Howard D. Schultz

Name: Howard D. Schultz 

Birth Date: July 19, 1953 

Place of Birth: Brooklyn, New York 

Education: Northern Michigan University

Starbucks

Starbucks is an American global coffee company and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 20,891 stores in 62 countries. Starbucks serves hot and cold beverages, whole-bean coffee, mircoground instant coffee, full-leaf teas, pastries and snack. The company expanded rapidly since its opening. 

  

Howard D. Schultz 

"We're not in the business of filling bellies, we’re in the business of filling souls."

In 1986, Howard Schultz set up and own an espresso bar called II Giornale (The Daily), the venture was a hit. However, he did not have the capital to expand on his brand. Later, in 1987, Howard Schultz purchased Starbucks and merged the stores with his own and became CEO and chairman of the company. In 2000, he announced that he was leaving Starbucks. 8 years later, Howard Schultz returns and continues to run the company, believing that growth should not dilute the company’s culture and the common goal of the company’s leadership to act like a small company. On the other hand, Howard Schultz’s believes in giving back to the society by going beyond of being just an ordinary coffee house to a meaningful company, Starbucks purchases quality coffee beans directly from the farms which in return give farmers better living standards.

Howard Schultz made a trip to Italy, Milan in 1983 and was struck by the number of coffee bars he encountered. An idea then occurred to him: Starbucks should sell not just coffee beans, but coffee drinks. Schultz's enthusiasm for opening coffee bars in Starbucks stores was not being acknowledged. Nevertheless, with his persistent, the owners let him establish a coffee bar in a new store that was opening in Seattle. It was an instant success, bringing in hundreds of people per day and introducing a whole new language: the "cafe latte"—both the beverage and the word—were introduced to Seattle in 1985.

An incident being reported 16 years ago, 3 Starbucks staffs were shot and killed. Howard Schultz  visited the home of each victims to expressed his grievance and shared in their tears for their loses. Through this incident Howard Schultz had displayed leadership trait of empathy and compassion which influence Howard Behar to work for him because of his courageous and compassionate heart, a leader who wanted to give his best efforts to serve. 

Career Path

·                     1976 Salesperson for Xerox Corporation

·                     1979 General Manager for Hammerplast

·                     1981 Starbucks Coffee Company

Awards

1. 1988 , awarded the "Israel 50th Anniversary Tribute Award" for playing aa key role in promoting a close alliance between the US and Israel.
2. 1999, awarded the "National Leadership Award" for philanthropic and educational efforts to battle AIDS.
3. 2004, awarded the "Internal Distinguish Entrepreneur Award" for his outstanding success and commendable conduct of Starbucks.
4. 2007, received the FIRST responsible Capitalism Award.
5. March 29, 2007, awarded for "Ethics in Business"
6. Fortune Magazine's "2011 Business person of the year"

Sheldon Gary Adelson

Name: Sheldon Gary Adelson

Date of Birth: August 4, 1933

Organization: Las Vegas Sands Corporation

Designation: Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Education: City College of New York (dropout)

  “Willingness to risk it all is the key to any entrepreneur. It’s a willingness to do things a little bit different… Change the status quo and then you’ll succeed.”

Sheldon Gary Adelson, chairman and chief executive officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. In his early life, at the age of 12 he started to sell newspaper and at 16 he began a candy-vending-machine business. Through selling newspapers on the street during his youth and setting up other businesses such as airline and tradeshow for computer industry, he has gained and knew different work experiences. At the head of the company Las Vegas Sands Corp., he manages a number of casinos and luxury hotels. He was classified in 2011, the sixteenth World fortune by Forbes’s magazine.

Adelson has change the gaming industry by developing integrated resorts, which have a large offering of entertainment attractions, including retail and restaurant. He was also the first casino operator to embrace convention and meeting business. In an interview in 2002, he mentioned about the expansion project of opening a mini-Las Vegas Strip in Spain.

As a leader, he took the risk of trying to lure convention into Las Vegas. Today, the city now depends on conventions to fill its hotel rooms. Instead of being like other entrepreneurs where they are satisfied with just building a hotel, Adelson took the challenge to create an integrated resort – one with shopping, convention facilities, fine dining, gaming, and other attractions all under one roof. Because of the diversification compared to its competitors, Adelson was able to boost the company’s earnings. Besides being known as a self-made billionaire, Adelson is also one of the world’s leading entrepreneurs credited for the transformation of the city of Las Vegas from a gaming location into an international business and leisure destination.

Always challenging and changing the status quo, Mr. Adelson developed a resort destination that caters to a blend of tourist, gaming, and business travellers. Challenging the status quo as a leadership behaviour requires the leader to create and maintain a balance between changing respectfully and being a team player. In addition, because of his willingness to take the risk, he is able to lead to team towards innovation, improvement of processes. Since the opening of the resort, it has received recognition as revolutionizing the Las Vegas hotel industry and has been honoured with numerous awards naming it one of the finest hotels in the world. Furthermore, this has also led governments in places like Macao and Singapore to select Las Vegas Sands to boost the economy with new tourism developments of an integrated resort in their countries.

Properties of Las Vegas Sands Corportion

The secret behind his success? Determination and innovation. Some of the key traits as a leaders mentioned by others are that he has a strong vision for his company, risk-taking, detail oriented, strategic thinking, commitment, ambitious, goal oriented and resilient. As there is no truly a fixed leadership and management style, it is wise for leaders to be flexible when approaching different situations.

In his organisation, team members are encouraged to contribute efficiency ideas through our sustainability award program and they can win a prize for each implemented idea. In 2011, the Sands ECO360° Sustainability Award was presented to an employee for his suggestion to replace conveyer toasters in the Team Member dining room with pop-up toasters. This idea has helped to reduce the amount of energy consumption rate per year.

The recognition of sustainability efforts and encourage the business to carry plans of expanding sustainability practices to its global operations. To create a unity in direction, Adelson and his people have refined the Sands ECO 360° strategy to make it consistent across all resorts. Communication is even more a critical element for him to achieve his goals, since he enjoys challenging the status quo. With effective communication either upwards, downwards or lateral, it ensures the team members and other stakeholders understand the need of change to maximize the effectiveness of the implementation.

Sheldon Adelson is a great leader as he has a great heart. He sets an example by giving back to the community. Las Vegas Sands has multiple partnerships through Sands Foundation in Las Vegas, Pennsylvania, Macau and Singapore to help raise fund for educational and health purposes in the communities it operates as well as through the Sands 360 program to minimize environmental impact.

With his contribution to the hospitality industry, he has displayed great qualities as a leader for he is willing to take the risks to accomplish what he envision, involves his staff and gives back to the society.

Awards

2013 awarded for Innovation and Excellence in Global Tourism at Second Jerusalem International Tourism Summit  

2012 awarded the Hospitality Industry Leader of the Year by the UNLV’s Harrah Hotel College



References:
http://www.sands.com/corporate-overview/leadership/sheldon-adelson
http://ksbhospitalityindustry.blogspot.sg/2011/09/green-sands.html
http://www.sands.com/corporate-overview/leadership/sheldon-adelson/
http://topics.wsj.com/person/A/sheldon-g-adelson/587#

What is Leadership?

A leader is the foundation of the group's objectives, direction, and decisions. To be a great leader, it is important for one to build and adopt the traits and behaviours. We have identified 5 great leaders and will be evaluating sharing with you guys why are they considered to be leaders and how are they have made a difference as a leader. It is important for us to be able to identify the key traits and behaviours seen in these leaders, as we can then be to start building and nurturing them to become successful as well.

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