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Personality, Values and Attitudes at Tesla Motors (Arkar Bo Bo)

Executive Summary
In this topic, we are going to discuss about personality of one of the most influencial
people in Tesla, Elon Musk and the impact on the organization as well as the values
formation at different level within organization and how these values adhere and
create motivating working environment.
Personality
Personality is defined as the psychological abilities dominating an individuals
characteristic behaviour pattern, in a stable and distinctive manner (Buchanan &
Huczynski 2014). According to MARS model of behaviour, personality plays as one
of the key important features influencing motivation, ability, role perception and along
with the situational factors (e.g time, situation, capital) results in individual behaviour
and results. Furthermore, it is also a major factor in assessing whether the
candidates will be able to perform well or fit in within specific organizational culture
(Bruce, 2017). In this first topic, we are going to discuss the personality of the Elon
Musk, Chairman and CEO of Tesla Motor International Corporation, based on Big 5
personality trait, how his personality shape the Tesla company and the formation of
value congruent at Tesla and the impact on individual and organizational
performance during the companys critical period.

One of the most common tools in assessing personal traits is the Big five trait
clusters also known as OCEAN (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion,
Agreeableness and Neuroticism). They are sets of factors, super traits, which show
parallel elements among the sub-factors or traits which aggregate together (Costa
and McCrae, 1992). We will use this tool to assess the personal traits of the Elon
Musk, chairman and CEO of Tesla Motors.
Openness - Elon Musk is the most inspiring entrepreneur in the world
(Lynley 2012). Openness is related to individuals conviction, extent of
curiosity and creativity. Among three traits in openness (Explorer, Moderator
and Preserver), Elon Musk falls in an explorer class. Since childhood, the idea
of exploring space, colonizing planets and saving human race firmly rooted in
his mind that it became difficult to differentiate between fantasy and reality
and they drove him to become an enthusing tycoon who create modernized
cars entirely based on electricity derived from solar energy. During one
interview with Ashlee Vance (the author of Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the
quest for a fantastic future), he asked him what if Larry Paige (Co-founder of
Google) accidentally creates AI and robots which could potentially harm
human race. This sounds insane hearing from a successful businessman but
precisely reflect his unshakable faith in his idea. Thats why he invested
almost all fortune he acquired from selling Paypal into Tesla Motors which
was in near stage of doom to continue funding for designs and advancement
until the company rose again. Taking risk is not unusual for Elon Musk.
Conscientiousness - It is correlated with the desire to impose order and
precision (Bruce, 2017). The characteristic concerned with conscientiousness
are flexible at one end and focused at the other with balance in between. Elon
Musk stands at the pole of focused. While other leaders have a reputation for
micro management, he mentioned himself as a nano manager while
speaking with the wall street journal (Baer 2015) meaning he is highly
organized. He has a hands-on obsession with the tiniest operational and car-
design details at Tesla (Wartzman 2015). He is also driven and highly
achievement oriented. According to (Matus 2016), he works about 20 hours
per day.
Extraversion - It is concerned with level of comfort with relationship. On the
one side where a person is outgoing, sociable, assertive is called extravert
and the opposite stands introvert with quiet, reserved traits. Elon Musk is not
afraid to participate in social activities. He is often seen on stages introducing
new products, giving speech as philanthropist, show up at the tv shows and
interviews, talking with clients for their reviews and feedbacks. The business
in which Tesla motor is operating demands strong communication with the
existing and potential investors for continuous funding, connecting with
customers to be able to penetrate automobile market where huge
corporations operating with massive capital and occupying market. Elon
Musks extraversion characteristic is one of the important factor in building
successful Tesla image in the public.
Agreeableness - The traits related to agreeableness include trust,
straightforwardness, altruism, compliance, modesty, tender-mindedness and it
runs from adapter to challenger. Obviously, Elon Musk has a challenger
personality. His stubbornness and obsession with producing affordable
environmental friendly electric cars made him into successful entrepreneur.
He also does not hesitate to remove any person who does not share or follow
his vision and idea and incompetent in their role, even with the co-founder of
Tesla. He continues to work with people who believe in his vision and those
fail to do so are often let go. This should intimidate workforce morale but
ironically, this action boosts Teslas employees believe in the company
course.
Neuroticism - It is the tendency to maintain a balanced emotional state which
ranges from reactive to resilient. One of the similar trait of Elon Musk
compared to Steve Job is the intense management with his employees. When
Vance was preparing to publish the book about Elon Musk, there are dozens
of people who are the ex-employees of Tesla Motor lining up to talk about
Elon Musk harsh personality when the employees do not meet his expectation
or guidelines. Using harsh words towards employees are usual at Tesla
according to (Vance 2015).When we look at Tesla, the company was in very
challenging situation. While it is trying to create affordable electric cars with
high energy capacity, the company is also struggling in the automobile
industry to compete with some of the largest car manufacturing corporation in
the world. Mistreating his employees could be unfair but under extreme
circumstances, it is crucial for Tesla in producing massive cars and delivering
to customers within deadlines.

Among these five personality traits, conscientiousness and neuroticism are


closely correlated to individual motivation and performance while openness is linked
with creativity and adaptability to change. In the case of Elon Musk, Explorer nature
encourages him to pursue the goals of creating cheaper environmental friendly
electric cars while highly focused and reactive natures are what reshape the
automobile industry and push Tesla to the top.
Big 5 trait Elon Musk trait Impact on Tesla
- Reshape automobile industry by establishing
electric car company using 100%
Openness Explorer (O+)
environmentally clean sustainable and zero
cost rechargeable energy
- Drive Tesla images among public to receive
loan from government, funding from investors
Extraversion Extravert (E+)
and appeals customers with Tesla noble goals
to save the world from pollution
- Purge employees with low commitment to
Agreeableness Challenger (A-) company vision and values
- Boost employees believe in Tesla goal
- Creation of first affordable electric cars
Conscientiousness Focused (C+)
- Making commercially available
- one of the most innovative companies in the
Neuroticism Reactive (N+)
world

Exhibit 1. Elon Musk personality and impact on Tesla

Values
Values are steady, evaluative beliefs that direct our preferences in diverse
situations (Kyle, 2017). Values also define what is right or wrong. There is a
variety of values in a different levels of within organization. Each and every individual
or employee has his own beliefs called personal values and every team and
organization also has shared values and finally an organization where different
people work towards the collective action or goal has organizational values. A lot of
corporations and organization has their own values and statement but what make
Tesla values unique is how Elon Musk not only he clarifies the organization values
but his ability to rally skilled and talented people behind Teslas core values and
ultimately raise workforce with high motivation and superior performance and this is
what we are going to explore under this topic.

Core values of Tesla Motors (Corporation)


1. Build the most pioneering electric vehicles in the world using cutting edge
technology to shift to sustainable energy, reduce environmental footprints,
and set trends for continuous innovation.
2. Use the earning and brand recognition to build other models that are
affordable, use the proceeds from that models to create an even more
affordable product and so on.
3. Models are built thinking around the driver, adhering to high safety standard
and comfort features.
4. Revolutionize the automotive industry.

Elon Musk already had solid faith in these core values of the Tesla led to
formation of individual values. It was proved by his continuous investment to Tesla
(By 2008, Elon Musk had invested a total of 70 million which is almost his entire
fortune acquired by selling his house and Paypal into Tesla)(Escher, Kumparak &
Burns 2015). Then, in accordance with his highly-focused characteristic, he
personally involves in detailed operational processes and management ranging from
Goods and service designs, quality management, process and capacity design and
even sales. According to Wattles (2016), when one of the Tesla sales team tried to
sell the cars by giving discounts to customers, Elon Musk wrote the letters to every
employee strictly forbidding to devalue their own products. This not only indicates his
Nano management but also how much he values his company and its products.
After large investment and setting the companys values, Elon Musk recruited a
number of fresh graduate employees and started giving highly challenging tasks
while monitoring productivity (For instance, number of automobiles produce is used
to measure Tesla plant facility productivity, inquires addressed per day to assess
customer service performance). Straubel, one of the co-founders and chief
technology officer at Tesla mentions how it is to work with Musk as follow Elon is
incredibly difficult to work for, but its mostly because hes very ardent. Sometimes,
people get shell-shocked and catatonic. (Eadicicco, 2016). Along with challenger
personality under agreeableness personality, he persistently pushed his employees
and continuously sack those who couldnt live up to his demand including co-founder
of Tesla, Martin Eberhard. Long working hours, exceedingly stressful tasks, egotistic
executives management sometimes with verbal abuse leading turnover of many
employees with average performance and those who do not believe in the company
values. This should undermine workforce morale and productivity but on the
contrary, some employees sympathize him because they knew if there is one person
who work harder than the rest of the employees, thats Elon Musk and some
followers even loved him for that reason, resulting in retention of labor force with high
performance and firm passion in the company values. Furthermore, Tesla mission
and objectives keeps appealing talented people. This led to formation of value
congruence between the leader and his followers as well as with the organization
which create highly motivated and dynamic working environment within Tesla. When
it was fuelled by positive situational factors (Funding and equity acquisition activities
- strategic alliance with Diamler AG in 2009, capital injection with loan from United
States Department of Energy in 2009, public offering in 2009), Tesla company
overcame major crisis that could bring Tesla down entirely. When Tesla introduce
first Tesla cars model (Roadster, Model S) between 2008 and 2012, the company
faced several challenges such as delivering massive cars within promised time,
ensuring the potential buyers and early adopters about the cars capabilities,
enhancing passenger safety by promoting battery design. Tesla was regarded as
one of the most successful and innovative companies in the world (Forbes, 2013).
Elon Musk management might not be ideal for employees job satisfaction but it was
one of the crucial factors which drove Tesla company through during its tough
period. There were also many negative employee feedbacks of working environment
at Tesla. According to Tech employee survey, Tesla is regarded as most stressful
and lowest paying job but also the most meaningful job (Lambert 2016). Why
employees rank Tesla as most meaningful job despite bad working environment with
relatively low salary compared to other tech companies? When we look at
employees reviews, they strongly believe in company vision, clearly understand their
roles in their jobs. They know they are participating in the revolution of the auto
industry, changing the world, making the world a better place by reducing pollution
with less carbon dioxide production by replacing with electric cars. These role
perceptions and belief motivates them to innovate, engage challenges and inspire
them to work at Tesla. Rather than salary, the employees know they are doing for
the course beyond individual or organization interest, causing affective commitment
which form emotional attachment to, involvement in and identification with the
organization. One of the employees review state that the employees he is working
with are passionate about the company vision that is, to change the world which
create excellent and vibrant work environment(Glassdoor 2017; Indeed)

individual values
- Elon Musk individual
values
Socialisation process
Situational Factor
and genetics Result
- Increasing
- Fantasy ideas - Cluster of
environmental
since childhood in motivated and
awareness within skilled employees
saving the world Organization values Value
(Elon Musk) Congruence
community Superior
- Tesla core values
- Funding support performance at Tesla
- Environmental
from US department - Employees positive
awareness rise in
of Energy Attitude towards
the community due
to external factors - Establishment of Tesla
such as global Tesla recharging - Strong
warming, health Other values organizational
station across the
hazards - Values development citizenship formation
within existing states
(Employees Values)
employees and
attracting potential
candidates with same
values

Exhibit 2. Effect of Values within Tesla

Attitude
Attitude captures our thoughts, feelings and beliefs about specific tasks and
organization (Bruce, 2017). It varies from values in a way that values are the
universal belief shaping behaviour, while attitude has direct impact to certain
individuals, assignments or elements. At Tesla, employees attitudes are varied
according to their roles and responsibilities. Long shift, stressful target can be found
in all levels of employees at Tesla. However, negatives attitudes can be found at
blue-collar workers (factory workers). They have low job satisfaction and negative
attitude towards their work. Yet, white-collar workers (engineers, managers and
executives) at Tesla show positive attitudes and strong motivation towards the
company despite working under same circumstances.
To sum up, Elon Musk strong personality and his management style filter out
low commitment employees and retains those who are also very enthusiastic and
passionate about their jobs cause formation of value congruent in the organization
which in turn creates strong belief, positive attitudes, superior performance and
organizational citizenship that causes Tesla Motor stands out from the average
automobile industry.

References

Baer, D 2015, Elon Musk on Being A Product-Obssessed Nano-Manager:Its not a


recipe for happiness, viewed 06 2017, <https://www.businessinsider.com.au/elon-
musk-calls-himself-a-nano-manager-2015-1>.

Buchanan, DA & Huczynski, AA 2014, Organizational Behavior, 8th Edition edn,


Pearson Education Limited.

Corporation, TM, <http://teslamarketingplan.com/index.php/core-values/>.

Escher, A, Kumparak, G & Burns, M 2015, A brief history of Tesla, viewed 6 March
2017, <https://techcrunch.com/gallery/a-brief-history-of-tesla/>.

Glassdoor 2017, Tesla Motors Review, viewed 5 March 2017,


<https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Reviews/Tesla-Motors-Reviews-E43129.htm>.

Indeed Tesla Motors Employees Review, viewed 6 March 2017,


<https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Tesla-Motors/reviews>.

Lambert, F 2016, Tesla and SpaceX standout in tech employee survey fro the most
stressful and lowest paying jobs, but also most meaningful, viewed 5 March 2017,
<https://electrek.co/2016/03/07/tesla-and-spacex-standout-in-tech-employee-survey-for-
the-most-stressful-and-lowest-paying-jobs-but-also-most-meaningful/>.

Lynley, M 2012, Elon Musk is the most inspiring entrepreneur in the world, viewed 4
March 2017, <https://www.businessinsider.com.au/congratulations-elon-musk-2012-5>.

Matus, AJ 2016, In Business, Technology, viewed 28 2017,


<http://albertomatus.com/elon-musk-the-big-5-model/>.

Vance, A 2015, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the quest for a fantanstic future.

Wartzman, R 2015, Admire Elon Musk all you want, but please dont manage like
him, <http://fortune.com/2015/01/21/elon-musk-micromanagement-control/>.

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