¶ … Vikram Pandit and Marissa Mayer Leadership Styles The objective of this paper is to compare and contrast the leadership styles of Vikram Pandit (Citigroup) and Marissa Mayer (Yahoo) using Darling & Leffel's (2010) to construct different theoretical frameworks to discuss the reason the two leaders have been the successful leaders in the corporate world.

Theory of leadership

There are different theories of leadership to demonstrate the strategies leaders employ in achieving organizational goals, however, all the theoretical frameworks agree that leadership is a process where an individual with leadership acumen influences the subordinates to achieve a common goal. Rowe, & Guerrero (2014) define leadership as the process of influencing the subordinates and facilitating individuals to achieve goal objectives. However, Northouse, (2010) defines the concept leadership as a process where a leader influences a group of individuals in order to achieve a common goal. Darling, & Leffel, (2010) argue that the articulate leadership is essential in the contemporary business environment. However, different leaders use different styles to influence the entrepreneurial spirit among the subordinates.

Thus, leadership is how an individual influences others and theories agree that leadership is more articulate than management. (Darling, et al. 2007). Typically, great leaders possess articulated and dazzling intelligence that assist them to zest for changes through a coherent vision. For example, transformational leadership uses the vision and intellectual stimulation to achieve changes and organizational outcomes. (Rubin, Munz, & Bommer, 2005).

However, transactional leadership uses rewards and punishment to accomplish the desired goal. Contrary to the transactional leadership style that uses punishment and reward, the transformational leaders inspire the team through vision and coaching. In a contemporary business environment, the vision set priorities and provide directions to achieve goal objective. To create a vision, the leader uses management tools such as Core Competence Analysis, SWOT Analysis, Personal Learning Plan, Porter's Five Forces, and Core Competence Analysis to achieve organization strength.

The transformational leadership theory is one of the most effective leadership approaches that creates positive changes in the subordinates through motivation. Bass, & Avolio, (1994) argue that transformational leadership uses the intellectual stimulation encourages and stimulates creativity in followers. Moreover, transformational leadership uses individual consideration by listening to individual needs and concerns, which assist them to give support and empathy as well as keeping communication open. Transformation leadership also encompasses a respect of individual consideration and uses the inspiration motivation to articulate a vision and communicate future goals. The leader also uses the idealized influence to instill pride and provide a role model to gain respect. (Jung, and Sosik, 2002).

Contrarily, transactional leadership uses rewards and punishment set by leaders to achieve the organizational goals. Typically, transactional leadership is similar to managerial leadership that focuses on the organization, role of supervision, and group performances. Moreover, the transactional leadership promotes compliance using punishment and rewards. Contrary to transformation leadership that aims to change future, the transactional leadership does not aim to change the future merely makes things to remain the same. Thus, transactional leadership is appropriate at the time of emergence, crisis, and appropriate for a project that needs to be implemented in a specific format.

Darling et al. (2010) contribute to the argument by pointing out that leadership styles have ability to influence the entrepreneurial spirit that facilitates and encourage the team building.

"An entrepreneur is an innovator who recognizes and seizes opportunities; converts those opportunities into workable and marketable ideas; adds value through time, effort, money, skills and other resources; assumes the risks of the competitive marketplace to implement those ideas, and realizes the rewards from those efforts." (Darling, et al. 2007 p 191).

A key feature of leadership is the ability to inspire trust and respect on the followers to achieve organizational goals. Darling et al. (2010) identify leadership styles as Director, Creator, Connector, and Analyzer. However, these leadership styles are interrelated, however, none of these leadership styles is more superior to any other. In the corporate world, each individual has a dominant leadership style that reflects how individual works, communicates and interacts with other people. Darling, & Beebe (2007) believe that effective leadership influences an entrepreneurship that facilitates the goal achievement through product innovative and operations.

To accomplish the desired outcome, an entrepreneur forms a team to make a success possible. Important styles of entrepreneurship leadership include paradoxical thinking, controlled reflecting, intentional focusing, instinctive response, inclusive behaving, purpose trusting, and relational being. By drawing different theoretical perspectives,...

Born in 1975, Mayer graduated from Stanford University, and demonstrated her leadership instinct during her undergraduate by teaching her co-classmate symbolic systems. After completing her first degree and master's degree in Stanford, Marissa joined Google in 1999 when the company only had 19 employees and became a female engineer designing and developing Google's search offering. Mayer started by writing code and led a small team of engineer. However, Mayer's leadership instinct manifested over the years that assisted her becoming Director of Web products. As a director, she developed the AdWords that helped the company to generate 96% of their revenue. Mayer uses the transformational leadership style by transforming Google becoming the top global search engine today. Mayer started by developing the Google Mentorship Program that recruited and trained new talents. The major characteristics of the program are to mentor the subordinates. Mayer demonstrated the transformational leadership style by selecting some junior employees for the two-year program taught them, mentored them, and seeing them taking intensive evening classes and extracurricular assignments. Mayer transformational leadership style assisted her to perform key roles in developing Google Images, Google Search, Google Maps, Google News, Google Books, Google Tool Bar, Google Product Search, Gmail, and iGoogle. However, Mayer joined Yahoo in 2010 to become 16th most powerful women in the world and ranked 6th on Fortune's 40.
However, Vikram Shankar Pandit was an Indian-born American banker and held a position as a chief executive until he resigned in 2012.Pandit graduated from Columbia University where he earned a bachelor and master's degree in Electrical Engineering. Moreover, he earned MBA in 1980 and Ph.D. in finance from Columbia University. Unlike Mayer who used the transformational leadership style in Google and Yahoo, Pandit used the transactional theoretical framework to run the Citigroup. When he was the Chief Executive of the company, Pandit used the reward and punishment to achieve organizational goals. For example, when he discovered that the Citigroup lost billions of dollars from subprime loss, Pandit immediately replaced the officer in charge of the operation. Unlike Mayer who motivated and trained the subordinates, Pandit expected the subordinate to perform to be entitled to a reward. As a Chief Executive officer of the company, Pandit used the transactional leadership model to run the company, which he openly demonstrated with reference to his personal compensation. When the Citigroup nearly went to bankruptcy due to 2008 and 2009 financial crisis, Pandit declared that his salary per year would be $1 per year with no bonus until the Citigroup recorded profitability. After working for two consecutive years, Pandit assisted the company in recording profitability for five consecutive quarters. Based on his superior performances by bringing the company back from the level of bankruptcy to one of the most profitable banks in the United States, the Pandit annual compensation was increased from $1 per year to $1.5 million. In 2011, the Citigroup awarded Pandit $23.3 Million retention making him the highest paid CEO.

Despite a fundamental difference between the Mayer, and Pandit leadership styles, both of them were achievers. They use their superior intellectual superiorities to achieve organizational goals. Both leaders were well educated and graduated from the best universities in the United States. Moreover, both leaders applied their intellectual superiorities to run the company, while Mayer used her knowledge in computer science to develop code and web pages to make Google and Yahoo record superior profitabilities, Pandit used the sophisticated financial theory to bring Citigroup back from bankruptcy to profitable banks.

Conclusion

The paper compares and contrasts the leadership styles of both Mayer and Pandit drawing the transformational and transactional theoretical frameworks to explain their leadership styles. The study revealed that Mayer used transformational leadership model to transform the Google from small company to the top search engine in the world by stimulating the subordinates through coaching, and the strategy had assisted the company in recording superior profitability over the years. However, Pandit was a banker using the transactional leadership style to punish and reward the subordinates. Pandit was able to transform Citigroup from the point of bankruptcy to one of the most profitable companies in the world. A fundamental similarity between the two leaders was that they were achievers, and use their different leadership styles to achieve organizational goals.

Reference

Bass, B.M. & Avolio, B.J. (Eds.). (1994). Improving Organizational Effectiveness through Transformational Leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Darling, J. & Beebe, S. A. (2007). Enhancing entrepreneurial leadership: A focus on key communication priorities. Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, 20 (2),…