Assignment 3 Part 1: Leadership Style: How Are Leaders Leading in the 21st Century BUS520- Leadership and Organizational Behavior
December 03, 2014

Introduction Everyone loves a good pair of shoes! Well, Zappos.com has a plethora of shoes. Their CEO had a vision to build a business no one else was doing, which inspired the online shoe store. Millions of customer’s know about Zappos. Zappos provides quick and solid service. Zappos is compliant with current technology and up on to date on current fashion trends. However, Zappos success starts from the top and from within.
Element 1: Provide a brief paragraph background of the CEO. The CEO is Tony Hsieh. Zappos (2012) in 1999, at the age of 24, Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) sold Link Exchange, the company he co-founded, to Microsoft for $265 million. He then joined us as an advisor and investor, and eventually became CEO, where he helped us grow from almost no sales to over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales annually, while simultaneously making Fortune magazine’s annual Best Companies to Work For list. In November 2009, Zappos.com, Inc. was acquired by Amazon.com in a deal valued at $1.2 billion on the day of closing. (2014)”.
Element 2: Analyze the CEO’s leadership style and philosophy, and how the CEO’s leadership style aligns with the culture. Mr. Hsieh fosters a fun, innovative culture at Zappos. Slogan Zappos first code of conduct is Deliver WOW through service. Simply put “provide customer WOW service”. Mr. Hsieh exhibits an authentic leadership style. Schermerhorn (2012) an authentic leadership essentially argues “know thyself”. It involves both owning one’s personal experiences (values, thoughts, emotions, and beliefs) and acting in accordance with one’s true self (expressing what you really think and believe, and acting accordingly).
Element 3: Examine the CEO’s personal and organizational values. Mr. Hsieh organizational values are listed in the Zappos Family Core Values (see below). The CEO makes those goals personal. So, he is the organization. Mr. Hsieh personal values are to enrichment their employees to keep personality and fun. He ensures the work environment is free, fun, and full of creativity. During an extensive training session, if it doesn’t work out for you he’d pay you to leave Zappos. Instead of staying and not complimenting the team, it might be best if you leave. Zappos (2012) he wants his people to exemplify the Zappos Family Core Values: 1. Deliver WOW Through Service 2. Embrace and Drive Change 3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness 4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded 5. Pursue Growth and Learning 6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication 7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit 8. Do More With Less 9. Be Passionate and Determined 10. Be Humble Organizational goals are of shared values. Mr. Hsieh strives to share his visions and goals with everyone. He trains employees to see his vision and promotes his goals. His goal is happy work environment.
Element 4: Evaluate how the values of the CEO are likely to influence ethical behavior within the organization. While soft-spoken and awkward, Mr. Hsieh values are very likely to influence ethical behavior within the organization because he is able action. Many managers are about words and no action, yet they expect their employee to practice what they preach. To show he has nothing to hide, he opened his doors to future businessmen. Max Chafkin (2009), “At a time when most business leaders are retrenching, Hsieh is thinking big. In late 2006, he launched an outsourcing program to handle selling, customer service, and shipping for other companies, and last December, he started an educational website for small businesses that charges them $39.95 a month to tap Zappos executives for advice”. To take his ethics a step forward, he has a book called Delivering Happiness. The books illustrate Happy People to Happy Companies to Happy Communities equals a Happy World. He opens up about his business ideas, struggles, and ways to move past the storm. Within the company he does have strike ethics rules, mandates compliance with routine ethics training, and handles any claims with clean opinions.
Element 5: Determine the CEO’s three greatest strengths and three greatest weaknesses. The others relevant to sharing values is Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded; Pursue Growth and Learning; Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication; and Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit (Schermhorn, 2014). Three greatest strengths are employees hope, customer’s connection, and community service. Zappos management give employees hope for retention, advancement, and overall second place to call home. Making a connection with the customer is key to their success. New hires attend 4 weeks of customer loyalty training-no matter the position. Customer service comes from upper and lower management and all employees across the board. Zappos allows employees to cater to unique customers-offer refunds even if story is gray, go out their way to find a particular replacement for a customer. Zappos has a strong presence within the community. Internally, Zappos culture is self-induced. Mr. Hsieh informs staff that he can’t force the culture upon/into them; they have to want to embrace the Zappos culture. Three weaknesses are employees are too free in their environment, not enough community outreach, and possible breach of customer information. Employees are a little too free in their habits. Zappos (2012) has comments from human resource department:
“This ain't your mama's HR! Recruiting, Benefits, and Employee Relations keep this cruise ship afloat with fun, inventive ways of getting employees motivated and educated about the Zappos Family of Companies, their benefits, and the other fun stuff going on around here! They also take Core Value #3 very seriously.”
However, fun, someone could take offense and find it unprofessional. Zappos is involved in the community but the outreach isn’t within every state. Also, Zappos doesn’t post job position on hiring networks. If you want to work for Zappos, you have to visit their site. The information is not known by everyone. They could lose out on valued employees. The breach in customer information is a weakness for any online business.
Element 6: Select the quality that you believe contributes most to this leader’s success. Support your reasoning. The concept of empowerment is a great quality of Mr. Hsieh. Empowerment is the process by which managers help other to acquire and use the power needed to make decisions affecting themselves and their work. (Schermerhorn, 2012) Empower employees through training and career development from customer service to CEO. Employees are trained upon employment on Zappos Core Values, customer service and satisfaction, sales, handling difficult calls, and more. Overall, career training is available to boost careers from sales to senior management within 5-7 years.
Element 7: Assess how communication and collaboration, and power and politics influence group dynamics. The concept of communication within Zappos is feedback and channels are the grapevine. Zappos management is very receptive to feedback. Feedback is greatly accepted from internal employees from all levels of management and definitely from the employees. Customer feedback is reviewed and considered by ways of blogs, Facebook posts, reviews, and sales. The customer service representatives present active listening skills. Even Mr. Hsieh present active listening skills while on tour and promoting his books/business he active participates with his audience. The organizational communication method is the grapevine. Yes, the methods of communications are email, paper notification, and announcement board. But employees talk and the CEO talks with the employees. As far as power and politics, Mr. Hsieh doesn’t look like he is much in the politics. He is a free spirit and aspires for happy company. Therefore, he promotes free spirits within his company. They don’t take no or I can’t for an answer. Let’s find a solution or means to achieve goals. The CEO presence entices employees to work harder for him. He is not a micro-manager and shares his ideas with others.
Conclusion
Zappos is customer and employee friendly company. Mr. Hsieh fosters an environment of relaxation, fun, and feeling of fellow co-workers are extended family members. He is not selfish by any means, with sharing his business needs with others. Not too many CEOs share their success stories with a book and workshops. Training is provided on routine basis. Zappos is not run by metrics or number pushes. It is run by customer demand and long-term employment. Management does allow employees to go the extra mile. Zappos is one of the top companies to work for.

References:
Chafkin, Max. (2009). The Zappos Was of Managing. Retrieved from http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090501/the-zappos-way-of-managing.html
Fidelman, Mark. (2012). Bring Back the Celebrity CEO the Top 10. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/markfidelman/2012/04/10/bring-back-the-celebrity-ceo-the- top-10-2/
Make Happiness Your Business Model. Retrieved from http://deliveringhappiness.com/
Schermerhorn, J.R. (2012). Organizational behavior (12th ed.). Danvers, MA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Zappos.com. (2014). Human Resources. Retrieved http://about.zappos.com/our- unique- culture/human resources
Zappos.com. (2014). Tony Hsieh-CEO. Retrieved from http://about.zappos.com/meet-our- monkeys/tony-hsieh-ceo
Zappos.com. (2014). Zappos Family Core Values. Retrieved http://about.zappos.com/our- unique-culture/zappos-core-values