Organizational Change

A great body of research exists that suggests that organizations can effect changes, whereas others suggested that organizations tend to are victims of inertia. Bill Gates has been the topic of more research papers than any executive in current history. It can be said that his company Microsoft has helped create the computer age.

In this analysis, the theory of a charismatic leader is applied to Bill Gates. His management style is analyzed within the framework established by leadership theorist Conger who suggests that a charismatic leader is one who has both vision and strategy. Gates himself is quoted from his Playboy interview, as well as concepts and ideas from his 1995 book, The Road Ahead. The analysis concludes with recommendations that would be made to Gates, should the opportunity arise.

BILL GATES: A CLASSIC CHARISMATIC LEADER

It has become increasingly clear that the concept of leadership has drawn heightened attention from scholars and management theorists. The primary literature concerns essays and theories about transformational leadership, usually divided into categories such as visionary, or charismatic (Conger, 1989). It is generally agreed that the main goal of strategic leadership calls for the leader to create the strategy and the form of an organization. In Conger's view, the charismatic leader is defined by his foresight and vision (Conger, 1989).

Conger could have been writing about Gates, whose foresight and vision

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es surprisingly Fayolistic in its Third Phase "Development." Both Fayol and Gates call this process management. This eliminates the well-known problems that plague some project developments, including: (a) The project turning into something it wasn't designed to be; The project taking too long to develop and costing too much; (c) Someone adding more features; (d) The project is complete, on budget, but now its not needed anymore. This phase is typified by the Scope Complete/First test milestone. Gates as a Leader If this is the way Microsoft purports to operate, and since Bill Gates does run the company, then it can be assumed that Gates is the chief management force. Workers at Microsoft claim that Gates is a believer in MBWA, or "management by walking around." Gates himself attributes this to his inability to stay in one place for very long (Gates, 1995, 23). Much of this is attributed to the historical fact that Gates is Microsoft. It was a software company that was built around DOS, an acronym for Disc Operating System. What Gates and his partners did was create a system that would tell computers what to do. DOS was an invention that IBM thought might work, and offered Gates a buyout. Gates turned it down, whic

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