Howard Shultz

The success of Starbucks Cafes is attributed to the adept management of smart ideas instituted by Howard Shultz and played out through his leadership style. According to Kim Fellner in the book Wrestling with Starbucks: Conscience, Capital, Cappuccino, Howard Schultz, the founder and CEOof Starbucks cafes is the reason why the company had “a very good year in 2003...with a net sales of $ 4.1 billion (almost twice what it had earned in 2000 when it yielded $265 million” (16). The reason for the successful longevity of Starbucks Cafes is due to Howard Schultz’s leadership that is an example of the collaborative style that incorporates a social view. Schultz’s leadership is a sign of the times and displays what is needed in the modern business environment. The modern business environment is much more competitive and complex; plus, the pace that an organization has to maintain to stay competitive is at a much higher speed than many years ago. In order for organizations to be enormously effective, they need move from the old style of senior management that maintained direction and control. The collaborative style of leadership is not any less stringent than the senior management style; it is just less-centralized; it has less top-down control. The collaborative style of leadership promotes an autonomous self-governing workforce that is more flexible. The collaborative leadership style institutes empowerment in the workforce. Page 1 Leaders gain quality from their employees by motivating them to be self-motivated in the As Cameron et al contend, Schultz took Starbucks and changed it from “a mature commodity business...into a lucrative, fast-growing business where the market share was stolen from the big three wholesale competitors” (154). Under the collaborative leadership of Schultz, the Starbucks organization empowers the people who work in the cafes. Employees are provided continuous encouragement, feedback, and recognition for their achievements.

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