Eric Yuan, the CEO of Zoom, is considered as one of the best CEOs of the modern world. After observing Yuan’s style of leadership, it can be concluded that his style of leadership is Servant leadership. The term “servant leadership” was first used by Robert K. Greenleaf. A servant leader puts the needs of his followers, particularly his teammates, ahead of his own. The servant-leader model shows empathy by listening to others, providing resources to help them succeed professionally and personally (Pawar et al., 2020), including them in decision-making when it makes sense, and fostering camaraderie among team members.
A servant leader takes the initiative, establishes a framework, and is willing to bear the risks associated with a project. Yuan claims that one can never have the courage to start anything new if he is always observing what the competitor is doing. He guided his firm by prioritizing the needs of his customers (Blanchard, 2018). By differentiating itself as user-friendly and eliminating the lengthy download delays that often-afflicted other rivals, Zoom was able to defeat existing incumbents that controlled the video chat platform.
On daily basis, leaders are faced with the challenges of making judgments in the absence of enough knowledge, accurate data, or adequate time. Intuition helps servant leaders cross the information gap. According to Yuan, to be a successful founder and CEO, one needs to be involved in everything that happens at the company. Yuan is able to devote more time to pursuing his passions and remaining loyal to his “work smarter, not harder” philosophy. Eric Yuan made the observation that building trust is the first step in winning over consumers’ hearts (Covey et al., 2022). Zoom strives for complete transparency in all interactions with its clients. Every Zoom user is like a member of Yuan’s extended family, in his eyes (Chacko, 2020).
Without a doubt, Eric Yuan exemplifies servant leadership. Most of Eric’s staff look up to him as an excellent leader because of his encouraging but modest manner. Leadership, in Yuan’s view, is mostly about ensuring the happiness of one’s employees.
References
Blanchard, K. (2018). Servant leadership in action: How you can achieve great relationships
and results. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Chacko, E. (2020). Eric Yuan’s leadership lessons for building lasting enterprise
value. Entrepreneur & Innovation Exchange.
Covey, S. M., Kasperson, D., Covey, M., & Judd, G. T. (2022). Trust and inspire: How truly
great leaders unleash greatness in others. Simon and Schuster.
Pawar, A., Sudan, K., Satini, S., & Sunarsi, D. (2020). Organizational servant
leadership. International Journal of Educational Administration, Management, and Leadership, 63-76.
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