Essay Example on Leadership Excellence: A Case Study on Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix

Introduction

Leadership style influences all key areas within the country or an organization. To be a leader one has to believe that they are headed somewhere and they can influence people to move along with their agenda. This influence may not be enough but it has to be measured in such a way to show progress. Therefore a leader leading others must have the capacity to examine his level of influence.

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Reed Hastings has been the CEO of Netflix Company and as a leader of the company, there were challenges that came along with their plans in the development of a good work program. They were forced to lay off some staff to get rid of the work congestion but this was a very tough choice to make. How as a manager of the company there are some of the things that are to be done in order to prepare and let the company operate in a quality way. (KOSS,2020, pp.12,24)

Having been astonished by the kind of feedback response after laying off some staff, it was so surprising that more work was being done than ever before. This made the workers more energized and passionate about their service delivery to the company. Therefore, it was my realization that talent is a big destiny to the success of keeping and boosting the performance of the workers as well as transforming the organization. (FLINT,2020 pp.76-88)

Leadership is one of the most significant and outstanding qualities that many people strive to balance. Many people say that leaders are born while others say that leaders are trained. However, from my experience as a leader.

Leadership is all about creating an influence in the lives of those whom you are leading. It revolves around making other people also become better leaders. I would wish to such a leader who quickly identifies and recognizes the strengths and weaknesses of those they lead and motivates them to become better individuals.

Personal Attributes and Values

One of the values that has been as beneficial to me as a leader first is integrity. Integrity helps me do the right thing even when no one is seeing me. Besides integrity makes me treat people equally. Honesty is also important to me as a leader in both in-class environments, and community, and religious organizations. Honesty helps in building trust and courage when people trust you, you are likely to have good observation and more feedback from people (LOISULIE, 2017 pp 1-9). They even trust me with some of their privacies that they wouldn't wish anyone else to. When this is attained then I came to realize that it has made an impact on some people's lives. This is true leadership. Besides, other beneficial qualities are being courageous, temperate, and listening to my people.

Therefore, from my leadership qualities, I have tried to modify and motivate other people to define their qualities and nurture them. A leader is someone who does more for the people they lead. They have to be driven by the right motives making positive impacts on the people they lead. Concerning my leadership assessment, a leader is someone who can see how things need to be improved and move towards achieving a certain goal and objective (SATTAR, 2016 pp23-29)

Environmental Influence

Apart from having a strong foresight of what I want, I am very creative in thinking and analytical and ready to adapt to any change as well as take possible risks. The success of my leadership can also be contributed by the ability to hire people who have better and superior skills. Being a visionary leader, I also consider failure as someone who has given up. (Göker & Bozkus, 2015 pp1-20)

Besides, I am a very visionary leader I tend to think that the current situation is not enough to make me a better person or the people I lead but instead, I would prefer that when we see the challenges that we are facing right now then we will be able to lay down foundations from the future. A visionary person sees the future and prepares for it.

Having a high passion for my job and with a lot of integrity, respect, and confidence in my fellow team, we can achieve much. As a leader, I also consider involving the employees or my workmates in the decision-making process and take their opinions into consideration which many other leaders fail to do.

I would wish also to lead people by working with them and participating in the activities they are doing. In so doing I feel that I am in a position to understand some of the ground issues that are going on and also make my team feel confident. On several occasions, I have heard people tell me I am a leader who knows his people and what they want. But besides they tell me I am very short angered. My anger does not take long and so they prefer it so. It's normal as a leader to get angry but I don't want my anger to cause division with my employees or workmates. (CAREER GUIDE, 2020 pp3-7)

Heredity

Leadership is a skill that is learned over time depending on the practice and the environment that we live in. The environment plays a very critical role in determining the type of a leader you are and for this reason, the skills are fully put into practice and the result can be seen thereafter. However, the strength of good leadership has been attributed to some leadership qualities that are genetic from the parent (KOSS,2020 pp 12,24). My father was a renowned organizational leader whose prowess and acumen drove him to be one of the senior managers. Therefore, to some extent, it’s possible to relate this instance together with the potential in my practice.

Environment and hereditary factors have played a significant role in the success of my leadership practice and for this reason, it’s possible to identify yourself with the people whom you are leading.

Emotions

Many people have commented about my anger and approach sometimes when things are not normal. They seem to be unhappy with it. I, therefore, take this challenge to work on my areas of weakness. I need to train my language and eloquence. It's what many people have told me to do. Besides I consider the feedback as a way of improving my weaknesses and building on them. Others have told me that I am too emotional sometimes and so this is one of the aspects that I also wish to overcome. I also need to train more on how to empower people who have better qualities and abilities to become better leaders of tomorrow. (THENARAJ, 2016 pp 32-49)

Dealing with Workers

Reed’s leadership strengths are to connect with people and this requires a lot of interpersonal skills. The use of humor and fun were just some of the tactics he used to use to engage the audience. Therefore, as a leader currently or in the future, these are some of the key areas to highlight in terms of leadership success. The assessment developed by people who analyzed the trick to achieve success was merely such simple things (SATTAR, 2016,pp23-29)

The approach that Reed has used in performing duties by delegating tasks was very important. He trained people to work with him and not for him. In so doing he trained many people to be potential leaders and business-minded. This is the most efficient way to ensure the tasks are performed. Many leaders fail to use the delegation approach because of their fears and personality differences. It’s important to delegate duties because it does not only imply completing tasks but also improves the skills of the workers.

Netflix believes that for the company to continue attracting and retaining its workers then they have to pay more than anyone else or other companies that may be offering the same services. This means offering money to people more than they can even expect or ask for in the process of seeking a position. (Goncalves, 2018,pp 123-129)

The company has been considered to have the capacity to treat its employees as adults. As the company CEO, I have sometimes been in shock to find out that there is information leakage from the senior management team. For instance, recently a team of 400 managers has been under question for passing some information regarding the salaries and information systems of the company to non-members.

Such actions create absurd feelings for people and it reveals a lot concerning the level of maturity and commitment to service. As the CEO, I normally contend that some information should not just be delivered without proper management consultation and communication through the relevant authorities. Therefore, I usually feel that having management privacy is very important. When some information reaches the employees, they develop some higher sense of ownership and responsibility as well decision making which may be good but can be detrimental to the success of the management affairs at large. (VENKATRAMAN, 2016, pp32-46).

Leadership Style and Motive

As a leader of the Netflix Company, there are several styles and motives that drives me to the score of the company’s goals and objectives.

Develop a mission.

Being a tenacious leader, we can learn that it’s important to know what we want and sand chase the goals. In my writing, it is quoted that “the lessons we learned were the very foundations of much better success at the Netflix Company”. This was our road to success. (VENKATRAMAN, 2016,pp32-46).

Creating a diversified unity makes it more successful. This improves trust levels between the stakeholders and the skill of work expertise due to common good and cohesion among the workers. This is a very important policy and can serve a better purpose.

Every leader who needs improvement must consider hiring superior skills. They should also train their growing skills to achieve expertise.

There has been some level of contention within the Netflix Company. Some of the managers suggested that we allow the contents to be accessible on the download option. This was an idea that I never thought was going to be productive for the company. Members like Todd Yellin and Neil Hunt were very passionate about this to the extent that they saw an objective that was going to drive the mission of the company better than I saw. However, when they sorted for a feasibility study in India and Germany concerning movies and videos that people watch often the study revealed that the two countries were operating on a download mechanism of videos and watching them later. (HECKL, 2018,Pp.10-14)

However, after conducting a feasibility study in two countries that is India and Germany, they realized that about 70% of the population depends on the use of systems for downloading movies and watching later. This study was found to have been obtaining some root of success to the people of the current generation and so was a good aspect to consider and invest on. Mr. Yelling having given further advice made me understand the need for Netflix to do its marketing overseas and set the option of video download to reach many and multiple people across the globe. This made me give a green light to the idea and I can boldly say this has been fruitful in the long run Netflix is making Billions of dollars from the video download. This made me learn something it’s good as a leader to never be rigid to change but accept new ideas, improvise, and carry out research and effect. It never disappoints if the intentions and the objectives are clear. (FLINT, 2020, pp 75-88).

If we consider the strengths that we observed during his time of management then we can conclude that Netflix focused on a mission and not money. In so doing money was self-generating. Many leaders fail a lot because they focus on getting the money first instead of the mission; a leader should also know what they want and what the business of the business is all about; bonding with philanthropic responsibilities and culture improves leadership qualities; empowering people to achieve success; having no enemies.