The Effective Leader Andrew Carnegie free essay sample

Leadership effectiveness report – Andrew Carnegie In this report, I will introduce an effective leader Andrew Carnegie, a famous entrepreneur who led the steel industry to expanse and develop in whole America in the late 19th century. This Scottish-American man achieved in being the richest industrialist in early 20th century by starting his first job as a bobbin factory worker, after years of effort, he built his Carnegie Steel Company, which later on merged with Federal Steel Company and several small companies to form the U. service writing in military S. Steel. In U. S. , together with the â€Å"Petroleum Emperor† Rockefeller, â€Å"Auto Emperor† Ford and other famous tycoons, the â€Å"Steel Magnate† Andrew Carnegie maintained the place of world’s largest steel company and almost monopolized the whole industry in America for decades. After making huge success in his business, he chose to donate almost his all fortune to philanthropy and turned interest to education. Undoubtedly Andrew Carnegie became the hero of American and led them to achieve enterprise goals According to John Gardner’s book On Leadership, nine roles and tasks of leadership was listed, which include envisioning goals, affirming values, motivating, managing, achieving workable unity, explaining, serving as a symbol representing the group and renewing. In this section, the reasons for why Andrew Carnegie is an effective leader will be provided. Envisioning goals As an effective leader, he or she must have the ability to create a vision, identify goals and provide solutions to problems. In 1863 the civil war fueled the iron industry and after the war was over, Andrew Carnegie resigned from the Pennsylvania Railway because he saw the potential in this field during the war. The reason why Carnegie turned to devote his life in to steel industry and then earned his fortune was that he not only focused on the present but also looked into the future and envisioned goals. Serving as a symbol Perhaps the most obvious and significant role to be an effective leader is serving as a symbol. On one hand, it is certain that Carnegie was the greatest leader and symbol of the steel industry. For what he had been contributed to the development and expansion, Carnegie was the Steel Emperor in American history undoubtedly. On the other hand, no one can deny he was also a symbol for serving as generous philanthropist among the rich. After Carnegie sold all his steel holdings to J. P. Morgan, he turned to hammer at building libraries, funding to schools. Everything he did was the reflection of his leadership and his steel industry. Renewing There is no doubt that Andrew owned the ability of renewing. Before civil war, Andrew Carnegie quitted his job and invested all his assets to build his first company Keystone Bridge Works in 1862. However, since from July 4, 1863, the both sides of the civil war began using the warships, Carnegie realized how important the steel is. Once he travelled to Europe, Andrew was inspired by Henry Bessemer’s breakthrough technology of making steel. Since then he devoted his entire mind to the iron business after coming back to America. Through this transform, it believes that Andrew Carnegie was challenging the status quos and encouraging the responsiveness to change. Motivating In 1898, Andrew Carnegie wrote his book â€Å"The Gospel of Wealth†, in which he advanced the notion that the rich should use their resources and wealth to help and enrich society. Two year later, he accepted J. P. Morgan’s offer which he would buy all his steel holdings for the price of $480 million dollars. Since then he began to devote his energies to philanthropy especially on education. The major philanthropic contribution includes funding for the establishment of more than 2,800 libraries, Carnegie Hero Fund Commission (1904), Carnegie Endowment for the Advancement of Teaching (1905) and so on. According to John Gardner’s leadership roles of motivating, Carnegie motives the people from two ways: the young are motivated to achieve their life goals and the rich are motivated to contribute the wealth to society. In order to know more about the leadership style and behavior of Andrew Carnegie, using behavior approach to analysis is a good choice since behavioral basis for researching leadership shows that some certain leadership behaviors are more effective than others in various situations. The next I will use two different leadership models to discuss. At first, according to the Likert’s systems model, there are four systems developed from factors of concern for people and concern for production, which respectively are autocratic, benevolent, participative and democratic. And Carnegie belonged to the participative leader. It must be pointed out that Carnegie owned most his success to that he had employed a group of talents that were skillful and also knew how to manage. He concerned on people and trusted them, but also kept control of decisions. Besides, the Leadership Grid developed by Blake and Mouton is also a useful model to analysis Carnegie’s leadership behavior and style. During the way Carnegie led steel industry to expanse and develop, his style on the grid is nearly (9, 9), a kind of â€Å"team management† style. Nowadays, people often quoted one of his famous saying: if I ruin all my plant equipment, materials, as long as keep my whole class people, I will still be a steel emperor a few years later. As it is known to us all, Andrew Carnegie is the Steel Magnate of 20th century and also a great and respected philanthropist. It is undeniably that his fortune, achievement and philanthropy contributing vastly to the American society . Through his recipe to successful leadership roles that include fostering the process of renewal, the eloquent explaining ability, serving as symbol and motivating spirit, which fit the theories of John Gardner’s leadership roles and tasks, Andrew Carnegie was fully worthy of an effective leader.