Howard Schultz Leadership Style Research Paper Sample

A Leadership Lesson From Howard Schultz

The present report provides the target readers with an outline of the leadership principles used by Howard Schultz at his Starbucks Company. The objective of the study is to understand the reason of success that he managed to achieve based on his personal qualities and professional qualifications. The study covers the best leadership styles used by Howard Schultz in the workplace.

According to the leadership lessons learned from the CEO of Starbucks, the power of leadership applies in every company, depending on the individual characteristics of business executives. It is also characteristic of Starbucks’ leadership practices that allow Howard Schultz to lead his employees to extraordinary results. The idea is to unleash the power within every single employee and apply it to achieve the business objectives.

The research discusses the implications of the best leadership practices, such as transformational leadership style. Howard Schultz takes advantage of this particular leadership approach since it helps him manage the personnel by empowering people in the workplace. In this respect, his intention is to help the employees understand their personal goals and align them with the corporate ones.

As a result, the employees strive to learn and gain new skills while working hard at Starbucks. At the same time, Howard Schultz helps them advance their personal qualities and professional competencies while working at his company. By applying the transformational leadership approach, Howard Schultz assists people in unleashing their true potential, thereby contributing to the enterprise with their daily efforts.

The study explains that the leadership competencies of people are essential for helping the company grow in the geometrical progression. Thus, the topic of leadership becomes pressing irrespective of the place where the leaders apply the best leadership practices. The idea is to take advantage of the substantial knowledge of the most influential leaders of today. In fact, the best leadership principles apply in every country despite the race or gender issues.

The leaders all over the world could take advantage of the transformational leadership style and advance the characteristics of people in the workplace. The latter relates to the recommendations of the top leaders who make use of the best leadership practices. It also includes the studies of the human resources, corporate culture, relations with the stakeholders, and many other organizational prospects of international business.

Such an approach to the leadership power is critical for Howard Schultz. It makes sense since it helped him transform his mind and lead Starbucks to the global level of professionalism. The use of the transformational leadership style is a foundation for the substantial expertise of Starbucks in the international target market. The ideas of Howard Schultz apply in the context of creating a new paradigm of empowering employees towards extraordinary achievements in the workplace.

Howard Schultz’s approach refers to the leadership perceptions that Starbucks employees use every single day. The primary purpose of using leadership competencies is to help people become more competitive in everything they do in the workplace. It refers to the delivery of both products and services at Starbucks Company. In addition, Howard Schultz strives to provide his employees with enough freedom so that they could demonstrate their unique capabilities. Thus, the company could achieve success in its target niche due to the ability of the employees to perform their obligations in the workplace.

The Power of Leadership

The power of leadership is the incentive that people put in everything they do every day. The idea is to achieve their stated goals by understanding the message to bring to the target audience. Many successful leaders of the 21st century know that no business could operate efficiently without proper leadership in place. For this reason, many companies all over the world invest in people who continually develop their leadership skills in the workplace (McGregor, 2016).

The fundamentals of the best contemporary leadership strategies correspond to the exposure of human talents, skills, personal qualities, and professional competencies. The best leadership styles help people discover their inner strengths and apply them to their work. For this reason, it makes sense to recruit only the employees with high ambitions and willingness to achieve extraordinary results. In fact, the core leadership purpose is to generate new leaders and apply their personal and professional characteristics to enhance the business offers (Wolfe, 2013).
The same approach goes for the management and leadership of Starbucks based on the considerations of its founder and SEO, Howard Schultz. The present research examines the best leadership principles of the 21st century and their application at Starbucks. Howard Schultz plays a significant role in the global development of the company, wherein he utilizes his best leadership styles to advance the working process. The purpose is to increase the self-awareness of the employees and help them see their talents and ambitions applied in the workplace (Schultz, & Gordon, 2012).

Howard Schultz encourages his employees to become more professional while working at his company all over the world. He helps them improve both their personal qualities and professional qualifications. The purpose is to enhance the quality of the Starbucks brand, which is essential for putting the company on the list of Fortune 500. The study addresses the history and background of Howard Schultz, with particular emphasis on his leadership competencies. It also covers the best leadership practices used by Starbucks in an effort to become one of the leading companies in the target marketplace (Cooke, 2013).

History and Background of Howard Schultz

Howard Schultz is an ideal example of self-made billionaires. He is an entrepreneur from the United States who is a CEO and Chairman of a well-known company Starbucks. He also used to be one of the Board Directors at Square, Inc. In addition, Howard Schultz co-founded an investment company known as Maveron. The combined efforts of Howard Schultz made Forbes magazine put him on the list of the richest people in the United States. As of 2016, Howard Schultz’s net worth is nearly three billion dollars (Denning, 2016).

Howard Schultz is a global leader of Starbucks who promotes healthy relationships between different races and genders. He helps young generations interreact equally in the workplace while delivering high-quality products and services all over the world. The vast majority of his employees have an opportunity to obtain a degree at local universities and advance their careers while working at Starbucks (Rigby, 2011).
The origin of such leadership is the hometown of Brooklyn where the family had no insurance but low salary, which made it difficult to pay the bills. The next step of Howard Schultz’s growth was Northern Michigan University and a football scholarship. Later, he purchased Starbucks and put emphasis on its social change while the company generated value to the target audience (Byrne, 2011).

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Leadership Implications

The choice of effective leadership styles is critical today because many companies face difficulties while striving to achieve success. The subject of leadership is also necessary due to its ability to reflect the individual concerns of people, one of which is to lead people on the road to success. In many cases, leadership potential is the opportunity to become recognized by the target audience. In this respect, it helps people add more value to the lives of others in the target market (Gallo, 2013).

Leadership skills help entrepreneurs achieve success in their businesses by directing people on the way to making a fortune. However, it is important to use mainly the leadership approaches that add the most value to people by empowering their hidden talents and competencies. As a result, the target customers could take advantage of many different products, such as those offered at Starbucks (Starbucks, 2016).

The practical knowledge of leadership applies while implementing a business start-up or continuing with an existing business project. The leadership skills are necessary to operate efficiently in the modern environment. Moreover, leadership is about helping people achieve their goals. However, it makes more sense when the leaders employ this characteristic of employees towards improving the products and services of the company (Hess, 2010).

Many successful companies have already achieved success merely due to the leadership competencies of their owners. Starbucks is one of the businesses where the employees gain knowledge and skills to unleash their strongest qualities and professional qualifications. The leadership power is what helps active managers guide their teams in the most efficient ways, which results in the accomplishment of both personal goals and business aims (Lebowitz, 2016).

It is important to acknowledge that the leadership power has a great positive impact on people. It applies irrespective of the circumstances affecting any particular events. As a rule, while using leadership principles in the workplace, many issues arise, especially in the sphere of legal and cultural dimensions. The application of the best leadership practices helps people negotiate all the relevant issues in both cultural relations and legal environments. The idea is to understand the relevance of leadership traits and apply them to the real-life scenarios (Kaplan, 2014).

The members of different countries apply the leadership principles depending on their leadership styles. Nevertheless, it makes sense to understand the needs of the target audience and use the best instruments that could help people achieve their results in the best possible ways. The vast majority of issues are relevant to the leadership best practices in the context of different continents and countries, including North America, Europe, the UAE, and other nations (Starbucks News, 2016).

Besides, the implications of the leadership issues make great sense in the studies dealing with the human resources in the world leading organizations. The purpose is to add more value to all the stakeholders involved in the organizational process. The real leaders could achieve such objectives by helping people take the initiative and accomplish their goals. The leadership styles that usually apply in most successful practices aim at encouraging people uncover their inner potential. To achieve success, the leaders in place strive to reveal the internal motivation by helping people grow as both personalities and professionals of their favorite businesses (Starbucks, 2016).

The leadership position of Howard Schultz is an excellent approach to running a contemporary business. The application of the best leadership practices helps the companies function efficiently in the workplace. However, the success of the leadership application depends on a particular style of business owners. In many cases, the top global companies take advantage of the transformational leadership style. The same is true about Starbucks and the leadership style of Howard Schultz applied in the workplace (McGregor, 2016).

It is important since it helps the employees be oriented on their tasks while, at the same time, seeking to achieve their goals. It presupposes the use of the best leadership practices that directly relate to the most favorable leadership paradigms. The position of every effective leader is to help its employees operate independently while simultaneously meeting the business objectives. The idea is to empower the employees work on their own while interacting with other staff in managing their daily duties (Schultz, & Gordon, 2012).

The position of Howard Schultz applies the lessons he learned from the most influential leadership minds of the 21st century. One of his favorite role models was Steve Jobs and the entrepreneurs teaching leadership classes at Harvard Business School. Based on the lessons of Howard Schultz about leadership, the executives should pay attention to inspiring and encouraging their employees. However, the mistake of many contemporary leaders is their wrong focus on the financial metrics and sales (Wolfe, 2013).

Howard Schultz explains that the position of leadership stems from the ability of leaders to motivate their employees for extraordinary achievements. It also makes sense to use innovations to advance the contemporary working processes. Such position of the brand development helps the companies operate successfully in the global marketplace. The purpose is to take advantage of all the combined experiences of the personnel while allowing them to challenge themselves for success in the workplace. Such a model of leadership is one of the most preferred by many current leaders, including Howard Schultz (Denning, 2016).

The implications of leadership are vital for addressing the aspects of the organizational administration through the approach of mentoring and coaching people. It is especially imperative for the global corporations that need to scale their businesses in the international context. The employees have to be in the right position of mind to achieve high results. In this respect, the leadership competencies of Howard Schultz help his employees work by employing their conscience and talents (Cooke, 2013).

At the same time, according to the teachings of Howard Schultz, leadership is essential for making the employees responsible for everything they do in the workplace. It includes their engagement in the corporate community that aligns with their individual abilities for making progress in their field of work. The application of the best leadership practices helps people embrace their strongest competencies towards the achievement of the business objectives (Byrne, 2011).

In fact, while working in such corporate atmosphere, many employees strive to demonstrate their unique leadership competencies. In succession, such incentives result in the growth of new leaders and, consequently, in the faster development of the employees’ skills. Howard Schultz tries to use transformational leadership principles to advance the experiences of people since it is necessary to deliver higher results and achieve the largest shareholders’ value (Rigby, 2011).

The use of the transformational leadership perceptions corresponds to the ideas of Howard Schultz about Starbucks. He claims that the company could successfully operate without his direct engagement in the working process since the organizational structure is based on the emotional beliefs of people. The employees believe in their leader and are willing to work for the good of their business despite the difficulties and challenges of the global marketplace. In this regard, the transformational nature of people helps Howard Schultz lead his employees based on their feelings and corporate messages addressed to the public (Starbucks, 2016).

Howard Schultz and his understanding of the transformational leadership reflect the business culture of the Starbucks Company. The perceptions of the entrepreneurial culture that exist in line with the transformational leadership practices help Howard Schultz also manage the operations in the international market. Besides, the company views their leader as the founder who embraces the ideas of delivering more value to the target customers. Thus, the products and services of the company are close to being flawless, which is quite important in the target industry (Gallo, 2013).

The leadership strategies of Howard Schultz incorporate the transformational leadership style that guides people towards success in the target niche. At the same time, Howard Schultz takes advantage of the democratic leadership style that helps him benefit from the employees’ opinions while implementing the best leadership practices. The objective of using the transformational leadership along with the insights of democratic human nature is to make better business decisions. It proves to be effective since the growth of the Starbucks Company is entirely the responsibility of its leader (Lebowitz, 2016).

Consistent with his professional experience, Howard Schultz’s transformational leadership combined with democratic insights also takes advantage of human motivation and moral principles. The application of the transformational leadership style helps Howard Schultz successfully run a global brand. As there is a leader empowering all the team members, the latter are rather active. It refers to the personality of every single employee and the leadership vision of the company overall (Hess, 2010).

Such an approach to the transformational leadership style helps Howard Schultz make the business operations more personal in nature, which, in turn, helps the employees increase their productivity in the workplace. Besides, the use of the transformational leadership style assists the leader in gaining the trust and respect of his employees. In other words, all the employees of the Starbucks Company admire Howard Schultz and his business mission. As the staff of the company has a common goal, they are ready to make their individual contribution to the work of the enterprise (Kaplan, 2014).

Howard Schultz’s conception of transformational leadership refers to the use of certain triggers for the employees’ motivation that leads to a higher performance in the workplace. It includes the intellectual stimulation of employees, considering the challenge of the status quo, as well as inspiring people to become more creative at work. Howard Schultz also believes in the individualized consideration of his employees. He strives to engage them while supporting their incentives and personalized efforts on the job (Starbucks, 2016).

As a result, Howard Schultz increases the feedback of his employees and improves the corporate communication between all the organization’s stakeholders. The goal is to put people in the position to follow the directions of their leaders and contribute to the company with their efforts and time. It also involves inspirational motivation towards setting a clear vision of the business growth and the idealized influence of a single leader. Thus, Howard Schultz becomes a role model for his personnel, which ultimately leads to both trust and respect that eventually result in the favorable position of the company in the target marketplace (Starbucks News, 2016).

Howard Schultz applied the principles of the transformational style by considering the individual feedback of employees at work. He was attentive to the thoughts and ideas of the employees concerning the development of Starbucks. As a leader, Howard Schultz contemplates about the quality of all the internal and external operations of the company. His role was to empower the employees to achieve an individual position in improving the quality of their daily activities. The key to success was to determine the values of the employees by allowing them to act with flexibility across all the organizational processes. Overall, the combination of the organizational goals and personalized ideas of Howard Schultz established a driving force that leads the Starbucks Company to success in the international target market (McGregor, 2016).

Recommendations of Howard Schultz

Howard Schultz represents a contemporary leader who is on the list of the fifty greatest leaders of today. Based on his professional experience, there are seven primary recommendations that the current leaders could apply in their professional leadership practice (Starbucks News, 2016). Refer to the detailed explanation of these leadership traits below:

Employ the right people

Howard Schultz is a successful leader who stands behind the Starbucks Company. The leadership competencies of the top managers make no sense without the right people hired to work for the good of the company. Every successful leader should practice his or her best leadership styles every single day. Otherwise, the competencies of leadership become less efficient and lead to poor business results. Therefore, it is important to educate oneself and push the company forward continually. Also, the leaders of the 21st century should challenge their employees to aim for success (Denning, 2016).

The purpose is to inspire them to use their intuition and professional skills. At the same time, it is important to motivate people to work harder than they used to encourage them for their personal achievements. Such an approach to employing people serves as inspiration to succeed in business. The key to success in the productive employment and retention strategies refers to the efficient communication that helps people convey their messages to the target audience. As a result, the whole team works towards achieving success in the workplace, with all the employees striving to deliver more value to the target customers. Consequently, they manage to generate more sales and reach higher annual revenues all the time (Starbucks, 2016).

Become consistent while offering business products and services

Howard Schultz considers such an approach as the most significant one that helped Starbucks establish more than twenty thousand stores globally. In addition, the companies should always offer the best possible customer care service. Such a position allows the company to generate consistency around the target products and services leading to success worldwide (Gallo, 2013).

Take care of employees

The reason for Howard Schultz’s success is the admirations of his employees since he takes care of them in the workplace. One of the opportunities to succeed in business is by offering the employees more benefits than the competing companies do. The results of such an approach to running an international company allow the employees to testdrive the internal corporate culture that shapes a perspective business environment (Kaplan, 2014).

Consequently, it has a positive impact on the employees while they are delivering the products and services to the target customers. Some of the best actions that a leader could take are offering the stocks of the company, additional bonuses, a health insurance, or a flexible schedule. Any benefit provided to the employees improves their motivation to contribute to the company every single day. One of the most extraordinary competencies of the top contemporary leaders is their ability to listen to other people (Lebowitz, 2016).

The essential techniques that a leader can offer to his employees are both coaching and mentoring services for the latter. Such an approach to taking care of individuals helps enhance the achievements of the company by increasing the accomplishments of individual workers. Thus, the company becomes more efficient since the employees seek to achieve a higher productivity in the workplace (Starbucks, 2016).

Respect cross-cultural environment and inspire diversity

Howard Schultz takes advantage of the multi-dimensional cultures in the global working spaces of the Starbucks Company. The same principle applies to all the races, gender, and ethnicity irrespective of the business nature. It is one of the most successful leadership practices of today. The leader should be open to working with people in every community. The idea is to unite them under one business idea and input all the efforts of individuals in managing their daily duties in the workplace. The primary concern is to meet the core values of both the employees and the target customers altogether (Starbucks News, 2016).

Consider the business mission and vision of the company

The leader should guide his employees towards understanding their passion about the enterprise. To achieve success in the modern marketplace, the same ideas should be in the minds of the employees. The leader should also treat people according to the implications of respect, integrity, dignity, and trust. The idea is to approach people this way while communicating the mission and vision of the company. The same applies to both the mission and vision of the Starbucks Company, which are straightforward and efficient enough to be used by all the team members in the global workplace (McGregor, 2016).

Believe in the prominence of business partnerships

The example of the Starbucks Company demonstrates the ability of Howard Schultz to engage in successful business partnerships. In this respect, the purpose is to share the value all the involved parties generate in the target industry. Howard Schultz takes advantage of the best team partners since it helps establish a strong brand reputation and customer awareness despite the location of the company (Hess, 2010).

Research about the needs of both employees and target customers

Both categories of people create the contemporary business atmosphere. A failure to find the right teams or serve the goal customers results in unaccomplished business objectives. For this reason, the leaders, such as Howard Schultz, strive to understand the personalized needs of Starbucks’ target clients and employees globally. This strategy reflects a personal touch of Howard Schultz in understanding the preferences of every category of people. Such an approach to running a business makes both clients and employees feel they are special (Rigby, 2011).
In return, the latter are willing to contribute with both their commitment and loyalty. Besides, the best way to understand the needs of the target audience is to communicate with them directly. It helps the leaders, including Howard Schultz, avoid many mistakes in running a business, which leads to the extraordinary results. At the same time, the Starbucks Company gains the ideas and interests by listening to the target customers and employees. It helps the companies scale their businesses in the international context (Byrne, 2011).

Personal Reflections

Howard Schultz is a kind of person who acknowledges the great entrepreneurial mind in the minds of his employees all over the place. He strives to apply the best insights of the transformational leadership practices to advance every single employee in the workplace. Such an approach to leading the Starbucks Company helps Howard Schultz operate successfully in the target marketplace. At the same time, the use of the transformational leadership styles assists Howard Schultz in developing new leaders, which also helps him scale the business in a geometrical progression. Thus, the Starbucks business model takes advantage of the transformational leadership style to address all the challenges the company faces in the global market.

In addition, the use of the transformational leadership styles helps Howard Schultz manage the organizational operations through the perceptions of democracy in the workplace. All the executives of the company apply the transformational leadership principles to address the corporate issues based on the ethical conception of the business processes. Besides, these transformational leadership traits are in demand among all the team members. All of the above-mentioned achievements are possible due to the use of the transformational leadership that encourages the personnel to develop their individual qualities and professional competencies.

Conclusion

The present report addresses the critical implications of Howard Schultz’s leadership. The study reflects the essential leadership practices applied by the most reputable leaders all over the world. The research explains the nature of the transformational leadership style that helps Howard Schultz guide his employees in the global marketplace. The idea is to advance the employees’ personal qualities and professional qualifications with a sense of the corporate vision and motivation. Thus, the workers seek to work effectively while being guided by their personal goals and corporate objectives.

The research discusses the most critical approaches to the transformational leadership style in the context of the Starbucks Company. The key leadership principles applied in the workplace refer to the perspectives of scaling the business internationally. The best leadership practices help Howard Schultz transform the minds of his employees to deliver more value to the target customers. The rules of contemporary business apply all over the target industry along with the conceptions of the corporate leadership approach.

Thus, the Starbucks Company operates by meeting the interests of all its employees along with the ability to focus on the business objectives. It is possible because the workers are striving to work in teams and benefit from the collective organizational goals, thereby contributing to the company. As a result, the company adds more value to their target customers while satisfying the individual needs of its employees in the workplace.

The idea is to lead the workers to reaching the corporate commitment along with developing mutual trust and respect among all the team members. Consequently, such operations of the company reflect the core of the employee professional transformation guided by effective leadership principles. Moreover, Howard Schultz supports all the leadership incentives of his employees, including their preferences for both personal growth and professional development. At the same time, such strivings of the personnel directly comply with the organizational objectives.

The inspiration of employees encourages them to consider further development of their individual competencies. Besides, Howard Schultz supports his employees by all t possible means, which results in the overall integrity and commitment of the personnel. It helps him run the company with all the dimensions of transformational leadership, comprising the power of positive influence, personalized motivation, intellectual stimulation, and personal considerations.

Ultimately, the employees have strong confidence in their future within the Starbucks Company. It entails the charismatic perceptions of leadership that Howard Schultz applies in all the business processes. Such an approach to leadership helps support the enthusiasm of the personnel, which allows people to achieve their goals while working in the company. The transformational leadership principles also help people become more creative while changing their minds to solve the corporate problems more efficiently.

Thus, the employees can meet the business problems and deal with them accordingly without being punished. The idea is to achieve the sense of significance in the workplace and add more value to the organizational processes. At the same time, the use of coaching and mentoring practices helps the employee benefit from every single incentive they have while working at the Starbucks Company. Such counseling practices of Howard Schultz result in his ability to scale the business with the insights into the best traits for both personal growth and professional development.