Leadership in Alibaba : The Believes and Culture that Drives the Company

Reading Time : 6  Minutes 

YOUR JOB IS TO HELP OTHERS TO BE SUCCESSFUL. WHETHER YOUR COMPANY IS RICH OR POOR, one thing remains important, and that is leadership.

I was browsing for materials on the slides that was shown to us on that morning, a strong and impactful session on the believes and cultures of Alibaba. Upon frantically trying to figure out what exact words I would like to take out from Jack Ma, I decided to just finish this write-up with my key takeaways instead. A course is only as good as the values you take home from it. 

A Leader is Expected to Help Others Succeed

Jack Ma quoted this and said it very simply.

“If you are determined to be a leader, whether you like it or not,  your job is to help others be successful. If you take my advice, you will be happy in your position.”

This has been a very true proposition to any company. I have been in multiple companies for the past few years and leadership has always been a core issue that we will constantly face. Knowing how to be a leader, and training someone to be one is 2 very different things, and most of the time people even struggle with the former.

How can I teach someone to be a leader if I cannot even do it properly myself?

Differentiating Your Responsibility VS Leadership

Jack put it in a way that is easy to understand.  If you want to know are you doing a good job, first ask yourself this question

“Am I helping my team enough to achieve what they need to?”

Most of the time, new and young managers do not get this part due to their tunneled vision on responsibility. They will constantly feel that their responsibility and KPI is to achieve results! If my team cannot do it, then I myself die die have to do it! It is the fastest way anyway! 

This is where most of the time they understand things wrongly. Achieving your targeted KPI or result is a responsibility, however it is your role to ensure delegation are made promptly across all available resources within your current working ecosystem. 

The next question that would then arise is,

“I dont think my team is even ready or the right team to handle all these tasks!”

How sure are you?

Jack Ma Quote on the Right People

Delegating Your Task by Understanding Your Team : A Management Tip

How well do you understand your team? A good leader would always know the limits of their team, and what will enable them to push further in life. Do you know them personally enough to find out what makes them tick, what makes them sleep? 

Below is a popular chart that I have shared previously in terms of e-commerce team management. This chart works fairly well across all industries though!

Can you identify each or your team member based on a Swiss army pocketknife analogy?

After identifying the core competencies and capabilities of your team, you can then actually arrange various responsibilities based on their capabilities & interests. 

Having a big picture overview of your entire team’s capabilities will be a crucial factor in allowing you to be a good leader. 

This will then enable you to decide if you should train or get different talents to complement each other’s weaknesses. 

Afterthoughts On What Makes a Great Leader?

To sum it up simply:

1. Know your job responsibility and your targeted metrics to achieve. 
2. Identify each of your team’s goals and expected work outcomes. 
3. Delegate appropriately by knowing each of your own team’s strengths & weaknesses.
4. Help your team personally which are struggling to achieve their expected goals. Putting blames on underachievers will mostly cause them to be permanently trapped in the under achieving void. 
5. If you help each of your team member to succeed, your entire project or final outcome will then only see success. 

Closing it off from Alibaba’s top 4 statements on leadership. Treat staff as talent, accomplish business via talent, develop talent via business, and integrate talent into business. 

To read more on Jack Ma’s idea of leadership, here is a great article to kick start!

To read more on what happened along the journey thus far :

• Read Pre-Day 1 : (A Day Using China’s Tech Ecosystem)
• Read Day 1 :  (Hot Pot Anyone?)
• Read Day 2, Part 1/3 : (Tao Bao Village, A Thriving Rural eCommerce)
• Read Day 2, Part 2/3 : (eCommerce Overview of Malaysia vs China)
• Read Day 2, Part 3/3 : (Building an eCommerce Team)
• Special Intermission : (The 996 Work Culture in China)
• Read Day 3, (The 5 Billion RMB  Muji for Snacks in China)
• Read Day 4, Part 1/2 : (A Glimpse of an E-Wallet Future in Malaysia)
• Read Day 4, Part 2/2 : (Ant Forest, Gamification of Environmental Awareness)
• Read Day 5, Part 1/2 : (Alibaba’s Hema, New Retail in China)
• Read Day 5, Part 2/2 : (Alibaba Business School, Student Millionaires)
• Read Day 6 : (A Day in Digital Hang Zhou)
• Read Day 8 : (What Makes a Great Leader?)

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