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What makes John D. Rockefeller an effective leader?
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 h...
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(4) The commerce would be divided evenly among the railroads, with a double share going to Pennsylvania Railroad.
(5) South Improvement would provide tank cars and loading facilities.
Word leaked out of the South Improvement Scheme, and the proposed 100% increase in rail shipping rates inflamed the independent producers and many smaller refineries
Despise his unethical business behavior John. D Rockefeller was not above the law.
His wealth grew much attention to journalist and Politian. Rockefeller leadership and business skills help him get 90% of the market for kerosene products. Unfortunately, in 1911, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Standard Oil obtain in illegal monopoly practices and ordered it to be broken into 34 new companies: Amoco, Chevron, Exxon, Mobil. Rockefeller, who had rarely sold shares, owned stock in all of them.
Rockefeller even wrote in a letter to a partner, "we must remember we are refining oil for the poor man and he must have it cheap and good" (83).
Rockefeller was the co-founder of the stand Oil Company. His wealth grew and became the world’s richest man. By the early 1880s, he dominated the oil business with his Standard Oil Company, in which he accounted thirty percent of. In the overall U.S. refineries and pipelines, his company accounted for around ninety percent. John D. Rockefeller was also a major philanthropist.
Rockefeller was the son of a trader, and began in the oil company when he was 20. He knew this was the area to invest in, because coal was being replaced by oil in the power industries. By 1870, he had his first oil business, called the Standard Oil Company. Like Carnegie, Rockefeller used horizontal integration and within two years, he had also created a monopoly. He made more money because he paid his workers extremely low wages and treated them poorly. Unlike Carnegie who offered his workers benefits and stock options, Rockefeller gave his workers poor conditions and even abused them at times. Even though Rockefeller was a philanthropist and gave a lot of his money away, that does not make up for how he treated other people and put people out of business to become wealthy. He is best known for a robber baron because he simply used his power to destroy other businesses. He did whatever he could to control the oil industry, even if that meant stepping on others on the way to his success. He reduced the costs of his company, and he was then able to drive other companies out of business, which is how he became one of the richest men in history.
Matthew Josephson agreed that Rockefeller was indeed a "robber baron". In the book Taking Sides, he claims that Rockefeller was a deceptive and conspiratorial businessman, whose fortune was built by secret agreements and wrung concessions from America's leading railroad companies (Taking Sides 25). When John D. Rockefeller merged with the railroad companies, he had gained control of a strategic transportation route that no other companies would be able to use. Rockefeller would then be able to force the hand on the railroads and was granted a rebate on his shipments of oil. This was a kind of secret agreement between the two industries.
In these articles, Tarbell showed the readers how Rockefeller conducted these illegal methods through quotes and even interviews with Henry H. Rogers, the most powerful senior executive of Standard Oil. In this series, Tarbell wrote about how Rockefeller made secret agreements with the South Improvement Company (Ida Tarbell, 1857-1944: She Used Her Reporting Skills Against One of the Most Powerful Companies in the World) and how Rockefeller took someone else’s idea to make pipelines for the oil to travel through. Tarbell also wrote about how Rockefeller threatened the small oil producers to sell their businesses to them. Later Ida Tarbell managed to get anti-trust laws to eliminate monopolistic companies and let other smaller companies have a chance at
Many people consider Rockefeller a robber of industry because of his forcible ways of gaining his monopolies. Rockefeller was fond of buying out small and large competitors. If the competitors refused to sell they often found Rockefeller cutting the prices of his Standard Oil or in the worst cases, their factories mysteriously blowing up. Rockefeller was obsessed with controlling the oil market and used many of undesirable tactics to flush his competitors out of the market. Rockefeller was also a master of the rebate game. He was one of the most dominant controllers of the railroads. He was so good at the rebate that at some times he skillfully commanded the rail road to pay rebates to his standard oil company on the traffic of other competitors. He was able to do this because his oil traffic was so high that he could make or break a section of a railroad a railroad company by simply not running...
Let us first look at Mr. Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie was a mogul in the steel industry. Carnegie developed a system known as the vertical integration. This method basically cut out the ‘middle man’. Carnegie bought his own iron and coal mines (which were necessities in producing steel) because purchasing these materials from independent companies cost too much and was insufficient for Carnegie’s empire. This hurt his competitors because they still had to pay for raw materials at much higher prices. Unlike Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller integrated his oil business from top to bottom. Rockefeller’s system was considered a ‘horizontal’ integration. This meant that he followed one product through all phases of the production process, i.e. Rockefeller had control over the oil from the moment it was drilled to the moment it was sold to the consu...
In the early 1900s, business leaders used different methods in order to become successful. The big business leaders used cutthroat practices in order to succeed. In the text Rockefeller: Monster Monopolist or Marketplace Hero? It states “He even got some railroads to pay him a fee when they shipped his competitors’ oil.” This evidence discusses, one way John D. Rockefeller used cutthroat methods to get ahead. He forced
investors and businessmen to work harder, his thinking was to make the people gain a better
Another trait of leadership is that a lot of people valued him. In the text it states, “He was of sovereign value in all eyes. / And thought so much distinguished, he was wise / And in his bearing modest as a maid / He never yet a boorish thing had said /
However, the reason Rockefeller controlled 90% is because of a company that basically appeared from nowhere and had some actual competition for Standard Oil and actually surprised Rockefeller. The company was known as the Tidewater Pipe-line Company, it started by building a pipeline from north Pennsylvania to Williamsport. Rockefeller tried to acquire the company but in the end it ended up as Standard only competition with Tidewater controlling 10% of the oil refining market. This was however of not a large concern to Standard as they were developing products besides oil from Vaseline to candy.
...ichest men in the world, monopolizing the oil industry, which played an important role in shaping the economy. In today’s oil business Rockefeller’s effect can still be seem in business strategies, values, and competitive logic. The oil business is now structured and very competitive. It also plays many important roles in the economy.
Rockefeller was America’s first billionaire, and he was the true epitome of capitalism. Rockefeller was your typical rags-to-riches businessman, and at the turn of the twentieth century, while everyone else in the working class was earning ten dollars max every week, Rockefeller was earning millions. There has been much discussion as to whether Rockefeller’s success was due to being a “robber baron”, or as a “captain of industry”. By definition, a robber baron was an industrialist who exploited others in order to achieve personal wealth, however, Rockefeller’s effect on the economy and the lives of American citizens has been one of much impact, and deserves recognition. He introduced un-seen techniques that greatly modified the oil industry. During the mid-nineteenth century, there was a high demand for kerosene. In the refining process from transforming crude oil to kerosene, many wastes were produced. While others deemed the waste useless, Rockefeller turned it into income by selling them. He turned those wastes into objects that would be useful elsewhere, and in return, he amassed a large amount of wealth. He sold so much “waste” that railroad companies were desperate to be a part of his company. However, Rockefeller demanded rebates, or discounted rates, from the railroad companies, when they asked to be involved with his business. By doing so, Rockefeller was able to lower the price of oil to his customers, and pay low wages to his workers. Using these methods,
John D. Rockefeller, born on July 8, 1839, has had a huge impact on the course of American history, his reputation spans from being a ruthless businessperson to a thoughtful philanthropist (Tarbell 41). He came from a family with not much and lived the American dream, rising to success through his own wit and cunning, riding on the backs of none. His legacy is huge, amassing the greatest private wealth of any American in history. Rockefeller’s influence on our country has been both a positive and a negative one, he donated huge sums of money to various public institutions and revolutionized the petroleum industry. Along with all the positives to the country, Rockefeller also had many negative affects as well, including, by gaining his riches by means of a monopoly, often using illegal methods, by giving others a reason to frown upon capitalism, and by hurting smaller businesses.
The start of Rockefeller’s generous gifts of the wonderful thing called money was when he was just a boy. When Rockefeller was 16 he got his first job as being a bookkeeper at a brokerage of fresh produce. From the beginning of his job he donated 6% of his pay to charities, which was a mere 50 cents a day, soon tithing towards the Baptist church. Of course this was only the