In his decades of business, one of the key characteristics that propelled Rockefeller to success was his strong leadership abilities. It wasn 't his status, nor his age that made Rockefeller a great leader. Instead, it was his influence. People around him wanted to follow him; they were inspired by him to do more than they ever thought they were capable of. It was his ability to create a strong sense of teamwork and his own energy and passion that drove his workers and thus his company.
We can say he was a leader according to the leadership framework: Be, Know, Do:
- he was a real professional who possessed good character traits (like competence and dignity of labour) and above all a good sense of business.
- he well knew his job, and above all, he perfectly knew the human nature and the importance of well carrying for his workers.
- he perfectly did motivate his employees by setting the example and by being a good role model for the workers. ("Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people").
Then, we can guess that he was a strong and influent negotiator, because he managed to obtain rebates from railroads companies to transport his products at low fares. Rockefeller 's competitors did not manage to do the same, that 's why the Standard Oil Company began to make money.
What helps Rockefeller to become an effective was his sense of visioning. When Rockefeller first set foot on the oil fields of western Pennsylvania, in the early 1860s, he found an anarchy of independent drillers and refiners who were constantly indebted, desperately underselling each other, and vulnerable to wasteful cycles of boom and bust. That 's why he projected to build something new. The results of it are that Rockefeller has been the first businessman who created such a great trust and who created the principle of monopoly of the market. That led the Standard Oil Company to the