Keith Rupert Murdoch

entertainment, publishing and the newspaper field. Rupert Murdoch is the Chairman and CEO of his company and has no intention of stepping aside. He is likely to be the most famous businessman in the world; “the global village’s de facto communications minister” (Landler 1993 cited in Crainer p.1). On one hand people describe him as media’s demon king; a dangerous person; greedy, money-grabbing, power-seeking, a status -climbing cad; a tycoon who is a danger to our democracy; one of the most powerful men on earth; but others are able to see his qualities as a human being.

So what is it that makes him such a successful businessman? What is his management style and what are his leadership characteristics? I will now attempt to analyse Rupert Murdoch’s management style and leadership characteristics. Rupert Murdoch moves with the times, he is always thinking of the future, never of the past. His philosophy is to think of tomorrow today, otherwise he would not make it in the business world (Crainer 2002 p.101). He is constantly updating and developing his network of contacts. The cornerstone of good career management is networking, which is a daily commitment. Rupert Murdoch is well known for his style in using people to build his empire. However, he does not pay much attention to people, and those who are not doing their job do not belong there and simply have to go. His managers have to be prepared to receive a call in the middle of the night and inform him about their particular company. On the other hand Murdoch recruits strong people; mirrors of his own image. Kelvin MacKenzie and Andrew Neil are perfect examples of how some of his most successful executives have turned out to be larger than life personalities.

Rupert Murdoch identified himself closely with politicians like Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair in order to benefit from them. He realised early on that the decisions of politicians affected business and that he could use them in order to achieve his goals. He was not, and is not, afraid of strong people as long as his company reaches its objectives through their help. Nevertheless he stays neutral and does not become too political himself. On The Leadership Grid, by Blake and Mouton (Mullins 2002 pp. 210-214), he would be an authority-compliance manager, one who is concerned about results and uses a centralised system. Nobody except Rupert Murdoch knows the whole picture of his company, and he is the one who controls everything; from the food in the company canteen to the new deals. The

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responsibility is centred at the top of the organisational hierarchy. As in the Grid, for him people are a means of production, and motivation is based on competition between people and “daily bollocking” in order to get work done. Through a directive leadership he makes sure that his subordinates know exactly what is expected of them; he sets his direction and it must be followed according to his own rules and regulations. This is a theory by House and House and Dessler (Mullins 1996 pp. 269-270), they defined four main types of leadership behaviour. Their thought was that the different types of behaviour could be used in different situations by the same person in order to influence and moti vate people and smooth the path to the goal. Rupert Murdoch is a loner and stays that way because he never knows when he will have to turn on people to increase his empire. He is omnipresent; no decision of any importance is ever taken unless he himself has agreed. He does not trust anyone and nobody ever meets his expectations. He desires tight control in order to get tasks done efficiently; to be sure they are done his way and to his satisfaction. I think to pin him to one management system is difficult. In the theory by McGregor and by Blake and Mauton I found elements which would fit his style. Rupert Murdoch is a person who imposes decisions on subordinates as in the exploitive authoritative system (Mullins 2002 p.216). As in this system, and as mentioned earlier, his motivation is based on threats. He uses coercive power and parts of the calculative involvement of subordinates which was classified by Etzioni (Mullins 1996 p.605). Rupert Murdoch competes to win; he wants to dominate the market and his competitors; he wants to lead the market. For that he accepts short-term criticism for the long-term gain. An example would be the Chris Patten episode which was a fiasco for him, but ultimately the criticism was worth the potential long -term gain in China.

Rupert Murdoch knows what he is capable of, he has a big internal reservoir of selfconfidence - some may call that arrogance. Through his global company and its perspectives he turned out to be the first global manager. Murdoch does not care where the ne xt deal is as long as it is a good one and will work to his advantage. He deals admirably with the different cultures and ways of doing business of the various countries in which his company is positioned. For him nationality is not important, as I mentioned earlier he became an American citizen to increase his business. Just as he knows how unimportant location is, he realised how important technology is; he recognizes it as the future. Rupert Murdoch loves everything that lets him run his

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