UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA

KAMPUS PULAU PINANG

ARSHAD AYUB GRADUATE BUSINESS

SCHOOL

MGT 783 - LEADERSHIP AND MANAGING

TALENT

TITLE : A CASE STUDY OF JACK

MA, FOUNDER OF ALIBABA

PREPARED BY :
MOHD MUNIR BIN ABDUL RAHMAN

PREPARED FOR :
DR. MOHD SUBRI TAHIR
TABLE OF CONTENTS

NO. TITLE PAGE

1. Introduction 1
2. Background 1
3. Issue 2
4. Cause of the issue 2
5. Analyze 3
6. Recommendation 4
7. Conclusion 5
A CASE STUDY OF JACK MA, FOUNDER OF ALIBABA

INTRODUCTION
This is a case study of the founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma. Jack Ma is a fascinating example of successful leader. Jack Ma or his real
name is Ma Yun was born on September 10, 1964. He is a Chinese business tycoon who is the founder and former executive
Chairman of Alibaba Group. He is also the chairman of SoftBar, president of China Council of The Natural Conservancy(TNC), co-
chairman of Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation. As an outstanding business leader, Jack Ma is seen as a
global ambassador for Chinese business and he was listed as one of the world's most powerful people, with  Forbes ranking him at
21st place on the list of World's Most Powerful People.
Alibaba Group was established in the year of 1999 by 18 early people that is led by Jack Ma. From the beginning, the company’s
founders shared a belief that the Internet will be a platform for small enterprises to provide innovation and technology to grow and
compete more effective in the domestic and global economies. Since the launching of it’s first website helping small Chinese
exporters, manufacturers and entrepreneurs to sell internationally, Alibaba Group has grown into a global leader in online and mobile
commerce. Today, the company operate as a leading online marketplaces as well as businesses in cloud computing, digital media and
entertainment, innovation initiatives and others. He intend to use the of internet and Alibaba to facilitate more global trades across the
borders of China and to help SMEs across the world
He is on the mission to change the way business is done in China, gives the country it’s heart back and take over over the e-commerce
world. For making this to happen, Jack Ma had to be a leader possessing great qualities , skills and styles made him possible to turn
his dream true. Jack Ma became one of the richest and most influential people in the world because he was able connect everyone in a
global marketplace, despite China’s policies preventing him from receiving foreign investment.

BACKGROUND
Jack Ma’s success can be viewed as a dream. In the last 20 years, only several firms in Asia have managed to replicate the progress
and success showed by Alibaba. This feat can largely be attributed to the efforts and leadership qualities of Jack Ma through dedicated
work ethics. People around the world are anxious to follow in the wake of his prime leadership qualities and discover the reason
behind his success.
Even though he is one of the world’s richest men, Jack Ma has never allowed success to cloud his acknowledgement of where he
came from or his vision for the future. His keys to success are motivating and hold true for everyone, be it the entrepreneur of a small
business or a large one. There are numerous leadership traits of Jack Ma that has lead to his huge empire in less than 2 decades
The first one is a unique idea to do business with Alibaba. Jack Ma started to offer a platform for individuals and small businesses to
search targeted and suitable customers for these business owners. Even though the idea was not fresh, Jack Ma provided an online
portal specifically targeted for the people of China, and it became a famous within a few years.
Secondly, he perceived values good attitude. Jack Ma always keeps a low profile when it comes to talking about his wealth and he
would rather focus on how to make his business the best. The people working for Alibaba know that they have to follow the steps of
their leader, as a positive attitude connected with industrious work is valued by Jack Ma.
Next, Jack Ma hire a team of people that have superior skills. Jack Ma has been asked, what separates a leader from an employee. He
said that the employees should have tiptop technical skills than you. If they do not have it, it means that you have hired the wrong
person. Because of this, Jack Ma focuses on the skills of employees around him and look for people who have a comprehensive
know-how of carrying his vision forward.
Jack Ma had a clear mind that he knew from the beginning what his aspirations for Alibaba were, and how to turn them into reality.
Leaders should have a clear mind before getting their feet wet with any task. A bunch of ideas can be confused and change your sight.
Jack Ma focused solely on making Alibaba a business to business portal at the start, and only after that vision was achieved, he then
work on to turn it into business to consumer and consumer to consumer as well. This happened because he was confident about when
and how to change tracks.
The last trait is related to giving up. Jack Ma perceived that giving up is the biggest failure. He values people who try their luck in
making something happen and give their best attempt in achieving their goals. Jack Ma believes that a person is able to learn the most
from his mistakes, obstacles in life, and the hardships. The key to success is to never lose hope, despite how depressing or difficult the
situation gets, and learn from the past.

1
ISSUE
Leadership development and change management can be the highest priority for any organizations. There are organizations that fail to
achieve both of their goals. One of the reason the organizations struggle is because they think that both leadership development and change
management as different things rather than the co related. Employees at all levels of an organization must overcome difficulty to change if
change is to occur. Thus, the changes in initiatives that require a difference from typical and behaviors are the important to be learning as
best learning situations.
We know that effective leadership is essential to successful change. But we wanted to understand the differences in leadership
between successful and unsuccessful change efforts. Our goal was to characterize “change-capable leadership,” define the key
leadership competencies necessary for change, and better understand leadership behaviors that could contribute to change failures.
Leaders have to act as role drivers as well as role models in any successful change programme.
One of the main reasons Alibaba is so successful is because of they are carrying out of a good management system. Good
management is the key to the success or failure of any company. It is impossible to manage in the same way when the business start to
grow. In Alibaba, Jack Ma had to experiment with a few management styles before finding the one that fits their company. His
willingness to recognize when things are not working out and to change accordingly highlights the problem most managers and
leaders face which is rigidity.

CAUSE OF THE ISSUE

The cause of the issue can be seen on the different leadership style that has been adopted by Jack Ma Alibaba. These adaptation of his
company make us feels that every company must know what is right to be implemented given that what current situation that the
company are experiencing on.
Autocratic Leadership Style
An autocratic management style is one where the manager makes decisions unilaterally and without much involvement from the
subordinates. When Alibaba was first being launched, Jack Ma was the only man on the leading and had to take an autocratic position.
As the only person who was internet savvy in their small province, he had to first prove to his friends and family that the internet
exist, by showing them on a computer, and then he had to prove to them that his non-traditional business could work. With no one to
help, Jack had to be the executive decision maker for the company and all matters involving business.
As a result, decisions will only reflect the opinions and personality of the manager, which in turn can project an image of a confident,
well managed business. On the other hand, strong and competent subordinates may become irritated because of the limits placed on
their decision-making freedom, leading to a higher turnover rate among the company’s best staff.

The autocratic style has both some benefits and some weaknesses. The benefits are one can make decisions quickly, especially in
stress-filled situations, get a clear chain of command and oversight while the disadvantages are discourages group input, can impair
morale of the employees and can lead to resentment and may impair or ignore creative solutions and expertise from subordinates.

Conductive Leadership Style

Jack Ma knew he had to change his management style as it was not conducive to the running of the company. Even though he was
still CEO of the group as a whole, he started to share responsibility with his trusted co directors and managers. As the company grew
and expanded they started attracting more qualified people who wanted to work for them. He adopted a management style that was
more conductive and allowed people to work with him, not just for him .
This type of management style is also essentially dictatorial. The difference is that, executive decisions take into account the best
interests of the employees and not just purely that of the business. Communication is again generally downward, but feedback to the
management is encouraged to maintain morale. This style can be highly advantageous when it engenders loyalty from the employees,
leading to a lower labor turnover, thanks to the emphasis on social needs.
This is a definite improvement from the autocratic management style where lack of worker motivation is typical because no loyalty is
established between the manager and the people who are managed. However, the conductive management style also shares
disadvantages with the autocratic style, such as employees becoming dependent on the leader. Nevertheless, it is important to note
that Jack Ma recognized when he should start making changes to his management style in order keep up with the growing needs of the
company, and though the changes were not extremely drastic it still brought the company one step closer to greatness.This style
demands loyalty from the employees. Staff turnover is discouraged and rare. He was comfortable using this style because everyone
involved in the company was someone he knew on a personal level.
Persuasive Leadership Style

2
The style Jack Ma mostly the most through his business of managing Alibaba group is the persuasive style . When the company
become expanded to a global scale, he can no longer keep it within of his family and friends, because he needed to understand not
only the aspect of business to run the company but also the aspect of political as well. He had to use influence to keep the investors
happy by giving them a big position within the company as well as to get outside support that was very important for Alibaba to better
understand the markets outside of China especially when they collaborated with the America where the cultures are different.
A persuasive management style refers to the manager that shares several characteristics with that autocratic manager just that a
persuasive manager keep control over the whole process of decision making. The most vital difference is that the persuasive manager
will spend more time working with their employees and subordinates to convince them of the benefits of the decision made. A
persuasive manager is more alert of their employees but it would be wrong to say that the persuasive style of management is more
comprehensive of employees, for just as there are situations where the adapt of an autocratic management style would be proper, there
are also situations where a company will be advantage from a persuasive management style.
They are unlikely to assign any part of the decision making process to those who are lower in the hierarchy so this can prove how he
ran his company still based on an autocratic style but still remain careful of the needs of his employees and the times that help
Alibaba.com to maintain its relevance in today’s current market.
Democratic Leadership Style
Jack Ma has also sometimes demonstrated his management style to be democratic style. In a democratic style, the manager allows the
employees to take part in decisionmaking: therefore everything is agreed upon by the majority. The communication is broad in both
directions which is from employees to leaders and the other way around. This style can be specially useful when complex decisions
need to be made that require many specialist skills.
From the whole business’s point of view, job satisfaction and quality of work will get improve and contributions from subordinates
will be much high. However, the decision making process could be severely slowed down unless decision processes are streamlined.
The need for agreement may avoid the management from taking the best decision for the business unless it is limited.
Managing by Walking around Management/Leadership Style
This is usually when the manager become visible throughout the business operation. Along his career lives, Jack Ma has never been
lazy, but always seen around his company. All of the employees knew him, the media knew him.
Essentially he became a manager who was leading by example using walk the talk approach. “Management by Walking Around” is a
classic technique used by managers who are proactive listeners. Managers using this style collect a lot of information so that when
there are challenging situation, it will not become bigger problem. By listening to employees’ suggestions, it will help avoid
unexpected crisis before they begin.
MBWA helps managers by providing real-time information about processes and policies compare to formal communication channels
that are always been left out. By walking around, the management gathers an idea of the level of mental state in the organization and
can provide solutions if there is trouble along the way. The manager must keep his role as coach and counselor but not as a director.
By giving out to the employees decision making responsibilities , managers can be confident of the fastest response time that he will
get back.

ANALYZE
He can be autocratic when needed to be, persuasive in matters where it would work better, and leading by example among his
employees in order that he and his company remain relevant to the market. At a young age he successfully accumulate a fortune with
a concept that his friends and family were very questioning about, and yet his best attribute is knowing when to stop and take stock of
the situation. He has made amazing decision, he stepped down as CEO of the Alibaba group in May 2013 that he had taken the
company as far as it could go under his management and that the company now required fresh people to continue.
Most leaders want to stay in their position of power for as long as possible but Jack Ma saw the wisdom in stepping down before he
and his work could become irrelevant, damaging the company that he has spent so much time and effort on. This shows what
incredible and dynamic leader he has become.
One of the key factors of Alibaba group’s incredible success in such a short amount of time is because the managerial team and Jack
Ma were attuned to the needs of the company and market and were willing to change with the times. They took advantage of the
internet phenomena that was sweeping the world and produced something from it that everyone can use. Their product was not just
aimed at a specific market but at everyone because humanity has always had a need to collected in order to buy and sell things and the
worldwide entrance of the internet made it a perfect tools and means to achieve that need.
Nowadays, people are used to go online in order to shop for the products that they wants. They don’t need to go through a lot of
problems and frustration in order to shop online. They can easily access online market through their computers or handphones and then
order what they want. The ordered products will be delivered to the doorstep as well. The reason why people prefer online shopping
because it can save time, it can be ordered at any place and the price are cheaper.
An online marketplace that everyone from all over the world can meet and buy and shop from was born. They didn’t seek to only
become leaders or rich, they were just looking for a way to serve easier connection with people much like other successful online
3
project like Facebook and Twitter. Jack Ma’s management style that constantly changes and evolves according to the demands of the
market and the company can be credited as part of the reason Alibaba is so successful. Another part of it can be attributed to his
hardworking nature and hands on approach.

RECOMMENDATION
Jack Ma possess illustrious leadership qualities , skills and styles some which are:
Be an authentic leader
Ma possesses a strong sense of character which helps him build loyalty and strong foundation on which his business Alibaba grows.
Ma states that leaders do not have to sacrifice our sense of humor just because they are in charge.
See through cutomers’ eyes
Ma runs e-commerce business and he got his success being not a Tech-Guy rather he view his products through his customers eyes.
This quality helps his business to provide best services.
Develop a mission
Jack Ma possesses a prolong and grand mission. And his mission is to regenerate China’s sense of purpose and culture which were
lost under Mao Zedong’s rule. Ma has given his employees generous equity shares so they get to benefit from Alibaba success too.
He unites people under a single goal
Ma knes that it is not possible to convince every single employees, business partner and investor to trust him or to listen to him no
matter how hard he tries. Accepting this and changing the approach is another quality and skill of his success. He unites them under a
common goal rather than uniting them under his own supervison. This is a company goal rather than a leader’s goal.

My opinion is that to be an aunthentic leader, one must be down to earth style of leader. This can lead to employees feels confortable
towards approaching their leader. Having this healthy environment can leads an organization to become successful and can move
towards goals and objectives. Many successful leaders have a beautiful relationship with their employees because they values them as
an asset to the company. We have been given two ears and one mouth for a reason so that we can understand, rather than be
understood. As a business leader, listening first to the issue, then trying to coach, has been the most valuable approach to be adopted
when dealing with your employees.
Secondly, one must know what customers wants rather than offering what they think. Ideas should be generated by doing some
researches towards market and what are the trends currently evolving in our times. This can lead to greater satisfaction of potential
customer and also can reduce any wastes due to unwanted products and services. Companies want to stay relevant and innovative and
often look at other successful companies, new trends or new products for inspiration. A customer need is a motivation that make
customer to buy a product or service. The need is the reason of the customer's purchase decision. Companies often look at the
customer need as an opportunity to contribute value to the goals.
To become successful, we must have a clear vision that is been driven by the mission. The mission must be realistic and provides win
win situation especially to the employees. This mission will announce to the world why your company and your business exists.
Every business should have a mission statement as a way of centralizing the organization. You can think of a mission statement as a
combination of what your business or nonprofit does and how and why it does it, expressed in a way that concentrate the values that
are important to you.
Finally, the goals of an organizations must be reflected to all stakeholders. This is because everyone are interrelated in terms of being
success in all areas. All of Alibaba’s employees receives stock options. This actions gives them a common sense of ownership in the
company, which resulted to the uniteness everyone to contribute for the benefit of the company. This can empower the employees
because he unites people through common goal. Rather than uniting his company under the vision of one person, he unites them under
a joint goal as the vision is more important than the leader. After the company filed for its IPO in 2014, he wrote a personal letter to
all employees so that this helps to create a sense of togetherness among all employees and management, which is vital for teamwork.

CONCLUSION

4
Jack Ma embodies the traits necessary to make him the leader in his field. It is indeed an inspiration to all, and the lessons gleaned
from this article are highly applicable not only to entrepreneurs – but to us here in Lion Group. Whether you are an executive looking
to climb the corporate ladder, or a manager leading a department, take your cues from this visionary personality and together we can
lead our organisation to greater heights.
He follows leadership styles which also help him to run his business in a successfull way. As a leader, we must cultivate our goals and
visions to improve our companies and to improve the lives of our employees. We should incorporate that mission into our culture and
implement it at every level to promote a better world. And this is what Jack Ma does as a leader and gets success at every stride of his
business.
And all this is down to its management team being willing to stop and admit that what they are doing does not work and to change
accordingly, to the betterment of the little business that could. Every once in a while, a great company comes along to be an example
to everyone else and the world of management and business analysis gets busy trying to analyze what management style they used
and what is their recipe for success. There is no real way but it does help to possess qualities like willingness to work hard, dedication,
being fair to your employees, flexibility as well as utilizing the skills you have and acknowledging the ones you do not have. Getting
help in areas which you do not have the answers for doesn’t make you a bad leader; it makes you a good and aware leader.

REFERENCES

1. Husain, H. (2018, February 21). 10 Leadership Secrets of Jack Ma that Shaped Alibaba's Roaring Success.
Retrieved from https://blog.taskque.com/leadership-secrets-jack-ma-alibabas/
2. Sattar, S. B. (2020, January 12). Leadership Qualities, Skills and Style of Jack Ma. Retrieved from
https://www.thestrategywatch.com/leadership-qualities-skills-styles-jack-ma/
3. Jack Ma. (2020, April 22). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ma
4. Zhao, Wenwen, and Verã³Nica Rosendo-Rios. “Success of Alibaba Based on Its Corporate Culture.” The
Source of Innovation in China,
5. Chanttel Tham Jo Ee & Dr. Rashad Yazdanifard (2015). The Review of Alibaba’s Operation Management
Details that have Navigated them to Success.