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Literature review of impact of organizational culture on employee performance
Walmart business ethics
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Many people know Samuel M. Walton as the founder of Walmart, but few step back to examine the traits that helped him to lead such a successful business. Mr. Walton was a visionary leader and an ethical leader. He had an unmatched ability to advance ideas within the company and inspirationally motivate his employees. Until his death, he maintained adherence to his principles and always practiced intellectual humility. These traits aided him in becoming one of the most successful businessmen of the 20th century.
Visionary Leadership
As a visionary leader, Sam Walton inspired his employees to always pursue greatness. Mr. Walton had a vision of lower prices for the American working class. Murray Johannsen states that “visionary leaders live
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When I first got to the unit, the morale was very low and the people were not excited about doing their job. I began talking to the folks at commander’s calls and one-on-one in efforts to raise morale and inspire them to want to do better. Through the use of language and ensuring they understood their important role in the bigger mission, I was able to help improve the overall morale within the unit and most of the people are now excited about what they do. Using inspirational motivation has helped me to make our unit a friendlier and more productive …show more content…
I do not know it all, and I will never claim to. There are a lot of people in my organization with great minds, and I love hearing their ideas and perspectives. For example, last year I was in search of a way to make the contract review process flow more efficiently. A lot of our contracts have to be reviewed by our lawyers and our headquarters policy office. I had mapped out what I thought would be the perfect solution. But, through intellectual humility, I understood it probably was not a perfect product, because I could not see all the perspectives. I pulled together members from each review office in order to get their ideas and perspectives. In the end, we were able to come to a final product that took into consideration everyone’s input, and ultimately reduced the average contract review time from 11 to 8 days. Practicing intellectual humility in this situation allowed for a solution that made the process better for everyone
Wal-Mart was conceived and founded by Sam Walton in 1962, at Rogers, Arkansas. Sam Walton started with just a few small variety stores, funded with borrowed money. His goal was to provide affordable products to the public to make life easier. After his success with the first few stores, Sam Walton borrowed more money to build more stores, creating the Wal-Mart empire as we see it today. The retail giant proves its stoic presence in our lives with its $401 billion sales for fiscal year 2009.
Born on March 29, 1918 in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, Sam Walton was said to have excelled at anything he set his mind to (Walton & Huey, 14). President of the student body in high school as well as college at the University of Missouri, where he majored in business, Walton and his natural ambition gained him success in virtually all of his ventures; during the Great Depression, Walton had managed a small newspaper business, making an impressive four to five thousand dollars per year. It leaves little to wonder about how exactly Wal-Mart became such a financially successful industry.
There is a lot that goes into being a successful company, and making the Fortune 500 list is most every business owner’s dream. Sam Walton is credited with being the founder and first Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Wal-Mart. Walton and other CEO’s of the company were able to shape the success of Wal-Mart by implementing strategies that would revolutionize the way retail stores do business, all while pushing Wal-Mart to the top spot on the Fortune 500 list. This paper looks at a few different strategies Walton implemented that ultimately benefitted the company to increase revenue. How did Wal-Mart become the retail giant that it is today? T.A. Frank of Washington Monthly gives a brief history of Wal-Mart in his article Everyday Low Vices.
The first Walmart was opened in Rogers, Arkansas in the year 1962 by a 44-year-old man by the name of Sam Walton. When he first envisioned Walmart, Walton believed that a successful business could be built around offering lower prices and great service. Despite his retail rivals laughing at his supposedly unsustainable business model, the company became hugely successful, and its success exceeded even Walton's expectations. The company went public in 1970, and the proceeds financed a steady expansion of the business. Today, Walmart is the largest retailer in the world, as it has 8,500 stores spread across 15 countries and annual revenues of $400 billion dollars. Moreover, Walmart is the
He was also considered charismatic. He communicated directly with his employees (associates) and he expected customers to be treated as guests when they entered his store. “Mr. Walton always worked hard at shaping his work force, using cheers, rap songs and payment policies to urge employees to be frugal in their jobs and friendly toward customers. Bonuses were paid to all employees in stores where stealing and other inventory losses were kept below 2 percent of sales. Scholarships were established at colleges in names of employees who crafted better ways to handle merchandise.” (nytimes.com, 1992). Today this is not the case. Since the death of Sam Walton in 1992, the company’s reputation has been on a continual downslide. Wal-mart is no longer an ethical company; it has negatively impacted the communities in which it exists. It mistreats its employees and is negatively impacting the nation’s over-all economy. Ethical business practices are not the way of life for today’s Wal-mart.
Wal-Mart as we know it today evolved from Sam Walton’s goals for great value and great customer service. Mr. Walton’s competitors thought his idea that a successful business could be built around offering lower prices and great service would never work. Mr. Walton also credited the rapid growth of Wal-Mart not just to the low costs that attracted his customers, but also to his associates. He relied on them to give customers the great shopping experience that would keep them coming back. Sam shared his vision for the company with associates in a way that was nearly unheard of in the industry. He made them partners in the success of the company, and firmly believed that this partnership was what made Walmart great.
There are many definitions of what makes a great leader. When US News chooses America’s Best Leaders each year, they judge based on the following criteria: Setting direction, cultivating a culture of growth, and achieving results. Sustainable leadership focuses on leaders who have helped create products and services with positive environmental or social impact; in others they have helped build a corporate culture that rewards and nourishes employees and stakeholders in new ways. According to Maxwell (2002), successful leadership is determined by a leader’s effectiveness and impact on their organization. However, to gain t...
A leadership theory is a clarification of some features of leadership; theories have practical importance as they are being used for better understanding, anticipating, and controlling successful leadership. Hence, the main principle of any theory is to inform practice(Lussier and Achua 2009). Leadership theories could be classified into eight main categories: Great man, trait, behavioral, contingency, Situational, Participative, Relationship , management (Cherry 2010).
Visionary leadership as its name suggests involves having a vision. In chapter about Transformational Leadership, the author said that a transforming leader “had a clear vision of the future state of their organizations.” (Northhouse 2013) As we learn from week one, leaders are visionary, they are able to inspire their followers. In order for leaders to inspire others, they might be able to internalize the vision for themselves. First step to creating a new vision for the school, the leader must understand why there is a need for the school and he or she must agree with it. Second, the leader must be able to see the needs of the organization, the leader must be able to have a person touch (also known as Authentic Leadership) with its members in order to be be able to see the true needs of the organization. As the leader creates the vision, it should be “simple, understandable, beneficial and energy creating”. (Northhouse 2013) The author of the textbook follows to say that “vision originates from both the leaders and the followers”. (Northhouse 2013)
Leadership is being able to direct or guide other people by either your own actions or by actually guiding them into the right direction (Acumen). Inspiration to be a leader might come from many different areas like your family, friends, peers, or even teachers. My inspiration didn’t really occur to me until I started attending college in August 2013. In all actuality I never even thought of how to be a leader until I was in Mrs. Moore’s Perspectives class. I now have a desire to be a great leader, and the inspiration has come from Mrs. Moore, and my family. I am the first to attend college out of my family, so in a away I have already started leading my siblings in the right direction. Being a leader means inspiring others to pursue their dreams, and aspirations and helping throughout the journey to success. Being a leader has nothing with authority or being able to tell other what, and how to do things, it’s about having people who look up to you and want to follow your example.
Wal-Mart's vision statement is, "To become the worldwide leader in retailing". Sam Walton followed this statement to become the largest retailer in the United States. He accomplished this feat by understanding what the most important aspect in selling is, the customer.
“On leadership” was written by John W. Gardner (The Free Press, New York, 1990). He used seventeen chapters to explain and describe essential components for the leadership should be in a successful organization. This book not only has significant influence now, but also for the future. Below are my understanding about this book, which was divided into two parts. For the first part, I will pick up some perspectives which influence me most from this book. For the second part, which is my comments and critique about this book.
The first Wal-Mart store opened in July of 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas by Sam Walton who believed that the future of retailing was in discounting and to avoid competing with established giants like Sears and Woolworth, Wal-Mart’s stated out of the large cities in the beginning and this strategy help avoid competition, while in rural areas Wal-Mart began growing their customer base by offering ways to save money and shorter travel distance, Sam Walton felt the best way to make customers happy was to provide the low prices every day (Farhoomand, 2006). The company needed to continually find ways to control the operating costs so the savings would then be passed on to Wal-Mart customers in the form of lower prices than the competitors. Walton was opposed to having any kind of employee unions for its company and saw them as a disruption and an inconvenience (Farhoomand, 2006). The continued search for lower prices made him aware of business related travel cost, Wal-Mart executives stayed in low cost hotels when they traveled and the cost related to the services provided by suppliers, Wal-Mart helped suppliers improve operations and efficiency to produce lower cost. Walton wanted the suppliers to correct any nonessential or insufficiencies existing in their business structures as a way of gaining lower prices and higher value products for its Wal-Mart stores. To further push savings Wal-Mart forced cost down by eliminating the middleman and buying directly from the manufacturers. This cost saving also applied to executive salaries Walton felt providing employees with stock options, training opportunities, and allow employees to grow and develop would be a better way to engage and involve them in his vision (Farhoomand, 2006).
Wal-mart has a reputation for caring for its customers, of course their employees, and for the prospective public. So Wal-Mart can be an industrial leader for the world of shoppers with an eye for lower affordable prices, company decision makers would continue it's systematic strategies that it's founder and president established years ago. Sam Walton believed in three guiding principles in his strategy planning they were to provide the customer with good value and service, to have a good relationship with its associates, and to be involved with the community.
A visionary leader is an individual who is able to desire things about the future that others may not see, but nonetheless, the immensity of such vision is amazing that it is able to be transmitted to society(Turner, 2013). According to Patrick Morley(2015), a visionary leader possesses the qualities of “vision, innovation, sacrifice, integrity, optimism, ability, impact, relation to others, excellence and servant to others.” All of those qualities, and many more, are those of the world humanitarian known as Nelson Mandela(1918-2013).