Bill Gates and George W Bush - Essay Example

Bill Gates and George W Bush Abstract This paper discusses specifically a business leader (Bill Gates) and a political leader (George W Bush). These two leaders are compared and contrasted with each other and their strengths and grey areas are explained in a very explicit fashion. Bill Gates Bill Gates is the founder of Microsoft. He was born in 1955 in Seattle, Washington and is known as one of the leading names within the world of business. His entrepreneurship skills are known to one and all and he is remarked as the pioneer within the personal computer revolution which has happened of late. Bill Gates, an American business magnate, stands at third position within the charts of the world’s richest personalities, the first one being Warren Buffet, followed closely by Carlos Slim Helu. Bill Gates, the Chairman of Microsoft, has built his reputation as a business leader of repute and extraordinary class and finesse (Gates, 1996). He inaugurated Microsoft with Paul Allen. Bill Gates held different positions within the company itself. He was the CEO as well as the Chief Software Architect until some time back and later on he left Microsoft in order to do some work within the philanthropic fields. Bill Gates undoubtedly remains as one of the biggest shareholders in the company. His share in the common stock stands at more than 8 percent. Microsoft is a world renowned software giant which has made it big due to Bill Gates’ commitment towards his very own company. It has annual sales of more than $41 Billion, which speaks for its true prowess. The company has more than 65,000 employees on board in around 100 nations of the world. The company operates for the purposes of licensing, development, support and manufacture of computer equipment and technology and makes use of a number of different software products. Bill Gates has been instrumental at creating the much needed difference within the reigns of Microsoft. Because of this very fact, the company has made it huge within the business world (Fridson, 2001). His practices and work domains have been openly discussed, analyzed and applied upon in other business regimes as well. He is taken as a true visionary leader within the different business processes and undertakings. True to his potential, Bill Gates has been consistently producing results for this software giant and he now leaves behind a legacy which can perform upon his vision and working commitment for a long period of time in the future. He has set the platform for the company to move forward – day after day (Wallace, 1993). It is quite correct to state here that Bill Gates’ management style has been aggressive more than anything else. His attacking mode of work was seen as a hurdle within the ranks of Microsoft but somehow or the other he knew deep down inside that he was doing so for the betterment of the organization. And he was right since the company broke new grounds and had phenomenal success (Lesinski, 2006). It is a fact that his contemporaries usually did not much appreciate his working style as he was resilient, thorough and comprehensive within his working tenets but in order to be a globally accepted software giant, he had to show such commitment for the betterment of the organization. Microsoft would not have been such a giant that it is today had Bill Gates shown a weak attitude as a leader and had less business acumen that he demonstrated on a consistent basis (Hyde, 2000). However it remains as a fact to this day that his management style turned him into a staunch and tough business professional and his leadership qualities were appreciated by all and sundry. Due to these very qualities, he has been hailed as one of the hundred most influential persons in the years 2004 – 2006. George W Bush George W Bush was the 43rd American President. He was the son of another American President in the 1990s – George Bush. Bush the junior was known for his resilience, commitment towards his promised results and sticking on firmly on to his decisions (Greenstein, 2005). He made decisions which were not supported by one and all but he had the knack to remain firm and devout within his adopted stance. His work ethics, leadership regime, decision making capacity as well as handling of the significant issues was in a committed fashion, however it is a totally different matter that he went out as the President of the United States in a very undignified manner, courtesy the different opinion polls and popularity ratings which sore quite a lot in the ending days of his reign. Bush was known to be an outspoken and firm leader within his political circles ever since he joined politics (Domin, 2005). As President of the US, he took the plunge to attack Afghanistan and then Iraq which really made the lives of the people miserable throughout the world. The wars still linger on and the aftereffects are there for one and all to see, analyze and judge with the passage of time. It is a fact that Bush’s decisions depended a great deal on the long term scheme of things, however he admitted to some mistakes of his which he did within his reign as the President of the US. When it comes to the leadership domains of George W Bush, one finds that he showed grit and determination in the wake of adversity. He was criticized heavily for his work that he did but during the tenure of his Presidency, he never gave into the pressure which was built around him. This goes to show that no matter how wrong his decisions turned out to be at the end, his perseverance remained firm and loyal to his work ethos. His discipline towards doing the right things for his fellow countrymen and women was always present within his stance as the supreme commander of the superpower nation of the world (Watson, 2005). Even his opponents credit Bush for his leadership qualities no matter how much they disagree with him on his different stances that he took on a host of issues, notwithstanding the Afghanistan and Iraq wars only. What he thought was right for the nation was what he actually did for the betterment of its populace. He did not compromise on the security of the United States, however it is a totally different matter altogether that he invited trouble and wrath from the different nations and ethnicities of the world. He was hated for who he was and what he did to the world, but he was never compromised upon his work ethics and related domains (Thompson, 2003). He wanted to make America the strongest nation in the world which was understandable since he was the President, but the path that he chose was full of destruction and killing innocent people, which in turn invited a lot of criticism over his tenure as the President. He was open enough to delve deep into the mistakes that he had made. His leadership attributes cannot be doubted at all. The motives behind the endeavors and undertakings could however be analyzed critically. He might just come out as the loser under these analyses but it is a given that he will be seen as a leader who showed resolute firmness of the tasks that lied in front of him when he was the President of the US (Brookhiser, 2003). His popularity graph started to drop drastically low and it was about time then for America to move on and elect a new President. Change was what the Americans needed and it is indeed what they got from the newly elected leader of the US. Barack Obama represents the hatred that Americans had for George W Bush. Bibliography BROOKHISER, Richar. (2003). Mind of George W. Bush. The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 291, April DOMIN, Gregory. (2005). The George W. Bush Presidency: Initial Assessments. Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 35 FRIDSON, Martin. (2001). How to be a Billionaire: Proven Strategies from the Titans of Wealth. John Wiley & Sons GATES, Bill. (1996). The Road Ahead. Penguin Books GREENSTEIN, Fred. (2005). In His Father's Shadow: The Transformations of George W. Bush. Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 35 HYDE, A. (2000). If There Must Be One, Let It Be Bill Gates. The Public Manager, Vol. 29 LESINSKI, Jeanne M. (2006). Bill Gates (Biography (A & E)). A&E Television Networks THOMPSON, Carolyn. (2003). The Leadership Genius of George W. Bush: 10 Commonsense Lessons from the Commander in Chief. Wiley WALLACE, James. (1993). Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire. HarperCollins Publishers, New York WATSON, Robert. (2005). High Risk and Big Ambition: The Presidency of George W. Bush. Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 35 Word Count: 1,293 Read More