THE CATHOLIC UNIVERCITY OF AMERICA
SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Leadership and Critical Thinking
DR. MERYLANN J. SCHUTTLOFFEL
LEADERSHIP LITERATURE RESEARCH
BILL GATES
Founder and first chairmen of Microsoft
DISMAS PRASETYO
Student of the Special Education Program
Kruibeke – Belgium
January 31, 2009
LEADERSHIP LITERATURE RESEARCH : BILL GATES
BILL GATES - BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
Bill Gates came from a family of entrepreneurship and high-spirited
liveliness. William Henry Gates III was born in Seattle, Washington on October
28, 1955. His father, William H. Gates II, is a Seattle attorney. His late mother,
Mary Gates, was a school teacher, University of Washington regent, and
chairwoman of United Way International.
Bill Gates - Early Life
He had an early interest in software and began programming computers at
the age of thirteen. In 1973, Bill Gates became a student at Harvard University,
where he meet Steve Ballmer (now Microsoft's chief executive officer). While still
a Harvard undergraduate, Bill Gates wrote a version of the programming
language BASIC for the MITS Altair microcomputer. As young teenagers, Bill
Gates and Paul Allen ran a small company called Traf-O-Data and sold a
computer to the city of Seattle that could count city traffic.
Bill Gates & Microsoft
In 1975, before graduation, Gates left Harvard to form Microsoft with his
childhood friend Paul Allen. The pair planned to develop software for the newly
emerging personal computer market.
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Bill Gate's company, Microsoft, became famous for their computer
operating systems and killer business deals. For example, Bill Gates talked IBM
into letting Microsoft retain the licensing rights to MS-DOS an operating system,
that IBM needed for their new personal computer. Gates proceeded to make a
fortune from the licensing of MS-DOS.
On November 10, 1983, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, Microsoft
Corporation formally announced Microsoft Windows, a next-generation operating
system.
On January 1, 1994, Bill Gates married Melinda French Gates. They have
three children.
Bill Gates Philanthropist
Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, have endowed the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation with more than $28.8 billion (as of January 2005) to support
philanthropic initiatives in the areas of global health and learning.
THE STRENGTHS OF BILL GATES
Talking about Bill Gates’ strengths, for me, the first is his curiosity. He is
truly fascinated with advances in science related to computing. He studies them.
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And he has a good eye for seeing how those advances can be integrated
together in powerful ways in a combination of software and hardware.
Secondly, he had a perfect vision, he told the world, and he aligned the
resources of Microsoft with that vision. “Every business and household must
have a computer and must run Microsoft software”, was the basic guiding vision
of Bill Gates. When everyone in the world were not even aware of the software
industry’s future, here was a man who trusted on his gut feel and passion,
decided to take the vision the farthest possible way. He was almost there
achieving his vision. This clear vision of him won him several laurels and went to
be the richest person in the world for 13 continuous long years.
THE WEAKNESS OF BILL GATES
Though Gates was highly appreciated for his visionary leadership, he was
also criticized by some analysts. Critics felt that sometimes Gates took things so
much to heart that his emotional feeling overshadowed his rational thinking. They
said that Gates' intense rivalry with some of his competitors made him
personalize
every
battle
and
obscured
his
judgement.
Critics claimed that winning was so important to Gates that he would go to
any extent to beat his opponent. James Wallace of Seattle Post-Intelligencer
said, "Bill Gates not only wants to win, but he wants to kill the competition. He
wants to bury the wounded”.
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ANALYSIS OF SPECIFIC LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVE
Below are the perspective of specific leadership of Bill Gates, which I
noted, according to what I have read, using the three modes of deliberation.
•
Bill Gates paid special attention to recruit and retain the best talent in the
software industry. He looked for a bundle of attributes in recruits. These
included the capacity to grasp new knowledge quickly, the ability to ask
probing questions and deep familiarity with programming structures.
(Descriptive)
He believes that recruitment of talented software engineers was one of the
most critical elements in the software industry. In addition, he assumed
that the best talent would never apply directly. (Philosophical)
By paying special attention to recruit and retain the best talent in the
software industry and assuming that the best talent would never apply
directly, Bill Gates is sending the message to Microsoft Human Resources
Managers that they have to hunt for the best talent and offer them a job,
rather than waiting them to apply. In turn, Microsoft has done a fantastic
job of assembling the best talent from around the world. (Interpretive)
•
Gates was not afraid of failure. He was never apposed to without trying
various tactics to see what would work for Microsoft – and what wouldn’t.
In his speeches and articles, he has been known to tell of the significant
investment in time and dollars that went into failed projects like the Omega
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database and a joint operating system with IBM. But he emphasized if it
weren’t for Omega, we wouldn’t have Microsoft Access, and if it weren’t
for the discontinued IBM effort, Windows would not have progressed to its
current super-product status. (Descriptive)
So, for him, temporary setbacks do not equal total failure but are rather a
means to an end. One of his mottos is : “Your most unhappy customers
are your greatest source of learning.” (Philosophical)
By encouraging also the same feeling to his empoyees, Bill Gates is
sending the message that he is going to consider mistakes very carefully
and tolerate it when necessary. Especially if they can learn something
from that mistake to make the company better. In turn, although the work
is difficult, his employees are able to feel relax in working. And this relax
atmosphere, definitely enhances their creativity in solving day-to-day
problems at works. (Interpretive)
•
Bill Gates places control as his management style. He has an obsession
with detail and checking up. For example, As an executive, Gates met
regularly with Microsoft's senior managers and program managers.
Firsthand accounts of these meetings describe him as verbally combative,
berating managers for perceived holes in their business strategies or
proposals that placed the company's long-term interests at risk. He often
interrupted presentations with such comments as, "That's the stupidest
thing I've ever heard!" and, "Why don't you just give up your options and
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join the Peace Corps?" The target of his outburst then had to defend the
proposal in detail until, hopefully, Gates was fully convinced. When
subordinates appeared to be procrastinating, he was known to remark
sarcastically, "I'll do it over the weekend." (Descriptive)
Bill Gates perceives that he must do that way in order to be able to firmly
control the direction of Microsoft and its products. (Philosophical)
Unavoidably, with such management style, his employees sometimes
presume him bossy and overbearing. However, there was a softer side to
the technology magnate. Gates earned the appreciation of his employees
by leading an office as casual as college campus and encouraging free
thinking, which allowed him some leeway to exercise tough love when
necessary. (Interpretive)
•
Bill Gates gives the growth stock, provide a career development, as well
as health care investment program to his employees to encourage them.
(Descriptive)
He does it, because he understand the value in paying well, giving great
perks and investing in his employee’s future. (Philosophical)
By rewarding his employees in such a proper way ( even he has probably
made more people wealthy than any other CEO alive ), he is sending the
message to his employees that he put a big concern to their welfare. So
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that in turn, his employees reward him as well with hard work and loyalty.
(Interpretive)
•
Bill Gates invests a high proportion of the incomes of Microsoft on
research and development. (Descriptive)
According to him, that budget is very important to continually advance and
improve software technology, and to make it easier, more cost-effective
and more enjoyable for people to use computers. (Philosophical)
Obviously, by allocating a huge budget on research and development,
Gates is sending the message to his employees not to be satisfied with
what customers said yesterday or say today. That working at Microsoft is
a continuous learning experience. In turn, those thoughts is driving his
employees to innovate more and more which unquestionably, bring
Microsoft into great success as the software industry’s leading innovator.
(Interpretive)
WHAT I LEARNED FROM BILL GATES
Eventually, from the making of this paper I learned that in order to get
success in any fields, one must really do what he or she is passionate about. No
mind-boggling success story has been written till now without a great passion.
And Bill Gates himself is one of that great example.
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The reason is without passion it is pretty difficult to work hard and be self
motivated in what we are doing. On the contrary, when we have passion in what
we are doing, the work becomes a fun for us and we want to enjoy it more and
more.
So, the message I received here is I can simply question also my self. Is
what I am doing at the moment something I am passionate about? And I can say
yes. Actually I am pretty enjoying in what I am doing at the moment, learning
about special education with Professors from the Catholic University of America,
living in an international community and seeing directly with my own eyes the
cultures of Europe. Indeed those experiences have widened my horizon.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
•
Bill Gates - Biography and History. Online. January 27, 2009.
http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventors/a/Bill_Gates.htm
•
Bill Gates' strength is his curiosity. June 20, 2008. Online. January 27,
2009
http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/jun/20inter.htm
•
Bill Gates is super smart at technology and business. November 9, 2006.
Online. January 27, 2009
http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b4gatesb.htm
•
Bill Gates’ Management Secrets. Online. January 27, 2009
http://www.kobifinans.com.tr/en/info_center/0204/16443/4’
•
Philanthropy. Online. January 27, 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates
•
Seven Key Lessons from a Greatest Leader of all times - Bill Gates.
Online. January 27, 2009.
http://lifeofexcellence.com/lessons-from-billgates
•
The Good Part of Bill Gates’s Leadership. June 27, 2009. Online. January
27, 2009.
http://gathergreatness.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/a-lesson-from-billgates/
•
Uncommon Leadership from Bill Gates. Online. January 27, 2009.
http://search.url.com/search/result?google=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.i
cmrindia.org%2Fcasestudies%2Fcatalogue%2FLeadership%2520and%2
520Entrepreneurship%2FLDEN014.htm&title=Leadership%20the%20Bill
%20Gates%20WayLeadership%20and%20Entrepreneurship%20Case%20...&q=2209186
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