Starbucks Leadership

Leadership styles, skills and characteristics vary among all leaders even within themselves a leader’s style can change. However, vision and charisma are useful to entrepreneurs. Let us examine how these characteristics can be useful to the entrepreneur and then analyze how Starbucks, Howard Schultz’s, uses these characteristics to be a successful leader.

As I read about the top 25 entrepreneurs there is a common thread that they all have an idea and make it a big business. The entrepreneur is a transformational leader. Transformational leaders change the organization while working in it. This takes a vision and charisma. The vision is the idea that is an inspirational possibility. The transformational leader must “create and articulate a realistic, credible, attractive vision that grows out of and improves upon the present.” The leader needs to communicate the vision both verbally and through their behavior.

The entrepreneur uses his charisma to get employees believing in and carrying out the vision. This transformational leader needs to convince employees the value of his vision. To make the changes in the organization the transformational leader “sets high performance expectations and asserts that followers can reach them.” The charismatic leader also communicates his values and exemplifies them. Lastly, the charismatic leader is courageous and convicted in his vision.

Next let’s examine these leadership characteristics and other skills in Howard Schultz, the chairman and chief global strategist of Starbucks. Schultz is the transformational leader that took a small coffee shop owned by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegel, and Gordon Bowker and made it a top company.

Starbucks serves more than 20 million customers worldwide every week in 6,000 stores by 60,000 employees. Starbucks owes a lot of that success to it’s, Howard Schultz’s leadership. In 1981, Schultz visited the store to see why the owners were buying a special type of coffee maker. He immediately recognized the value of this coffee shop. After trying to join Starbucks he finally succeeded in 1982. He was in charge of marketing and the operations of the four stores located in Seattle Washington. Schultz left Starbucks in the mid-1980’s and raised money to buy the original Starbucks franchise in 1987. From 1987 Schultz has transformed four stores in Seattle to the success it is today.

How did Schultz do this? First, you have to have a quality product you believe. Starbucks uses a “high-quality, freshly roasted coffee bean.” Schultz believed in this product and had big ideas. When he first visited Starbucks, in 1981 he recognized the potential for this store and never let up on that idea. He worked toward buying the franchise and fulfilling his idea. Schultz could not build this business on his own he needed others. He convinced his employees that his idea was real and attainable.

The two characteristics of Schultz’s successful leadership are his vision and charisma. Unlike his predecessors, Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegel and Gordon Bowker, Schultz saw more than just a four store coffee shop. He envisioned opening stores in office buildings, hotels, and outdoor kiosks to give better access to his customers. He understood the principle of a quality product and worked toward that end. Starbucks coffee beans are grown organically, and the are processed safely in facilities. Schultz also had a vision of corporate responsibility. Starbucks has an environmental mission statement. The Starbucks foundation “sponsors literacy programs, Earth Day clean-ups, and regional aid walks.” Starbucks also puts stores in underprivileged neighborhoods for job growth and commitments to those communities. Starbucks takes an interest in the farming communities that harvest their coffee beans. Recently, as a result of the fallout from Enron et al, Starbucks published