When it comes to the successful leader the name of Bill Gates will come in the first place. Bill Gates is an American business magnate, investor, author, and philanthropist. He born October 28, 1955. Bill Gates and Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft in 1975 which has become the largest PC software. During his career, he got the positions of chairman, CEO and chief software architect, and was the largest individual shareholder of Microsoft which continued until May 2014. Gates is currently the richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$86.9 billion as of April 2017. Bill Gates dropped out of school and then he was pursuing his dream which he could not do within the classroom. Maybe he cannot be a perfect example for the youth but his successful story definitely is.
Today as the no.1 billionaire in the world, there is no question about his leadership qualities and skills. As a CEO of world’s one of the largest technology companies, there is no doubt about his leadership style as well. He is currently in pole position in the race to become the first trillionaire leader in the world.
Leadership Qualities, Skills, and Style of Bill Gates
Some of his leadership qualities and skills are being discussed here.
Working Tirelessly: Gates’ most powerful leadership quality is he is so active. He knows very well success would not come overnight unless and until work hard. But he knew working tirelessly would bring success for sure. He spent many years by working in his garage, developing coding and programming, and learning how to create a solution with global reach. He worked endless hours. Even after Microsoft started gaining success, Bill Gates worked long days and nights on understanding the target audience and developing the products that would speak to their business, education and consumer needs.
Looking Forward: No matter what happens, Bill Gates continues to look forward. Despite his phenomenal success, he had to fight with anti-trust litigation claiming that Microsoft was a monopoly. He always prefers to focus on future rather than be distracted by present challenges.
Growing and Learning: His another powerful leadership quality is the more he’s grown up, the more learns. After landing billionaire lists several times, it would be easy for Gates to become prideful or think he knows it all but he is not that way. he is well known for his wisdom in seeking council from other successful persons. He often tells that he learns a lot from Warren Buffet. Gates once commented that Buffett has a “brilliant way of looking at the world.”
Having Vision: Bill Gates’ another leadership quality and skill is he is a leader with possessing great vision. His vision was to pursue the creation of a graphical interface that became Microsoft software. Looking back to his interviews about the development of Microsoft, Gates says he always wanted to have more than a single product.
Stays Focused: The reason of being a successful leader is he is always focused on one thing which is Software rather than focusing on multiple things. All over his life, he was stuck with it and worked hard to dominate the market with it.
Thinks Big: Gates is a visionary leader and he loves to think big. It encourages him to dream big not for himself but also for his company. This quality led to great success in everything that he does.
Cares about People: Despite being the topmost billionaire in the world, Bill Gates is a philanthropist and a humanitarian who always cares for the less privileged parts of the world. He was one of the 1% that gave away a majority of their wealth for good causes.
Stimulates Intellect and Creativity: Without the intellect & creativity, Microsoft would not be this much successful. Bill Gates stimulates this intellect and creativity. Without the help of Bill Gates, his employees would not be able to be creative and intellectual and run this great company.
Cares about Environment: Bill Gates recently announced that he would be heading up a fund worth more than $1bn to fight climate change by investing in new ways of producing clean energy. He also announced that he will lead a group of investors whose combined wealth totals some $170bn, including Richard Branson, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Jack Ma of Alibaba.
Leadership Skills of Bill Gates
Building Confidence in Employees: Confidence is the foundation for successful leaders. Moreover, building confidence in someone else is a great skill for any leader. By this skill, Bill Gates improved his employees’ work and performance in the company. In this way, employees find their confidence & passion to complete their tasks and take the company to the highest peak of success according to Bill Gates. He says it makes no sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do. Rather he hires smart people so that they can tell him what to do. Bill Gates embraces different ideas and different ways of doing things proposed by his fellow employees. With the help of this skill, Bill Gates has made his company one of the most successful ones in the world.
Being Open to Receiving Feedback: Like the other successful leaders, Bill Gates admires customer feedback as an important factor when it comes to expanding the industry by giving a competitive service. He always looks for constant opportunities on growing his business by listening to customers’ responses. He always follows how customers accept the new Microsoft products and how the products serve in the market. He later incorporates all the feedback in his next products to get better results. To him, this skill will help one to stay top of the market and survive in the evolving market.
Possessing Positivity Skill: Bill Gates is a leader of possessing positivity skills. Microsoft’s present dominance in the market has happened because they always emphasized the learning from their mistakes. Bill Gates always keeps the company positive under any circumstances. Many users have a disagreement about Microsoft’s products and some of their product editions fared poorly in the competitive market. Against all the odds, Bill Gates has been adamant about learning from these mistakes, and every time he managed to come up with a billion-dollar idea to solve each of the problems.
Other leadership qualities & skills of Bill Gates include –
- He follows a long-term approach
- Constantly evolving
- Helping others by giving back
- High in integrity
He has become a famous leader not only for his leadership qualities and skills but also for his leadership styles. Bill Gates follows Autocratic Leadership since he is competent and knowledgeable enough to decide about each and everything. He also follows Transformational Leadership style as he tries to appeal to employee’s emotions through motivation and support. He also possesses Visionary Leadership & Strategic Leadership styles.
Anyone who wants to lead can do so but the key is to not to lose key leadership qualities. Great leaders like Bill Gates are successful because of not losing those key qualities which enable success. His qualities and achievements surely set a great example for the rising leaders.
Related: Leadership Qualities, Skills and Styles of Anne M. Mulcahy & Leadership Qualities, Skills, and Type of Michael Bloomberg
REFERENCES:
- entrepreneur.com/article/250607
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates
- independent.co.uk/news/people/bill-gates-three-skills-essential-success-future-job-market-employment-promotion-a7492411.html
Sadnan is one of the top contributors of The Strategy Watch, he has been actively contributing since 2017 as a Content Analyst; He has finished his graduation from North South University with a dual major in Accounting & Finance. As a contributor, he has written for different topics including Leadership Styles and Qualities, Finance, and Economics. He also has a strong interest in SWOT & PESTLE Analysis and Marketing Strategy.