will address the servant leadership technique that has been effective in improving the overall performance of the company. Kevin Johnson’s brand image had also been increased due to this factor, and the company had gone through successfully. Moreover, different sorts of ethical challenges will be addressed regarding the VUCA strategy, along with a suitable recommendation and conclusion as a whole.

Discussion

In the overall discussion part, the questions are answered.

Servant leadership style overview and its VUCA challenges

The concept of servant leadership technique had created a significant aspect in identifying the needs of others that have been generally based on different considerations. Thus to meet the organizational perspectives and to help the employees to achieve their required set of goals and activities, certain specific changes are highly needed in this regard. Furthermore, the concept had helped to create more trust and a stronger relationship between the employees and customers of Starbucks. Innovation had also played a significant role in this regard, and it had severely been improvising the overall operational change of this organization (Peters 2019).

Hence from the servant leadership concept, it is cleared that this technique is created to put the employees and customers in the first place rather than the overall business. Apart from this, the usage of democratic or transactional leadership style did not eventually focus on the employee perspective, and hence there had been vintage. However, these leadership techniques had been sourced as highly problematic in the case of hierarchical and other autocratic cultures where the managers lead the whole process. Hence servant leadership technique had been widely helpful in removing these concepts and driving towards the aspect of change management overall. Therefore the idea of servant leadership technique had generally focused on the people rather than a program.  Here people’s feelings are of high importance than the other market players. Unprecedented decision making can be worse for Starbucks in long term perspectives. Thus it is highly essential; to motivate the employees always in which best results or outputs can be generated in this regard.

VUCA challenges in the 21^st century

The VUCA environment had played an essential role in the 21^st century in driving the overall purpose of leadership as a whole. The organization had highly implemented all the leadership tools, techniques, and activities in this regard. Hence the metaphor is highly based on operation primarily based on the context of servant leadership technique. Thus an overall new set of activities is set to be implemented by Starbucks in this regard (McGee 2019). These are as follows-

Uncertainty concept

The uncertainty concept is dependent on certain premature constraints. It is mostly seen that all the organization had faced particular uncertainty based on the overall situations, as well as the global impact level, had also been quite uncertain. For example, in the servant leadership concept implied by Kevin Johnson, new and improved business ideas had correctly been crafted along with sure new partnership hands and meeting the tools of information overall. On the other hand, the data processing concept had also made the process better to understand (Polin 2019).

 Complexity aspect

The internal and external business aspects had seen in meeting and weakening the problems in the betterment of making certain excellent and useful decision-making aspects. This is a case of multiplicity change associated with the element of this servant leadership concept.

Ambiguity aspect

The ambiguity aspect has also been implemented in the context of VUCA techniques implied by Starbucks as a whole. This has a full mixed meaning based on its organizational environment. The achieved signs related to this VUCA technique based on certain specific situations have tried to work under systematic functioning based on its overall operational perspectives. Hence this process is also useful in setting up a bright tone in its generation of the outcome. Apart from Starbucks, this VUCA technique has also been widely applied to the European Union (Bryan, 2019).

Volatility concept

This concept has widely been implemented in the course of established routines. Thus on the verge of spreading magnitudes based on the overall utilization of its servant leadership concept, it can be said that the changes can be applied based on natural disasters or such other leadership concepts. Moreover, globalization is a fact that is associated with this context, and hence a consistency process has been lead towards the aspect of consumer awareness in the market volatility concept. However, from the operational perspectives of Starbucks, it can be said that the organization can also try to build up new and established ways to cover up all the changed scenarios (Stevens 2019).

Kevin Johnson leadership technique

Kevin Johnson, the CEO of Starbucks, had been recognized globally for his prolific way of operation and thinking perspectives in the betterment of the business of Starbucks. It has been seen that in the worst times of Starbucks, he had implied specific changes in the operational perspectives. The leadership style which Kevin Johnson had promoted for Starbucks had been termed a servant leadership concept (Reid 2019). in this concept, more emphasis had been provided on the customers and employees rather than the business itself. Greenleaf had discovered this theory in the year 1970, and it had helped understand the organizational goals overall. The central concept of this leading technology is to be capable enough to be working independently. Mr. Johnson had been highly experiencing in this regard since he had worked with Google for some time and even had worked with George Bush and ex-president Barrack Obama. Therefore he knows how to handle the crisis and how to implement new and improved techniques from the overall operational point of view of Starbucks so that the financial performance of the company gets improved in this regard. Thus in this leadership style, the leaders can effectively make the right decisions with the help of their followers and try to achieve its outcome by generating the best productivity from their employees. Therefore it can be said that this leadership style is highly effective from the organizational point of view concerning the operation of Starbucks. Hence certain specific characteristics have been followed by the company in this case (Reyes-Cruz 2019). This is as under-

Relationship

Kevin Johnson had tried to implement the concept of maintaining good relationships with their customers and employees well so that the workers always feel motivated to work there as well as the overall customer chain is also improved (Jukan 2019).

Collaboration and communication technique

Communication is considered to be one of the leading business operation strategies. Hence for Starbucks as well, the communication strategy had played an important part. Kevin Johnson ensured enough independence for the employees and tried to remove the communication barrier to the extent. On the other hand, they have also provided to build companionship in the advent of its supervisory and worked to maintain the cost efficiency technique as a whole. Thus all these factors have helped create certain positive vibes to the customers (Kleiner et al.2019).

Openness

Innovation is the main factor in which Starbucks had initially focused. For these reasons, Johnson ensured transparency among employees so that they can appreciate its change (Dhiman 2019).

Employees first

The servant leadership model always puts its emphasis on the aspect of giving priority to its employees. Therefore this leadership style implied by Kevin Johnson had considered being highly effective from the company operational perspectives (Stauffer 2019).

Discrimination

Kevin Johnson ensured no such discrimination among the employees under his leadership strategy. Hence it is essential to welcome the customers and an employee in a friendly manner, as well as no tolerance, which is supported in this case as a whole (Mishra and Dham  2019).

Ethical challenges

It is seen that the leadership strategy implied over Starbucks had been defined in both positive and negative sense. The first challenge that the company had face was to keep all the outlets running worldwide. It was also seen that some of the outlets were not at all, making money and running in losses. Hence he had to close those outlets. Apart from that, to ensure a friendly environment, he also tried tom imply specific recycle processes. Therefore all these smart decisions the company had to make to survive in this regard.

Another sort of challenge is the expansion strategy implied by the company worldwide. Although the management had to close a lot of outlets due to not making profits from those. Furthermore, due to registering thee trademark based on fair trade policy, the company had also been criticized highly and thus inclined a loss of 47 million in a year. Thus all these business issues had resulted in a proper significant decline in their overall operation perspectives as a whole.

Another challenge that is associated with the company is maintaining the product quality and trying to provide certain other benefits to its customers. Moreover, the company had also allowed its product awareness campaigns that can involve voluntary support from the organization (Lowe 2019).

Personal branding of Kevin Johnson

Kevin Johnson had been able to create a proper brand image across the world due to his situational and practical type of decision-making skills. However, he had been profoundly influencing the employees throughout his time to make them motivated in delivering the results. Thus he had been recognized as an eminent leader who stood for the wellbeing of the employees. During one of the interview process with Starbucks, he had emphasized how he changed the overall course of action and had implemented specific use of leadership skills to improve the whole business of this company. Moreover, the suggestions had also been highly useful for small scale industries to identify the critical aspects of running the market as a whole. Therefore according to Johnson, the eminent leaders need to make sure particular promises and always try to deliver the outcomes based on the overall business requirements (Nullen 2019).

Hence the brand image concept is different in different situations. There are different sets of beliefs that are needed to be carried out in this regard to take the business into new heights. Hence from Kevin Johnson, brand image is highly essential for the organization. On the other hand, he had also worked with specific eminent names like George Bush and ex-president Barrack Obama. Hence he knows how to handle the situations in a crisis period. His servant leadership style had also helped the organization to meet the business requirements and see performance improvisations (Reid 2019). Therefore his leadership skills had proven to be the best in this case, and according to the resources, he had been the best person to lead Starbuck’s operation (Wongkar et al.2019). Therefore Kevin Johnsons brand image had increased a lot due to the below aspects-

Assessing the situations

Mr. Johnson did not have the opportunity to check whether his actions have been implementing a positive outcome for the process of generating accurate results for the betterment of the task. Moreover, his emphasis has been immensely covered based on decision-making tools and making the best possible outcomes based on the techniques implied. Therefore the leadership stature process involved by the CEO of Starbucks had been expected to provide effective results on a long term perspective (Peters 2019).

Friendly nature

A friendly nature is always welcomed by the organization to generate effective results for the business as a whole. Thus a warm environment can try to enhance the overall business relationship and try to increase its employee productivity. The servant leadership concept, thus implied by the CEO of Starbucks, had also helped in creating a positive work atmosphere for the organization as a whole.

Authentication process

The authentication process is considered to be effective in meeting the overall business outputs of the organization in this regard. According to Mr. Johnson, for driving the company towards success, everybody needs to be on the same page. Hence distinctive individual personalities cannot nullify the best positive results for the organization as a whole. A leader needs to build up the right sort of image between his employees and clients so that a lot of issues can be done away with. Hence organizations facing all these sorts of problems can eventually try to outrage all the defined business prospects. Thus this technique is altogether perfect for maintaining a high brand image.

 Recommendations to Starbucks

Mr. Johnson, after taking the responsibility of Starbucks as a CEO, had implemented many new techniques that had eventually proved to be the best in different distinctive situations for the organization. His servant leadership concept had paved the way for business integrity and inclined certain positive business aspects. However, to grow their business to no small extent worldwide, there is a precise recommendation that has been chalked to implement specific effects in this way (Yau 2019). These are as follows-

Enhancement of operation management

The overall layout and the inventory management had implemented the idea of global and local business context. On the other hand, the whole sales valuation process can try to improve the efficiency in operation management as a whole. Furthermore, it can be said that the process can be undoubtedly helpful in understanding the overall productivity based on global chain management. Hence the process of operational management concept had been immensely useful in developing the whole business generating results for inclining a process.  Therefore the aspect of enhancement of executive management is surely being recommended to Kevin Johnson.\

Innovation and development

Innovation and developmental elements have been considered to be implemented based on specific development criteria related to the operational perspectives of Starbucks. It can be said that a right sort of friendly nature, as well as innovation, can be held valid for the company shareholders and investors. The company is thinking of implementing the rapid developmental constrains for the organizations and this purpose; change can be caused as the best medicine. The customers can also generate a real opportunity to experience the product and showcase their interest to make sure that the company is trying their heart out to meet the customer’s needs. In this way, the customers can be driven positively in this case.

Conclusion

From the overall study topic, it can be concluded that Kevin Johnson had been able to develop the required changes for the organization. His servant, leadership style approach, had brought the best out of the employees in terms of increasing productivity, maintaining a friendly nature between the employees and customers as well as trying to improve the overall financial performance of the company. These positive changes have helped let the brand image of the CEO. Apart from this aspect, from an organizational point of view, it can also be said that the entire brand image is dependent upon the way to manage the business aspects. Lastly, the recommendations have been appropriately addressed as well here.

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