May 29th, 2020
One of the reasons why a company gets into a better position in the market is because of the core leadership team, but the first reason for a company failing to deliver its product or give it the best quality is because of the leader and the core team behind him. We need leaders in every phase of our life: one to run the country, one to run the state, one to run the local city, and also importantly, one to run a corporate company. Some leaders get glorified for the work they never did, some leaders get criticized for the best thing they have ever done, and some leaders will stay in the hearts of the people forever because of their sacrifices for the country or for the world. However, corporate leaders are generally the most hated leaders. The leadership of the corporate industry is one of the confusing things for most of the people: some people hate the corporate leaders for the money they make, some people hate them because they steal our data, it is really hard to believe but some people hate corporate leaders for being famous. For example, ‘Mark Zuckerberg’ is one of the most hated corporate leaders of our time for all his hard work and trying to connect people all around the world but why do we only see the negative impact by him? What sacrifices do the corporate leaders need to make for their company to grow and change the lives of many people and how it impacts his character, country economy, and the output of the product? I argue that corporate leaders need to sacrifice many things in their career and maybe sometimes they have to sacrifice their ethics too for the growth of their company or product.
According to the article, Leadership Requires Sacrifice, “However, the team typically expects the leader to take responsibility for the failure, and the leader must be willing to accept criticism by saying, ‘I am to blame; the failure lies with me.’ The converse nature of this reality may not appear fair to those in charge, but they usually must be willing to accept these circumstances as a price of leadership in order to secure prospects of future success and cohesion because shifting blame to associates will only undermine subsequent endeavors. Good leaders will privately work to fix the problems within the organization while publicly acknowledging the failures and accepting the blame.” This quote explains the struggles that every great leader needs to go through and all the sacrifices he needs to make for his team. A great leader always accepts the blame before his team, even though the team made the mistake, he takes all the credit for its failure and that is the real leadership. When the team gets successful, he takes less credit for all the success and sometimes he might not get recognition for all the work he has done. Even though leadership in general is about the success of sharing with the team, the corporate leadership is really different and very competitive compared with real leadership. Why do corporate leaders need to behave rudely with their employees, when they really sacrificed all the fame for the team? According to the article, How Is Leadership Different At Startup Companies Than With Larger, More Traditional Corporations? explains, “The leaders in traditional companies believe that they have the ultimate authority over everyone. The longer the tenure of these leaders, the higher up the ladder they get to climb.” This quote infers that leaders in traditional companies think differently, they always want to protect themselves from others and they think they have authority over everyone. Leaders in corporate companies never care about others, they only care about the final output they expect from others. The real leaders always work for the team but the corporate leaders only care about their dreams and their projects at the end of the day corporate leaders are just here to make money.
If money is more prioritized than relationships and growth of the team, what sacrifices are the corporate leaders are making and what can we learn from them? According to the article, 7 Things Every Leader Needs to Sacrifice quotes, “It isn’t cheap to be a leader. It costs money to stay updated about your industry, to keep up with the trends, and to acquire new skills. There will be congresses, conferences, and seminars to go, and they aren’t cheap. There will be accommodations, food, flights, and many more expenses to be paid as well. Depending on your line of work, clothing may be another hit in your pocket…” This quote explains how much corporate leaders work for the company financially, they always need to focus on acquiring new talent, they have to keep with all the fights in the industry, they need to pay for electricity, food and travel too. Sometimes corporate leaders might also have to sacrifice their own salaries for the benefits of the company, they will pay on time, they will give a bonus every year, they pay for your travel expenses, they give some stock of their companies to you, and sometimes they even pay for your food. All these things don’t come for a cheap price: the leaders might even lose their own money sometimes for the product and employees. It is not at all easy to give a lot of money away but the leaders will always focus on their product and the output time for making it. Just because of their financial sacrifices many people are able to live happily without any problems.
Some people might think if sacrificing money is the only key element for the corporate leaders to make, that is not a sacrifice they are making: they are just investing money on their product.
Every corporate leader needs to go through different phases in the early days of starting a corporation, they have to make many sacrifices other than money to see the growth of their company. According to the article, 5 Sacrifices Every Entrepreneur Must Make, Jayson DeMers quotes, “You’re starting a new venture, and there’s no guarantee you’re going to succeed. The foundation of your company, even if your idea and plans are solid, is rocky at best, and there’s no telling which direction your business is headed until you’re several months, or often much longer… If you haven’t already sacrificed a comfortable, well-paying, stable job to follow this route, odds are you’ll have to sacrifice some other kind of stability before you can move forward. This quote explains how hard it is for young entrepreneurs/leaders to establish a company in the beginning of their career, they might lose the job, they might lose their value in the job market and sometimes even if the product is really good and viable, they might not be able to make money for months or year and sometime they might not be able to make money ever out that product. There are a lot more sacrifices leaders have to make but the biggest one is sacrificing their personal life, “When you become an entrepreneur, the lines between your working life and your personal life will blur. You’ll start thinking about business even when you’re away from the office, sometimes because you want to and sometimes because you can’t help it. You’ll also get calls and emails urgently needing your attention because you’re the boss and there’s nobody else to answer them.” This quote from the same article explains how sometimes the leader might even lose his personal life, as you spend most of the time on the product and your company, leaders might have no personal time for themselves. All this process might make the leaders get attached to the product and they might not trust anyone while making it or they might be the reason why corporate leaders hate sharing credit with others. With all the hard work and passion for their companies, will leaders ever lose their ethics for the growth of their company and misuse the user data for the rise of the business or to improve the product?
When people refer to a corporate company most of the time people are curious to know what is happening with our data. Everyone who uses their product wants to if their data is being protected or if it is being used for enhancing the product or to sell our data to outside markets and make money. According to the article, Convert Data to Dollars: The Business of Mining Data, Gitanjali Maria quotes, “Data mining is the technique of discovering correlations, patterns, or trends by analyzing large amounts of data stored in repositories such as databases and storage devices. It’s a crucial part of advanced technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and artificial intelligence.” This quote explains what data mining is, it is how the data scientists collect our data. It is a process of taking our data stored in their databases or devices to analyze the data, see the pattern of us on their website/device and how much time we spend on them or what do we click on? With our data and trends, they make their programs more effective by giving our data to Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, so we can enhance our experience on their website/device. In the same article Maria also explains the process the data mining, how our data is divided into cluster of things, how much time we spend on each page, what associations are we making with in the site and how interested are we with clickbaits, after all the process they store our data and make the data into graph for better analyzing. This explains how the corporate companies can get every single bit of information from our side to themselves and how they can use it for improving user experience. If our data is only used to improve their services, why are some people scared about the data permission? According to the article, Facebook wants your data: 5 ways to keep it safe, Laura Hautala quotes, “The company[Facebook] isn’t just a social network. It’s an ad network too, and it follows you around on the internet and in real life to find information that’ll help it tailor the ads it serves up to you. Facebook can track the websites you visited as you planned the trip. It can gather customer information shared by partners, which might include the store where you bought your sunscreen. And Facebook has similar information about all the friends who went on the trip, and it knows you were all together, because it has your location data.” This quote infers how companies are able to track each and every step of their users. When they are able to track us and our friends, they can easily manipulate the experience with their advertisements. Every advertisement is based on our location, usage and some secret information of ours, this explains how corporate companies steal our data and use it for their own benefits and growth.
When a corporate leader began his company did he have the same thoughts of selling data to others? Or did the leaders sacrifice their ethics for the growth of their own company? According to the article, Corporate Behaviour, quotes, “Corporate behaviour has effects not only on stakeholders and shareholders but also on the entire economy. When a corporation acts ethically and socially responsible in its business decisions and strategic planning then that corporation will be more sustainable.” This quote infers how important it is for the corporations, their leaders and stakeholders to behave more ethically as it can build more sustainability for the corporation, being ethical will not just help the company and their leadership team but it will also have a huge impact on the economy. If corporate industries need to behave more ethically and help the economy, then how are the other industries following the ethics in their field? According to the article, What’s the Matter with Business Ethics?, quotes, “Such trends are all the more disappointing in contrast to the success that ethicists in other professions—medicine, law, and government—have had in providing real and welcome assistance to their practitioners.” This quote explains us that the situation in the corporate industry is really better compared to other industries like medicine, law and government. Corporate leaders are being more ethical compared to the other competitive industries, this concludes that corporate leaders are sacrificing their ethics for company growth but not just corporate leaders but other industries sacrifice their ethics too.
Corporate leaders make their product better and they work for themselves and they make sacrifices for their own success. If they really don’t care about others, why should we respect them or should we disrespect them for mining our data and using it against us for their gains? What are the corporate companies doing to help the country or the people in it. According to the article, The Roles of Business Organizations in Economic Development Danielle Smyth quotes, “The success of a business as a whole directly affects the world’s economy. At its core, businesses are designed to serve a particular need that people have, and to provide trusted goods and services related to that need.” This quote explains us, even though corporate leaders work for their product and their company, it is to help the economy and make the product reach more people and make them benefit from the product. Whenever a corporate leader makes a product, at the end of the day, it is about reaching more people and they are benefitted from it. Corporate leaders doesn’t only help the economy but they are able to create a lot of jobs for people. According to the article, Entrepreneurs and their impact on jobs and economic growth, Alexander S. Kritikos quotes, “Entrepreneurs stimulate employment growth by generating new jobs when they enter the market. Research has shown that beyond this immediate effect there is a more complicated, S-shaped effect over time. There is a direct employment effect from new businesses that arises from the new jobs being created… there is usually a stagnation phase or even a downturn as new businesses gain market share from existing firms that are unable to compete and as some new entrants fail.” This quote explains, when a new company starts it always creates a lot of jobs for people and after a few years they acquire the companies at a loss. Both the times, corporate leaders are able to make jobs and save people from losing their jobs, this explains the impact of a corporate leader in the country’s economy and making more jobs.
All things considered, we can conclude that corporate leaders make many sacrifices for their product to reach more people. Corporate leadership is completely different from how a normal leader behaves or acts. When a normal leader works for a team, he cares about the team and growth of the team but when a corporate leader is trying to make the team work for a product, he will only consider the product. Most of the time corporate leaders are being hated for all the work they have done because many people don’t know how much hard work a corporate leader puts in to make the product reach more people. They make many sacrifices in their personal life, they sleep for less time, they give less time for their personal life, they sacrifice their peak time of their career for their companies and their products. Sometimes they might even have to sacrifice their ethics because they need to listen to their board members and stockholders for the growth of their company. Every step they take in their professional career is to make a perfect product which can reach more people and generate money. Their sacrifices are the least known about any corporate leader because no one cares about a failed product and no one cares about the struggles of failed corporate leadership. They sacrifice all the time, money and professional growth for their dream project (product) and make it reach more people. It is ok to not respect a corporate leader because of his mistakes but we shouldn’t hate him for all the sacrifices he made for us. A true corporate leader is full of sacrifices from the day he dreamt of being a corporate leader.
Citations:
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